Subject: Root cause of the 'teaching systems' problem

Posted by Pedro D. Almaguer Prado on 12/23/2010
In Reply To:Root cause of the "teaching systems" problem Posted by Jack Harich on 12/23/2010

Message:

Dear Jack:

It seems very timely and interesting to write about what to do to discover the causes of the real problem and especially clarity that you raise with the current state of education at (A) and is convenient to visualize clearly the how to get there point (B).

Perhaps this will help: "The fulcrum" would be the high leverage point(s) that when pushed on would resolve the root causes of the problem. The problem is the system is in state A, "teaching basics" and "high-stakes testing", instead of state B, "teaching problem solving" and "high-stakes performance."

First consider there to describe the problem from the standpoint of cause and effect cycles underlying structure, then find their feedback loops rather than balance or reinforced and especially find ways to introduce into those models the as covering the social dynamics of cultural dynamics, because they invariably have to assess performance of teachers and learning before and after systemic growth of skills of young people, plus all the modeling you have to do with part economic and ecological impact.

Before I describe just above model, you should view the picture for the futureyou want to share with the community and seek to align it with all this so that everyone has a clear to where you want to go.

Then you have to climb in the simulator model Stella to take advantage of using modules of the system and develop an interactive presentation with the new policies that should be studied to discover the new "Leverage Points" and then move the levers and see time impact on our future decisions to change to achieve the objectives and goals of education (point B like you rightly pointed out).

Your question of how do to find the causes and where to move you to thesystem to respond to appropriate medication, in other words, to stand up in front of a crystal ball to ask questions and find out what will it take to reachthe meta suggest that complement your self-study with a great article written by Donella H. Meadows, attaches a copy of the same although this ispublished in Chapter 6 of his book "Thinking in Systems A Primer""Leverage Points - Places to conduct work on a system" where the bestleverage is the change of paradigms and perhaps reinvent the structure of complete system.

There are more things that I would like, but I'll do this another time, there is much talk about how to include the social and cultural development in the model and especially how to measure the performance metrics that would be worth generating if I talk like this you what I know, on another occasion.