I agree with Billy here, the article is good, but very general. Also, this
is a reinvention of the wheel.
There is an upside to the broad based fuzziness and the reawakening of SD
thought. SD can be effectively applied to many disciplines. For example,
family systems theorists like Murray Bowen and Salvador Minuchin, applied
systems dynamics thinking to mental health therapies in the 1970s. This
systems approach provided a fresh contrast to classical Freudian
psychotherapy and B.F. Skinner-like behavioral therapy (1950s).
Chris
------------------------------------------
Christopher P. Hahn, Ph.D.
Constructive Agreement, LLC
<mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]
P.O. Box 39, Bozeman, MT 59771
(406) 522-4143 (406) 556-7116 fax
------------------------------------------
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected]
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2012 3:33 PM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [RC] Article: why-system-dynamics.html
Ernie :
I guess I agree with the article. My problem is that there is relatively
little there, there.
Mostly generalities. No dispute from me about those generalities, but where
are there examples of what works ?
Charter schools that can be pointed to ?
Selected parochial schools ?
Private academies, at least in New England / upscale California ?
Something to sink one's teeth into, in other words.
Also, there are ways to be fairly certain about the future.
Mostly this is to think about "structural certainties" --mentioned before
but as a refresher. Viz, we know who at least 2/3rds of our Senators will be
in 2013 and into 2014. We may not know the prime rate the Fed will
require for more than the next month or two, in the present case until
the end of the year, or so they say, but we can estimate changes
with some degree of assurance even if the further out we go
the less certainty. And so forth. Thus there are "boundaries"
to the near term future, even some that extend out several
or many years, like the plausible rate of new use for
alternative energy or, conversely, usage rates for
natural gas. Etc.
Waaaaay back in 1974 two of my articles appeared in an anthology edited by
Toffler
called Learning for Tomorrow. I must admit that I have not kept up with
the field
but at the time there were a good number of experimental futures programs
in schools
across the country, mostly college level but some in secondary ed and even
a couple in grade school. It might be worthwhile to revisit the subject
and see what happened, what exists now, and what new programs
are in the works. That is, the author of the article seems to assume
that none of this exists or ever has existed.
So, yes, I like the overall thrust of the article, but there are some
limitations to the content.
Billy
=========================================
4/9/2012 2:11:23 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected]
writes:
On education and public policy...
E
why-system-dynamics.html
<http://turnock.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-system-dynamics.html?spref=tw>
http://turnock.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-system-dynamics.html?spref=tw
_____
All systems, everywhere have levels and flows. These are the only two
concepts needed to understand why systems work the way they do (Forrester,
1996).
We were taught in school to accumulate knowledge and skills in order to get
a job. We define learning as the accumulation of knowledge. We test every
child at every grade level to measure their accumulated knowledge. We teach
people how to do things so they have a skill in order to get a job.
Public education teaches people what is important to know. Students learn
skills so that they know how to do things. Students are tested on what they
know and the skills for how to use what they know. System Dynamics (SD)
enables us to understand why systems work they way they do.
Public education involves a way of thinking, learning and communicating that
focuses on the past up to the present. Science, math, reading and writing
are all focused on knowledge (what) and skills (how) that have been codified
into a curriculum. In public education students learn about the past up to
the present.
Life is moving fast. We need a way to think, learn and communicate about the
future. The current public school system does not meet that need.
Sustainability education and environmental literacy are focused on students
learning more and more about how to do more things. By conforming to the
way the current public education system focuses on what and how, we are
asking students to accumulate more and more knowledge about the recent past.
We are asking students to accumulate more and more skills about how things
were done in the recent past.
System dynamics is a tool to think, learn and communicate about the future.
(Richmond 2010) With SD, learning is about why systems work they way they
do. What is needed to model a system is accumulated just in time to use in
a model. The knowledge needed about how the parts of a system are related
is accumulated just in time to use them in a model. The understanding
needed about why feedback loops in systems tell a story is accumulated just
in time to use them in a model.
SD enables us to understand why systems work they way they do. Politicians
and decision makers need to know why systems work the way they do so that
they can craft policies that are successful in the future. Policy makers
need informed citizens who know why systems work they way they do.
Why do policymakers choose policies that fail? A policy response is rational
for decision makers who fail to account for the feedback structure of a
system. Only by considering the full feedback structure is the
ineffectiveness of a policy revealed. By learning why feedback affects
system behavior, small system dynamics models have a crucial role to play in
policy making. (Ghaffarzadegan, 2012)
Policy makers fall prey to the "Pull my finger" joke. They develop a policy
that responds to correlations, trends and events believing that they
understand the cause like when the finger pull and the sound are close
together in space and time. The irony of public policy making is that,
without understanding system feedback, what happened in the past will be
made worse by a policy response.
Without SD, public education is teaching students to look to the past to
make decisions about the future. The public school system is walking
backwards into the future.
The public school system is the primary obstacle to students using SD. The
entrenched paradigms are the foundation for education institutions that
teach what and how from K12 through university doctorate programs.
Educators and students are evaluated based on what they know and how to use
what they know. SD enables us to understand why systems work they way they
do.
System dynamics is a tool to think, learn and communicate in a new way so
that educators engage student's mental models. When mental models rely on
"Pull my finger" thinking a person is not going to understand feedback. To
use SD requires a new way of thinking: Think about levels and flows
connected in feedback loops within a closed boundary.
To use SD requires a new definition of learning: Learning is improving the
quality of our mental models.(Richmond 2010) The current public school
system does not attempt to improve the quality of student's mental models.
To use SD requires a new way of communicating: Communicate about why your
model works using feedback loops. This is where qualitative tools like
causal loop diagrams and behavior-over-time graphs are used and useful.
Jay Forrester is the founder of System Dynamics. He has said for many years
that with the right guidance "students must create their own models and
learn from trial and error." In this way dynamic modeling is learning by
doing. "I believe that immersion in such active learning can change mental
models." (Forrester 2009)
Why System Dynamics? System Dynamics enables us to understand why systems
work they way they do in order to prepare for the future.
Bibliography
1. Forrester, Jay W. "System Dynamics and K-12 Teachers." Creative
Learning Exchange. 30 May 1996. Web. 11 Feb. 2012. <
<http://clexchange.org/ftp/documents/Roadmaps/RM1/D-4665-5.pdf>
http://clexchange.org/ftp/documents/Roadmaps/RM1/D-4665-5.pdf>.
2. Ghaffarzadegan, Navid, John Lyneis, and George P. Richardson. "Why
and How Small System Dynamics Models Can Help Policymakers: A Review of Two
Public Policy Models." System Dynamics Society. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <
<http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/2009/proceed/papers/P1388.pdf>
http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/2009/proceed/papers/P1388.pdf>.
3. Richmond, Barry. "Introduction: The Thinking in Systems Thinking-
Eight Critical Skills." Ed. Joy Richmond. Tracing Connections: Voices of
Systems Thinkers. Lebanon, NH: ISEE Systems, 2010. 3-21. Print.
4. Forrester, Jay W. "Learning through System Dynamics as Preparation
for the 21st Century." Creative Learning Exchange. 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2012.
<
<http://clexchange.org/ftp/documents/whyk12sd/Y_2009-02LearningThroughSD.pdf
>
http://clexchange.org/ftp/documents/whyk12sd/Y_2009-02LearningThroughSD.pdf>
.
_____
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