Preparing for Systemic Thinking for Planners and Designers, CS0005, Aalto University, February 2010 (1 post)

Topic tags: education, ifsr, Pernegg, systems
  • Profile picture of David Ing David Ing said 1 year, 4 months ago:

    I’m gradually thinking towards the upcoming CS0005 class. I happened across the Proceedings of the IFSR Conversation from April 2010, with “Team 1: Systems Thinkers Think About Systems Education Under The April 2010 (Volcanic Ash) Clouds Of Austria”.

    In brainstorming about systems education curriculum, the team created a list of 33 important concepts:
    1. Holism
    2. Context
    3. Interdependency
    4. Flexibility/Adaptability
    5. Resilience and robustness
    6. System boundaries
    7. Complexity
    8. Relationship
    9. Feedback
    10.Controls
    11.Concepts/models of time
    12.Paradoxes
    13.Granularity
    14.Non linearity
    15.Delay
    16.Equifinality
    17.Unintended consequences
    18.Requisite variety
    19.Levels of learning single, double and triple loop
    20.Limitations of models
    21.Environment
    22.Emergence
    23.Multiple causality
    24.Traps and messes
    25.Self organization
    26.Communities of practice
    27.Root causes
    28.Ethics and values
    29.Stakeholders
    30.Open system
    31.Throughflow
    32.Equilibrium, steady state, and homeostasis
    33.Dynamic behaviour
    34.System
    35.Feed forward
    36.Edge of chaos

    … and 19 tools that can be of use in systems education:
    1. Participatory design
    2. Metaphors
    3. Participatory Systems Analysis
    4. Mental models
    5. Causal loop modeling
    6. Bayesian networks
    7. Stocks and flows
    8. Examples
    9. FMA
    10. Critical Systemic approaches based on matching the domains of knowledge to area of concern
    11. Scenario planning
    12. Stakeholder mapping
    13. Systemic evaluation
    14. Socio-technical systems design
    15. Team syntegrity
    16. Total systems intervention
    17. Boundaries of exclusion or inclusion
    18. Exploring perceptions of world views
    19. Behaviour over time

    Members of the team included: Ockie Bosch (AUS), Kambiz Maani (AUS), Janet McIntyre (AUS), Günther Ossimitz (AT), Magnus Ramage (UK), and Vince Vesterby (US).

    In the combination of CS0004 and CS0005, I hope that we will have touched on many of these points … (leaving some additional detail for “the interested reader”). From the CS0004 experience, students should have an appreciation for the general spirit of the list.

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