Stories

Tag: systems theory

  • Education as a system of systems: rethinking learning theory to tackle complex threats to our societies

    Education as a system of systems: rethinking learning theory to tackle complex threats to our societies

    In their 2014 article, Jacobson, Kapur, and Reimann propose shifting the paradigm of learning theory towards the conceptual framework of complexity science. They argue that the longstanding dichotomy between cognitive and situative theories of learning fails to capture the intricate dynamics at play. Learning arises across a “bio-psycho-social” system involving interactive feedback loops linking neuronal processes, individual cognition, social context, and cultural milieu. As such, what emerges cannot be reduced to any individual component.

    To better understand how macro-scale phenomena like learning manifest from micro-scale interactions, the authors invoke the notion of “emergence” prominent in the study of complex adaptive systems. Discrete agents interacting according to simple rules can self-organize into sophisticated structures through across-scale feedback.

    For instance, the formation of a traffic jam results from the cumulative behavior of individual drivers. The jam then constrains their ensuing decisions.

    Similarly, in learning contexts, the construction of shared knowledge, norms, values and discourses proceeds through local interactions, which then shape future exchanges. Methodologically, properly explicating emergence requires attending to co-existing linear and non-linear dynamics rather than viewing the system exclusively through either lens.

    By adopting a “trees-forest” orientation that observes both proximal neuronal firing and distal cultural evolution, researchers can transcend outmoded dichotomies. Beyond scrutinizing whether learner or environment represents the more suitable locus of analysis, the complex systems paradigm directs focus towards their multifaceted transactional synergy, which gives rise to learning. This avoids ascribing primacy to any single level, as well as positing reductive causal mechanisms, instead elucidating circular self-organizing feedback across hierarchically nested systems.

    The implications are profound. Treating learning as emergence compels educators to appreciate that curricular inputs and pedagogical techniques designed based upon linear extrapolation will likely yield unexpected results. Our commonsense notions that complexity demands intricacy fail to recognize that simple nonlinear interactions generate elaborate outcomes. This epistemic shift suggests practice should emphasize creating conditions conducive for adaptive growth rather than attempting to directly implant mental structures. Specifically, adopting a complexity orientation may entail providing open-ended creative experiences permitting self-guided exploration, establishing a learning culture that values diversity, dissent and ambiguity as catalysts for sensemaking, and implementing distributed network-based peer learning.

    Overall, the article explores how invoking a meta-theory grounded in complex systems science can dissolve dichotomies that have plagued the field. It compels implementing flexible, decentralized and emergent pedagogies far better aligned to the nonlinear complexity of learner development in context.

    Sophisticated learning theories often fail to translate into meaningful practice. Yet what this article describes closely corresponds to how The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) is actually implementing its vision of education as a philosophy for change, in the face of complex threats to our societies. The Foundation conceives of learning as an emergent phenomenon arising from interactions between individuals, their social contexts, and surrounding systems. Our programs aim to catalyze this emergence by connecting practitioners facing shared challenges to foster collaborative sensemaking. For example, our Teach to Reach events connect tens of thousands of health professionals to share experience on their own terms, in relation to their own contextual needs. This emphasis on open-ended exploration and decentralized leadership exemplifies the flexible pedagogy demanded by a complexity paradigm. Overall, the Foundation’s work – deliberately situated outside the constraints of vestigial Academy – embodies the turn towards nonlinear models that can help transcend stale dichotomies. Our practice demonstrates the concrete value of recasting learning as the product of embedded agents interacting to generate systemic wisdom greater than their individual contributions.

    Jacobson, M.J., Kapur, M., Reimann, P., 2014. Towards a complex systems meta-theory of learning as an emergent phenomenon: Beyond the cognitive versus situative debate. Boulder, Colorado: International Society of the Learning Sciences. https://doi.dx.org/10.22318/icls2014.362

    Illustration © The Geneva Learning Foundation Collection (2024)

  • How do we reframe health performance management within complex adaptive systems?

    How do we reframe health performance management within complex adaptive systems?

    We need a conceptual framework that situates health performance management within complex adaptive systems.

    This is a summary of an important paper by Tom Newton-Lewis et al. It describes such a conceptual framework that identifies the factors that determine the appropriate balance between directive and enabling approaches to health performance management in complex systems.

    Existing health performance management approaches in many low- and middle-income country health systems are largely directive, aiming to control behaviour using targets, performance monitoring, incentives, and answerability to hierarchies.

    Health systems are complex and adaptive: performance outcomes arise from interactions between many interconnected system actors and their ability to adapt to pressures for change.

    In my view, this paper mends an important broken link in theories of change that try to consider learning beyond training.

    The complex, dynamic, multilevel nature of health systems makes outcomes difficult to control, so directive approaches to performance management need to be balanced with enabling approaches that foster collective responsibility and empower teams to self-organise and use data for shared sensemaking and decision-making.

    Directive approaches may be more effective where workers are primarily extrinsically motivated, in less complex systems where there is higher certainty over how outcomes should be achieved, where there are sufficient resources and decision space, and where informal relationships do not subvert formal management levers.

    Enabling approaches may be more effective in contexts of higher complexity and uncertainty and where there are higher levels of trust, teamwork, and intrinsic motivation, as well as appropriate leadership.

    Directive and enabling approaches are not ‘either-or’: designers of health performance management systems must strive for an appropriate balance between them.

    The greater the dissonance between designing a health performance management system and the real context in which it is implemented, the more likely it is to trigger perverse, unintended consequences.

    Interventions must be carefully calibrated to the context of the health system, the culture of its organisations, and the motivations of its individuals.

    By considering each factor and their interdependencies, actors can minimise perverse unintended consequences while attaining a contextually appropriate balance between directive or enabling approaches in complex adaptive systems.

    The complexity of the framework and the interdependencies it describes reinforce that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ blueprint for health performance management.

    For higher-order learning and whole-system improvement to occur, practical and tacit knowledge needs to flow among complex adaptive systems’ actors and organisations, thus leveraging the power of networks and social connections (eg, learning exchanges and communities of practice).

    Reference

    Newton-Lewis, T., Munar, W., Chanturidze, T., 2021. Performance management in complex adaptive systems: a conceptual framework for health systems. BMJ Glob Health 6, e005582. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005582l

  • What is a system?

    What is a system?

    Donella H. Meadows wrote the following simple, eloquent description of what is a system:

    “A system isn’t just any old collection of things.

    A system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose.

    A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something.

    The behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made.

    A system is more than the sum of its parts.

    It may exhibit adaptive, dynamic, goal-seeking, self-preserving, and sometimes evolutionary behavior.

    It is easier to learn about a system’s elements than about its interconnections.

    If information-based relationships are hard to see, functions or purposes are even harder.

    A system’s function or purpose is not necessarily spoken, written, or expressed explicitly, except through the operation of the system.

    Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals.

    The least obvious part of the system, its function or purpose, is often the most crucial determinant of the system’s behavior.

    To ask whether elements, interconnections, or purposes are most important in a system is to ask an unsystemic question.

    All are essential.

    All interact.

    All have their roles.

    But the least obvious part of the system, its function or purpose, is often the most crucial determinant of the system’s behavior.”

    Understanding what is a system is the starting point to tackling complex problems.

    Meadows, Donella H., 2008.Thinking in systems: A primer. Chelsea Green Publishing.