Subject: Cognitive Maturity

Posted by Alice Squires on 11/18/2007
In Reply To:Cognitive Maturity Posted by Wade Schuette on 11/16/2007

Message:

Thanks for your insights Wade, Peter, and others. This has helped shaped some of my thinking on the topic. I can take Draper's paper and Richmond's seven thinking skills, which are very specific to system dynamics by the way, and come up with some sort of mapping starting with the 4th grade (and I did this) and my conclusion is that Draper’s suggestions are ambitious; he has expectations of work being done on the computer with models in grade levels where the terminology and concept of system dynamics seems too premature to be really understood. I have noted that, in general, and I hope I don't offend anyone, those members of the system dynamics community that have become used to the terminology and concepts may not realize the learning curve involved for anyone, child or adult, and they are basing results on approaches that do not factor in that overall learning curve. I also sense a general frustration through the literature and comments that I have read, in the ability to maintain efforts to teach system dynamics to children. The current approaches appear to take an extensive amount of training for the instructor, the teacher, and the student. However, I also suggest that system concepts can be introduced as early as Kindergarten in the forms of play and in other ways that are more conducive to learning. This is critical to establishing a foundation of systems thinking. Using my own experience with children and taking some time to map system concept to grades K through 3, I suggest these concepts can be introduced in the grade levels shown in the table below. This is, at this point, just my opinion, but also formed by doing a lot of literature research and having some experience with young children including three of my own. Am I way off here?

Follow Ups:

Cognitive Maturity - Wade Schuette 11/19/2007