Authors: Gordon Rowland
Over the past twenty years I have developed and taught courses in systemic design for undergraduate students who seek to positively impact organizations and society through communication and learning. In a first-year course, students engage in a wide variety of learning activities and challenges through which they come to a basic understanding of systems thinking, design, and systemic design. This understanding creates a broad foundation for, and begins to develop connecting threads across their studies of corporate communication, and workplace learning and performance. Then in their senior year capstone course, students engage in a systemic design inquiry, which combines research and design in an attempt to address a critical current issue in organizations. I will describe the pedagogical approach that I have developed for these courses, including underlying assumptions, links to strategy, and a rich set of concepts and tools that promote systems thinking in design, and which have potential applications beyond pedagogy.
