Subject: K-12 List Purpose

Posted by Elisabeth Roberts on 2/19/2006
In Reply To:K-12 List Purpose Posted by Lees Stuntz on 2/17/2006

Message:

A great discussion on concrete v. abstract--shifting the conversation
from "either-or" to "both-and" gives us a mutually reinforcing
feedback loop between the two perspectives.

Lees questions --

>It seems to me that two pieces of this portion of the conversation
>are very relevant to SD in K-12 education. First- How do we change
>people's (students') behaviors? Secondly, if we wanted to get
>students (teachers) to act as if they were systems citizens, what
>would that look like??

led me to think, if we could describe (notice I don't say "define")
what a systems citizen knows and is able to do, then contrast that
with the way most folks approach problems, we'd have a better
understanding of what changes we could possibly help people make (I
believe people change when they see the use for change--it's an
internally driven process). We could also learn a lot from following
people over time as they make the change towards being systems
thinkers. In fact, that's what I'm hoping to do in my dissertation
research (currently at the dustball-fuzzy-logic stage of development).

Has the systems thinking community looked at the Benchmarks for
Science Literacy (AAAS, 1994) and National Science Education
Standards (NSES, 1996) to evaluate their statements about what
students should know and be able to do? I'd be interested to hear
your perspectives--are these useful to the K-12 systems dynamics
community? Why or why not?.

AAAS on systems:
http://www.project2061.org/publications/bsl/online/ch11/ch11.htm

NSES overview on systems
http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/nses/html/6a.html#unifying

Cheers,
Elisabeth
--
Elisabeth Roberts
Doctoral Student
The University of Arizona
College of Education
Tucson, AZ
eroberts@theriver.com