Andreas Wettre and Birger Sevaldson
In the UNESCO eEducation program for the Sustainable Development Goals, systems thinking competencies and anticipation competencies are mentioned first. Combined, these are the core competencies of systemic design. Systemic design indicates a major shift in designing as well as systems thinking. This shift should be reflected in how design is taught.
This paper reports on our experiences in developing learning systems for teaching and learning, systemic design and systems oriented design (SOD) in particular. We developed our approach in a pragmatic spirit, based on our background in systems thinking and design. This paper is our way of relating our praxis to existing pedagogical concepts and to crystallise and communicate what we have learned. Some of our ways of thinking and acting are similar to concepts that exist and are discussed in pedagogy and design teaching. Others are more unique; at least, it was difficult to find publications that reflect our thoughts. It is our way, because what we do is not directly replicable for others. It is highly dependent on the context and the abilities and personality of the involved teachers and students. Hence, this approach respects the uniqueness of each learning situation as evolving social systems. The combination of concepts into a flexible, adaptive ecology, brought together in a systemic approach to the learning situation, might be the central teaching mode that can be adapted, changed, and moulded into something useful for others.
Many of the concepts and theories we found in our review of current trends in pedagogy are innovative and support how we think. However, they are presented in a fragmented way as unique theories or in opposition to other approaches or to traditional pedagogy. What stands out in our approach is the mix of concepts, approaches and practices into an assemblage of knowledge production, itself a complex system.
We think of student–teacher relations as complex social systems with their own drive and mechanisms. We look at the classroom as such a system , and our role is to be a part of that system. This challenges the role of the teacher and student.
The mixing of approaches into a systemic learning approach is original (at least we could not find any other similar idea; in contrast, authors seem more occupied with defending their singular approaches). We have some additional original ideas. Amongst those ideas are the role of the teacher as co-learner, where the teacher’s learning in action is a central driving force. Instead of streamlining, we try to turn student/teacher diversity and methodological pluralism into a crucible of diversity. We try to develop what we call a pedagogy of difficulty, a teaching approach that fosters students who should be able to cope with the difficult situations of our complex world. In addition to pedagogical concepts, as we see the group of students and teachers as an organisation, we also draw from organisational theory. This also seems to be an original move.
Our literature review started with us reflecting on what we have done, extracting the principles and concepts of our teaching. Then we searched for similar existing ideas and approaches. In our walkthrough of those ideas, concepts and theories, we use them as lenses to look at our own course design and practice, to clarify and learn, but mostly to situate and reflect. Therefore, the whole Theories and Concept part is not purely descriptive, but we use it to discuss and reflect on our way of teaching. The paper concludes by presenting an integrated andragogy for systems change.
Keywords: design futuring, transition design, co-design, participation, urban mobility