Abstract
Positive effects of elective courses on Systems Dynamics and Systems Thinking in Ege University Medical Faculty on students’ perspective and
PISA results showing insufficiency in abstract thinking has encouraged the design of a project aiming to increase the capacity of teachers to
deliver students’ academic and lifetime benefits by critical thinking, decision making and
problem solving skills.
Systems Thinking, a good candidate for improving abstract thinking by visualizing behaviour and structure of systems, is being gradually adapted
to kindergarten and primary school programs of participating schools in Turkey for last 5 years.
A yearly routine of introductory training, followed by implementations supported by volunteer facilitators and, sharing results in a symposium and
on a web site is established. After two years of implementation and sharing, a volunteer teacher has the opportunity to become a volunteer
facilitator.
By this way, we were able to disseminate systems thinking in two dimensions: increasing number of teachers on same grade level and,
incorporating teachers from new grade levels. We develop content for a new grade level through with different
including universities and NGO's.
We want to share our experience and get opinions and suggestions
Presentation
Thank you...
| want to share our experiences about dissemination of systems
thinking through K-12 schools in Turkey for last 5 years.
Systems Thinking in Education We see this as a diffusion process. A kind of contamination for the
j Tu rkey better.
You won't see anything complex in this presentation. This might be
First 5 years a little weird for a conference about complexity. But from a
constructivist point of view, we are trying to build capacity to cope,
Gam Egitim-e or dance, with complexity using blocks of simplicity. For the simple
aia ist um reason that nearly half of our objects of interest does not know how
a tice to read.
So this presentation is a proposal for a method, a method for
dissemination of systems thinking in K-12 education.
Here is the theoretical introduction to the problem statement...
Jean Piaget was one of the most influential researchers in the
Cognitive Development Siagosof Jean Papo, area ct He the four stages
of
concrete operational and formal operational’. In earthly terms these
are; infancy, toddler and early childhood, elementary and early
ia oe adolescence, adolescence and adulthood.
He proposed abstract thinking begins in formal operational stage.
In other words, he argues that development of abstract reasoning
cannot begin until a person gets 11 years old.
cay This argument restricts beginning of systems thinking concepts
hi
before secondary school.
But actually real problem is much bigger...
Many studies found Piaget's classification of stages as partially
true”.
Dietibtion of Statens by Cognitive Development Stages «roms oat
a (858 This graph is from a 2003 study’. It shows that formal operative
: “ saris stage or abstract thinking does not show up for 11 year olds all at
” ane —_ once. Actually, according to this study, only 5 % of 11 year olds is
in this stage. For 14 year olds only a quarter of the students is in
the formal operative stage.
x =, The pie chart shows what happens in the end: Only one-third of the
cam eters adults can think in abstract terms. That is two-thirds of the citizens
a (ose in a democracy cannot understand the more complex issues facing
them in life.
This is a problem.
PISA 2015
Levels of proficiency
We can see a similar situation in PISA results.
PISA (The Prog! for ional Student isa
fa tue base or everyey conor" ouartknemadge"
re oe
Pre-School
Ministry of National Education
Pre-School
Education Program
tity Book
Mates esimator abot an ejectstustonevent
‘spurs cones abot ne
rede’ seutono probate stustons
copes RECEP rk iene or Tih peace
triennial it survey that evaluates education systems
worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old
students. It is a worldwide organized study by OECD (Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development).
In 2015 over half a million students, representing 28 million
15-year-olds in 72 countries and economies, took the
internationally agreed two-hour test. Students were assessed in
science, mathematics, reading, collaborative problem solving and
financial literacy.
Seven levels of proficiency are described in PISA: starting from 1b
“with basic or everyday scientific knowledge”, ending with 6
“interrelated scientific ideas and concepts”, proficiency required for
levels gradually increase*. Proficiency in abstract content
knowledge starts with Level4. In other words first 4 levels, 1b thru
3, different levels of everyday content knowledge is measured.
Starting from Level4, more complex, abstract scientific ideas or
concepts to explain unfamiliar phenomena is measured.
In PISA 2015, percentage of students from European Union having
results Level4 and over is 27.2%' Attesting data from research
about of ions in formal i
stage, PISA results show that nearly three-quarters of students
from EU have difficulty in abstract thinking.
As you can see, the situation is even worse for Turkey. Only 5% of
15-year-olds in Turkey seems to reason formally.
This is also a problem: Not as big as the previous one, but it’s a
good place to start from.
So we started from preschool education.
These are expected outcomes from cognitive development in
preschool determined by Ministry of National Education of Turkey*.
You can see in the table that from 14 to 20, outcomes demand
more abstract thinking. These are the target outcomes we choose
to address with systems thinking.
And there was also an opportunity in these outcomes.
This is the Activity Book published, distributed and recommended
by the ministry to use in preschool education in Turkey”.
In the table each line is an activity. And gray squares show if
related outcome is being met by the activity.
There are 41 activities and you can see least addressed activities
are from 14 to 20.
Ministry of National Education in Turkey wants (or wishes) students
to achieve outcomes about abstract thinking but does not give tools
or strategies to reach these outcomes.
This “ends without means’ situation is not specific to the ministry.
From International Baccalaureate (IB) to The Turkish Foundation
for Combating Soil Erosion, for Reforestation and the Protection of
Natural Habitats (TEMA Foundation)*, many institution wants (or
wishes) students to achieve outcomes about abstract thinking but
does not give tools or strategies to reach these outcomes.
We see this as an opportunity to introduce systems thinking.
Systems Thinker
At first we described what we understand who is a systems thinker.
We used Waters Foundation’s 14 Habits of a Systems Thinker’.
We translated them to Turkish and used some visuals of Linda
Liukas*® (a children's book author and illustrator).
Each habit acted as a long term outcome of our program.
We used what we learned from Waters Foundation and Creative
Learning Exchange in designing activities.
Iceberg analogy.
There are events on the surface.
These are things that we see everyday, read in a newspaper or
internet or a story book.
First thing to recognize is a pattern from these events.
Aline graph is used to represent these patterns. Pattern is shown
as a behaviour over time.
The behaviour might be anything from gross domestic product to
happiness of an elephant.
After plotting the behaviour over time we go deeper and try to find
the structure producing this behaviour.
Most often the variable of the BOT graph is taken as the stock of a
stock-flow diagram. And by looking at the behaviour in the graph,
events or factors that increased or decreased that stock are listed
as flows.
If needed a second stock or if appears a causal loop diagram is
introduced.
Then a couple of factors of the flow that are decisions or the
actions in the structure are analyzed with ladders of inferences.
We use 3 or 4 step ladders adapted from Waters Foundations,
Creative Learning Exchange and Society for Organizational
Learning (SoL) in Turkey.
Here are some examples...
‘years old
36-48 month)
This is the first, and for the time being only, children’s story book
written systems thinking in mind". It was written by one of the first
preschool teachers trained by Sheri Marlin from Waters
Foundation.
The story is based on relations between frogs and people living by
a pond.
It is studied with different age groups. As you can see we gradually
increase depth and range of tools used.
For the 4 year-olds only a simple BOT with 5 events on time axis
and 2 modes of behaviour on y-axis is used.
For 5 year-olds both axises are more detailed and a stock-flow
diagram is introduced.
‘And for the 6 year-olds ladder of inference and fixes that fail
archetype is studied.
Story analysis is the favorite activity of teachers in using systems
thinking in their classes. After systems thinking implementer
training, first activity activity a teacher does is usually a story
This is a different example from primary school. It's actually a
subject of psychological counseling and guidance but studied by a
classroom teacher.
He's working in school in a disadvantaged area of Izmir. Peer
victimisation was a common problem.
After recording number of events for a period of time he shared the
BOT graph with his 2nd grade students. And want them to record
and plot the events day by day. This feedback alone had an affect
on the behaviour.
Then, by drawing a stock-flow diagram and selecting number of
events as the stock, they analyzed flows. They found some
escalation loops, different ladders of inferences and proposed
some solutions. Results can be seen in the graph.
This was done last year, the behaviour sustained so far.
Another example is from math.
We use stock-flow diagrams to visualize arithmetic problems. By
using stock's initial value as starting amount, and interpreting
additions as inflows, subtraction as outflows, students from 1st
grade to 3rd grade seem to understand these concepts much
better.
Of course this is a static or a one-time flow version of the
stock-flow diagram. In later grades we begin to introduce flow
concept as a variable per time.
Last example from primary school is a 3 week activity about
nutrition. There are many outcomes of healthy nutrition in every
grade of the education system. So it is very easy to adapt this
series of activities into school programs.
It is specifically designed around blood glucose.
It starts and ends with ladders of inference. We aim to see the
change in perceptions of students before and after this series of
activities.
Activities include BOT’s basing on stories, stock-flow diagrams
before and after an experiment about glucose content of foods or
game showing effects of simple and complex sugars on blood
glucose levels. Sugars are represented as bolts. Simple bolts have
one nut, complex have 3-4 nuts, so it's hard to assemble them. A
similar situation for metabolization of complex sugar.
Secondary School - World War | zz 2
Experience Sharing Symposiums
This is the first activity developed for secondary school.
It is 4 hour lesson plan on First World War from the perspective of
Ottoman Empire.
Economic reasons of the war is introduced by a BOT graph of
Gross National Products of major fighting countries for 200 years.
Gross National Product is presented schematically as a flow of
production from natural resources to produced items in factories.
The blue line is Ottoman Empire. A country that could not succeed
transition to an industrialized society.
The ladder of inference below analyses Ottoman Empire's decision
to enter war. Each student fills a semi-filled form of this ladder and
discuss their reasoning.
The graph on the up right is a BOT graph for one of the tragedies
of the WW1. It shows loss of 60.000 Ottoman soldiers in one
December week. Most of the them by freezing. Here we also use
ladder of inference for some decisions of Turkish War Minister
Enver Pasha. Lastly, results of World War 1 is discussed with this
animated graph. This BOT graph and animated map summarizes
600 year of history of Ottoman Empire.
All of these lessons and activities are presented in Experience
Sharing Symposiums by the teachers who implemented them.
As always, all work is on volunteer basis.
Symposiums are organized in schools that use system thinking
tools and strategies. They sponsor costs like lunch, notebook,
pencil.
We saw that such an event is very crucial in dissemination of
systems thinking in education. It becomes a target for presenters
and a very effective medium for teachers interested.
There is a slight risk of loosening of implementations as a result of
the perception of reaching the target. We try to avoid this by
continuing our monthly visits to the schools.
This training and implementation loop developed in time.
In August we organize a two-day systems thinking implementer
training. First two trainings were given by Sheri Marlin from Waters
Foundation. But in 2016 as a result of social unrest in Turkey we
could not organize a training with Water Foundation.
With Waters Foundation’s support, we developed our own training.
As we did not have any experienced instructor, so we divide the
work and give training to groups of teachers with teachers who had
training as facilitators.
After one year of implementation and presentation of her work in
the symposium, a teacher volunteers to be a facilitator assistant in
these trainings. So symposiums became a source for both
participants and facilitators.
In time we made a major shift in our strategy to reach teachers.
In the beginning we visited schools and talked with administration.
This was partly because first trainings were costly and we need
their financial support. But when teachers started to transfer their
and as the need for financial
support disappeared.
We still make visits to school administrators or founders to invite
them to participate in the project but now our focus is teachers.
We see that a convinced teacher is the most important factor. Our
strategy now relies on volunteer teachers spreading the news.
Initially it takes time but it is much more effective and permanent.
From design to share
<<] Exemal
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4,208,106 5,360,703 5.211.506
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Number of Teachers
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Another important factor is design to share process.
Periodic support is crucial. We see that even the best training have
avery little chance against pressure teachers face during
semester.
So we, Systems Thinking Association with its volunteers of
different backgrounds, make at least monthly, mostly weekly, visits
to schools. We try to support the teachers by supplying resources
and connections with other teachers.
All work done is documented in Systems Thinking in Education
web site.
Our aim is to reach all of the K-12 students in Turkey".
This is 17,5 million students flowing thru the education system.
So we need to put about all 1 million teachers in education system
to teacher training loop.
Avery simple model shows that this can be done in
15 years.
If each facilitator instructs 40 teachers and 10% of trained teachers
volunteers to be facilitator and it takes 2 years to be a facilitator,
capacity growth will allow to train 1 million teachers.
So far we are reaching yearly goals in the table. But in a few years
we must be collaborating with Ministry of National Education in
Turkey.
But we need to be competent and big enough to be realized.
Currently we are in the process of planning with academicians from
foleainis lo change
J change comes rom within
that's why we do not see ourselves os Sculptors
we see ourselves as gardenersif not foresters
‘honk you
in Turkey working on SD/ST to increase capacity
of teachers through and
To lear is to change and real change comes from within.
That's why we do not see ourselves as sculptors, we see ourselves
as gardeners if not foresters.
Thank you for your patience.
www.EgitimdeSistemDusuncesi.org
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