Subject: Communicating with educators

Posted by Ruth Fruland on 5/18/2005
In Reply To:Communicating with educators Posted by Clelia Scott on 5/18/2005

Message:

Hi Clelia,

Although I have used Joseph Novak's concept maps and Gowin's Knowledge Vee, I was only recently introduced to the term "graphic organizers" by the preservice language arts teachers who participated in my dissertation research last year. One finding of the research was that the LA teachers in particular, felt that I should have started with some graphic organizers that they were familiar with (the web of life was mentioned) rather than jumping in with the stock/flow diagrams (which one LA teacher felt was "too mechanistic," and not the way she thought, which was "holistic"). Ironically, before the stock/flow introduction, all of the teachers had resonated with the idea of systems thinking because they perceived ST as being "holistic."

So I have three insights to share:

1. You're absolutely right about starting with graphic organizers the teachers are already familiar with. Now I see that one way to introduce stock/flow diagrams is as a "dynamic" or "process-centered" graphic organizer ...a natural continuation of what is already a rich and useful genre of knowledge representations that can be generatively used across subject areas and topics.

2. It may forestall some objections related to the mechanistic attributes of SD modeling methods, by introducing it simultaneously as both, an analytical tool (what are the important parts, their properties, and functions), and as a synthesis tool (how are the parts related, how do they interact, what is the emergent behavior of the whole system). This echoes an assertion of Robert Costanza's that scientists need to complement their analytical methods with integrative ones (Costanza, R.
2003. A vision of the future of science: reintegrating the study of humans and the rest of nature. Futures 35:651-671), which I think is spot on.

3. A third insight, because my study included language arts, math, science, and social studies preservice teachers, is related to the need for collaboration, in the systems sense of interdependencies.
When a language arts preservice teacher volunteered that she was not "very good at graphic organizers," a preservice science teacher began drawing her a concept map. Admittedly, elementary teachers are not differentiated on the basis of subject matter, but there still exists the possibility for both, peer teaching and collaboration, in which there is sharing of knowledge in the former, and sharing of responsibility in the latter. Instead of being discouraged because so many teachers find SD difficult, it may be more practical to promote collaborative teaching so that those who aren't math phobic assume responsibility for teaching the "hard core" SD and the others focus on soft systems teaching.

Inclusion of the concept of mental models is also important. As the LA teacher who thought SD too mechanistic said, "You can't be human without mental models!"

I'm hoping to continue my research with preservice teachers, as well as extend it to practitioners (and publish). In solidarity, I would be very happy to share ideas and experiences with you and others on this list.
Maybe some collaborative work might evolve, who knows, even though I'm in the northwest corner of the US (Seattle, WA).

Cheers,
Ruth