Complex systems are found everywhere and impact daily lives whether we realise this or not. Highly visible examples include the coordinated flocking (murmuration) of starlings and the shoaling of fish. Less visible are the complex dynamics of what we know as climate change, or the complex interactions between our genes and the cellular environment in which they work. Pandemics are also highly complex, involving both physical and social factors in their dynamics.
Rose covered a number of reasons why complex systems thinking (CTS) is important.For example, complex systems don’t behave predictably and every citizen needs at least a basic understanding of their dynamics.
Local
Curriculum is also important because it is the way that you bring the curricula
to life at your early learning service, kōhanga reo, school, or kura. It’s a
way of strengthening our people & celebrating our places. In Rose’s view,
the K strand of the UDK framework embeds an emphasis on local curriculum:
● U - Deeper understanding
● K - Know contextual
aspects
● D- Do (thinking critically from different perspectives)
Complex
systems thinking works in well with the UKD framework - the current framework
being used by our Kāhui Ako. Bringing both together supports:
● tapping into community resources and
expertise, through fostering a sense of place and belonging
● making learning more memorable/relatable
● ensuring learning is not
left to chance
● showing us that learning about our ways of being in the world should not be overlooked by focusing only on our knowing about our world
Today’s session served as a reminder to learn about Indigenous knowledge respectfully as this encodes ways of being in complexity such as an ethical concern for the natural world, sustainability, social justice etc.
How to bring them together
Children are born as natural systems thinkers but they typically unlearn this way of thinking at school through the use of closed questions and limited learning experiences.To combat this schools are encouraged to provide more open-ended learning experiences and build knowledge of concepts that open up opportunities for complex systems thinking. Even young children relish opportunities to explore the dynamics and hidden connections between things in their world. Rose showed an example of writing from a 7 year old, who was learning about the complex causes of water shortages in the place where he lived.
Place-based learning fosters CST. Students need to see themselves as being inside the systems they are learning about. More usually they learn about systems from the perspective of being outside looking in.
There are lots of adaptations to favourite teaching strategies that teachers can make in order to foster Complex Thinking Systems when designing local curriculum. There are also lots of simple visual tools. Rose talked about a recent example where she had used the thinking routine ‘I See, I Think, I Wonder’ from Project Zero (developed at Harvard). Another example can be found on TKI among the resources to support the science capability of Gathering and Interpreting Data.
Teachers are very good at breaking learning down to make things simple for students. But it’s also really important to bring those parts back together. Luckily there are lots of visual tools to support part/whole thinking. A number of philanthropic organisations have created free on-line resources for this purpose.
We
all need to develop habits of ‘both/and’ thinking. This is hard because binary
– either/or - thinking is deeply entrenched in knowledge systems of Western
origin.
Complex Thinking is an opportunity to ask whose voices can we hear and whose can we not hear?
Check
out Rose’s book for activities and resources for fostering Complex Systems
Thinking,
Hipkins, R. (2021). Teaching for complex systems thinking. NZCER Press.
As
a Kāhui Ako we purchased the
Rich Task Planning Cards for each of our schools and we used the cards to help
develop our understanding of Local Curriculum design. Here is the link if you
wish to check these out.
Hipkins,
R. (2019). Classroom resource: Rich tasks planning
cards.
NZCER Press.
At the end of our session with Rose there was positive feedback from our school leaders about the session.
She
kindly allowed access to her slides and here they are.
