The Complexity Paradigm: Skills and Dispositions for Grappling With Complexity in K–12 Education

• In Event: 26.079 - Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: 26.079-14 - Developing Capacities and Dispositions for Teaching and Learning in Complex Systems

Abstract

Today, academics and professionals across disciplines employ complex systems science and systems thinking approaches to address previously intractable problems like environmental degradation, international conflict, poverty, and disease. Complexity theories and systems methodologies have generated new perspectives with real-world implications. However, K-12 education has not kept pace with the shifting worldview. In this paper, I outline a broad range of complexity concepts and practices in the literature, identify current efforts to bring systems thinking and methods into schools, and argue that reformers must reimagine the traditional K-12 curriculum through a complex systems lens. Preliminary findings from interviews with eighteen complexity scholars delineate a series of core skills and dispositions required to grapple with complex, interconnected problems in the world today.

Author

• Caitlin S. Steele, The University of Vermont