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Role of a Teacher
Posted by Ruth Fruland on 11/29/2004
In Reply To:Role of a Teacher Posted by Scott Guthrie on 11/28/2004
Learning about the work of the System Dynamics and K-12 educational communities led me to the belief that student teachers need to learn to be systems thinkers, and, whether or not they became modelers themselves, to be comfortable working with colleagues who did. As the Essex Report indicated, extending systems thinking and modeling to teacher education is part of the whole process of implementing a systems approach to K-12 education that is so urgently needed.
Before my research study with preservice teachers at the University of Washington, I talked with Lees Stuntz, Diana Fisher, Ron Zaraza and Scott Guthrie in person, and a number of others from this listserv (Tim Joy, Traci Benson, Steve Kip, John Heinbokel, Richard Turnock and others), who were so very helpful in sharing their experiences, recommendations and cautions as I planned my study.
The study was finally implemented over a two-week period with twelve preservice teachers taking a course on interdisciplinary methods. During the "intervention", the student teachers' systems and dynamic thinking skills were surveyed, and systems thinking and modeling was introduced as a way to approach a contemporary controversy. Although the limited time along with other constraints, prevented the study from being as valuable as it could have been, it was also a tactical move on my part to get the "systems" perspective on the table for discussion among educational researchers. It remains to be seen if that will actually happen, but I will present my results at the American Association of Educational Researchers (AERA) conference in Montreal next April, and hopefully stimulate enough interest to help start a conversation with this key group of researchers.
The student teachers' responses make me optimistic because some of them were very receptive to the holistic approach represented by systems thinking. For example, several of the preservice teachers resonated with the need for more than simple cause and effect analyses for complex problems, and everyone was predisposed to value multiple perspectives.
But receptive or not, their responses provide a number of important insights about how to approach student teachers more effectively in the future. Using concepts with which they are already familiar, such as the "web of life," would help, for example, scaffold language arts teachers' learning about the basic components of an SD model. This is important based on the following reasoning.
My objective is not just to promote a cadre of modelers among teachers, although that is very important, but to promote a common basis for individual subject matter teaching, as well as for collaboration, even though isolated classroom teachers do not need to use the same teaching methods, especially if they are teaching different subjects.
However, what if individual teachers used methods that overlapped? What if language arts teachers learned to use behavior over time graphs as Tim Joy has done, science teachers learned to use stories as John Seely Brown has recommended, and essentially all teachers used these and both analytical and systems perspectives to explore the big ideas in their respective subjects as Jay Forrester, Donnella Meadows, Ervin Lazlo, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Fritjof Capra and so many others have recommended?
But even if individual teachers continue with their usual methods for teaching their content, effective collaboration still requires a common language, a common set of concepts and principles, and familiarity with a shared "toolset" (e.g., "mental models," the Ladder of Inference and Reflexive Loop, closed loop thinking, and the accumulations, flows and connectors used in SD models). Educational research has shown that without a common basis for collaboration, it is very difficult for teachers in different subject matter areas to work efficiently together in K-12 schools.
I may not be alone on this listserv in believing that systems thinking and modeling methods provide the best common ground for teaching discipline content and facilitating collaboration among teachers. I am alone in my college of education, which is representative of most teacher education programs, which is why I decided to use the dissertation as an opportunty to direct my committee's attention to some of the accomplishments of the ST/SD communities in K-12 schools, and ST/SD's potential, even though the circumstances were far from optimal.
On the bright side, I've been so slow in coming to grips with the dissertation, that I was able to refer to the November issue of School Administrator, mentioned earlier on this listserv, as an example of one way that a systems approach can benefit education in troubled times.
Those articles should speak to schools of education and educational researchers. Eventually, enough examples will accumulate that educational researchers will not be able to ignore the discipline of SD.
Research that demonstrates the advantages of ST/SD to teaching and learning could also quicken the pace of its adoption in education. This would require a partnership among practitioners, schools and educational researchers. I'll offer five examples of experiments that could make researchers and educators in higher education give ST/SD the respect it deserves, and then sign off, as this email has (like my dissertation) become too long.
1. Research that documents the efficacy of ST/SD to help teachers cover the same material faster, more material than required by the curriculum, and more useful material because "Facts are now anchored to meaning through the dynamic relationships they have with each other"
(Frank Draper's experience teaching biology, quoted by Jay Forrestor).
If a component of Draper's experience can be repeated, then a straightforward, scientifically sound, comparative study with pre-posttest design could be effective in getting the attention of both educational researchers and schools of education. It would be particularly powerful if it were
a) designed to be statistically significant (include 30 or more students),
b) controlled for student/teacher differences,
c) included multiple classrooms,
d) included multiple schools, and ideally,
e) included multiple schools that tapped students from different socio-economic backgrounds.
Rigorous education experiments at any level (1a-e) would be respected by the community of educational researchers.
2. A survey study based on some standard student assessment that would enable the scores of those who had taken ST/SD courses in high school to be compared with those who had not, again, controlled so that statistically significant results could be obtained. Diana Fisher has suggested some such study might be able to quantitatively demonstrate the impression that she and other teachers have that their students are better prepared to learn and to perform because of their experiences with ST/SD.
This would require schools and districts to cooperate, and be limited to those schools and/or districts where ST/SD had been taught consistently over a period of years.
3. Student-centered, classroom-based design experiments that demonstrate ST/SD's ability to facilitate conceptual change from 'novice'
surface understanding of a problem towards more 'expert' structural understanding (operational knowledge). Any topic, such as the forces acting on a tossed ball (30 student minimum, pre-posttest design).
4. Student-centered, classroom-based design experiments that demonstrate ST/SD's ability to facilitate transfer of conceptual learning (operational knowledge) from a problem in one context to a problem with the same structural relationships but in a completely different context in the same subject; or from a problem in one subject to a structurally similar problem in a completely different subject (30 student minimum, pre-posttest design).
5. Student- or teacher-centered, classroom-based design experiments that demonstrate ST/SD's ability to facilitate a) efficiency by fostering the construction of operational knowledge capable of being transferred to new situations, AND b) innovation by fostering "adaptive expertise" capable of being used to anticipate and solve problems before they happen. Isn't adaptive expertise what the Minnesota educators and system dynamicists created together?
Scott, take heart. I think systems thinking and system dynamics is primed to be appropriated by educators because of the concerns you articulated. Hopefully, 'just in time.'
Keep the faith,
Ruth
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