Rea Lavi, PhD

Tel Aviv University Faculty | ex-MIT | Contact me

Systems thinking | Problem structuring | Creative ideation

My mission is to help learners become better thinkers and problem-solvers.

In my faculty role as Senior Lecturer (tenure track) in teacher education, I research, design, and teach pedagogies for higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills, with/without genAI.

With over a decade of experience, my work draws insight from the learning sciences, systems engineering, cognitive psychology, and my biotech startup experience.

One-page CV

Academic CV

ORCID: 0000-0002-0788-7236

CTAP® Method for Designing GenAI-Enhanced Pedagogies

CTAP (pronounced "C-tap") is a domain-agnostic, systematic, and scalable pedagogical design method that integrates genAI. It helps instructors provides timely, structured, automated feedback that supports the development of higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills while reducing instructional demands.

CTAP helps to free up students and instructors from the back-and-forth of checking task instruction fulfilment to engage in deeper learning that's aligned with learning objectives.

CTAP distinguishes between two forms of task assessment/feedback:

Adherence, which can be assessed reliably against predefined criteria and thus can be delegated to genAI.
Correctness, which requires domain expertise and aligns with learning objectives, thus reserved for instructional staff.

Designing a pedagogy in CARP includes four steps:

Concept: Defining the concept or skill that's being taught in terms of concepts and interrelationships.
Task: Drafting a generic template with instructions for a learning task that applies the taught concept.
Assessment: Based on the template, formulating guidelines for assessing task adherence and correctness.
Prompt: Based on the adherence assessment rubric, drafting a genAI prompt that allows for both task creation and assessment/feedback for task adherence.

CTAP is presently being investigated through three intervention studies in higher education:

Systems thinking using the SAFO framework, with graduate STEM students in AAU, Denmark READ MORE
Problem structuring using the DIMES method, with undergraduate STEM students in KCT, India READ MORE
Analogy formulation using the TCSA method, with graduate business administration students in CSUN, CA, USA READ MORE

Preliminary findings indicate over 90% agreement between genAI and human experts in assessing adherence for each of the three pedagogies. These findings suggest the approach could enable instructors across disciplines and learning contexts to integrate higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills into learning activities and provide students with structured feedback.

SAFO

SAFO® Pedagogical Framework for Systems Thinking

SAFO, or System Architecture-Function-Outcome, is a domain-agnostic pedagogical framework for introducing systems thinking to students. Its conceptual foundations borrow mainly from systems theory and systems engineering.

The framework covers three aspects of any artificial system:

Architecture, what the system is - structure and behavior (interactions between parts).
Function, what the system architecture does - boundary systems with input/s and output/s.
Outcome, how the system function affects people - stakeholders, problem, benefit/s, and detriment/s

Using natural text, boxes-and-arrows diagrams, and a helpful genAI prompt for adherence assessment, SAFO can be applied to teach students how to describe, explain, connect, and design artificial systems, whether social, technological, or sociotechnical.

Peer-reviewed publications involving the SAFO framework:

Lavi, R., Breslow, L., Salek, M. M., & Crawley, E. F. (2023). Fostering and assessing the systems thinking of first-year engineering students using the system architecture-function-purpose framework. Int. J. Eng. Educ, 39, 176-188.
Lavi, R., & Bertel, L. B. (2024). The System Architecture-Function-Outcome framework for fostering and assessing systems thinking in first-year STEM education and its potential applications in case-based learning. Education Sciences, 14(7), 720. DOI: 10.3390/educsci14070720
Bertel, L. B., Lavi, R., Rathcke, K., Coelho, N. F., & Dyremose, S. C. S. (2025). Towards a framework for assessing systems thinking in collaborative problem-solving in STEM. Paper presented in ASEE 2025 Annual Conference, Montreal, QC, Canada, June 22-25, 2025. DOI: 10.18260/1-2--57702
Lavi, R., Mitra, A. (2026). WIP: Using the System Architecture-Function-Outcome
framework to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration by undergraduate engineering
students. Paper presented in ASEE 2026 Annual Conference, Charlotte, NC, USA, June 22-25,
2026. https://peer.asee.org/60819

DIMES® Method for Problem Structuring

DIMES is a domain-agnostic, systematic, and scalable method for structuring ill-structured/ill-defined problems. These problems that are often multidisciplinary, with no clear boundaries, and no predetermined success criteria ('right' answers).

While some problems can be solved directly using known methods or tools, ill-structured problems demand something deeper: understanding and structuring/defining the problem itself before rushing to generate potentially subpar ideas.

The conceptual foundation and application of DIMES borrow from cognitive psychology, design thinking, and systems engineering.

DIMES includes the following steps:

Describe the problem in plain language, allowing for omissions and inaccuracies - creating a thread from which to start the structuring process.
Inquire into the problem by asking the 5W questions: Who, What, Where, When, and Why, creating a problem case.
Model the problem as a hierarchical conceptual structure to reveal its layers, creating a problem model.
Extract key leverage points deep within the problem, where focused action can have the greatest impact.
State the problem in a concise, solution-neutral way based on the problem case and the identified leverage points.

Each step of DIMES comes with a template, a reflection form, and an assessment rubric split into 'adherence' - whether the step's guidelines were followed, and 'correctness' - whether what was written/created during that step was valid.

Based on concepts and approaches from systems engineering, conceptual modeling, and design thinking, DIMES provides a rigorous yet accessible framework for anyone who wants to address ill-structured problems systematically.

Peer-reviewed publications involving the DIMES method:

Lai, Y., & Lavi, R. (2025). Problem structuring in urban science education: Why, what, and how. Frontiers of Urban and Rural Planning, 3(1), 13. DOI: 10.1007/s44243-025-00064-3

DIMES

TCSA® Method for Analogy Formulation

TCSA is a domain-agnostic, systematic, and scalable method for formulating meaningful analogies based on problem statements. A meaningful analogy connects a target problem to a problem in the same or in another domain that has already been addressed in a satisfactory manner and does so through useful criteria.

TCSA includes the following steps::

Target: Draft a problem statement (similar to step #5 of DIMES).
Criteria: Define usefulness criteria for evaluating and comparing solutions to the target problem.
Source: Identify problems that share multiple usefulness criteria with the target problem, and draft problem statement for them.
Analogy: Formulate meaningful analogies between the target and source problem, linked through the usefulness criteria.

Each step of TCSA comes with a template, a reflection form, and an assessment rubric split into 'adherence' - whether the step's guidelines were followed, and 'correctness' - whether what was written/created during that step was valid.

Peer-reviewed publications involving the TCSA method:

Lavi, R., & Marti, D. (2023). A proposed case-based learning framework for fostering undergraduate engineering students’ creative and critical thinking. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 32(6), 898-911. DOI: 10.1007/s10956-022-10017-w
Lavi, R., Marti, D., & Crawley, E. (2023). Creating analogies for design problem-solving: Initial evaluation of an engineering faculty workshop. In 2023 IEEE World Engineering Education Conference (EDUNINE) (pp. 01-05). IEEE. DOI: 10.1109/EDUNINE57531.2023.1010286

TCSA