Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Education

Mason, Mark

doi:10.1002/9781444307351.ch1

Cited by 64 publications

(88 citation statements)

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“…In recent decades there is much written about the subject of complex systems and its relationship to education. However, more often than not, the aspects of complexity discussed in the literature have concerned themselves with the logistics and structure of educational institutions as systems and the knowledge flow web (see for instance Morrison, 2006Morrison, , 2010Kuhn, 2008;Mason, 2008). For curricular aspects of complexity theory in education, we refer the readers to the pioneering works of William Doll (2008Doll ( , 2015.…”

Section: Learning With Understandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creativity as an Emergent Property of Complex Educational System

Monahan¹,

Munakata²,

Vaidya³

2019

NEJCS

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The importance of creativity in education has been discussed often in the literature. While there remains no agreed-upon definition of creativity, the psychological literature points to traits of a creative person. These include the ability to think outside the box, make connections between seemingly disparate ideas, and question norms. The literature provides several examples of classroom experiments to help foster creativity in the classroom.In science and mathematics, we can start by getting students to recognize mathematics and the sciences as being creative endeavors. While these attempts are noteworthy, they are not necessarily aligned with instructional practices. In this article, we propose that to promote creative thinking in our classrooms, we need to see our educational system as a complex system or a network of connections between different disciplines. The 20 th century notion that school and college education is rooted in discipline-based reductionism and that learning leads to specialization caters to a few, leaving a large number of students to fail out of the system. The American liberal arts educational model prides itself on giving students a holistic perspective by exposing them to various disciplines. However, merely exposing students to different ideas without having them realize the deep, underlying connections is like expecting interesting dynamics in a collection of disconnected nodes. We propose that the education system is a complex system composed of various nodes, representing different disciplines with the edges representing the flow of unifying ideas between them. Connections between the nodes allow for flow in these paths, resulting in greater opportunity for creativity, which is an emergent property of such a network. The abstract notions discussed above are illustrated by deliberate attempts (ambitious though small) made at the authors' institution to build an educational experience focused on creativity.

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Section: Learning With Understandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creativity as an Emergent Property of Complex Educational System

Monahan¹,

Munakata²,

Vaidya³

2019

NEJCS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As Mason's (2008) work on complexity theory indicates, regardless of our educational practices, what future teachers learn from us will always be filtered through the lenses of their own understanding and experience. They take up the understandings and curricular practices that most resonate with their own vision of what it means to teach and their evolving identity as teachers.…”

Section: S-stepmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intimate Scholarship in Research: An Example From Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices Methodology

Hamilton

Pinnegar

2014

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Using self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (S-STEP) research as an example, we explore intimate scholarship and the ways it captures particular lives and experiences within the educational world. To do that we define, explore, and consider how teachers and teacher educators can use this personal and vulnerable scholarship. We provide an example as evidence of ways that intimate scholarship in the form of S-STEP supports learning from experience. We assert that positioning researchers to examine what we know about teaching and being a teacher educator is profitable for the larger research conversation.

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“…Complexity theory, essentially, illuminates the intricacies of nonlinear dynamical systems, natural and social, whose myriad interactive parts self-organize spontaneously and unpredictably just at the edge of chaos where creative leaps and higher levels of complex behaviors emerge (Kauffman 1995;Prigogine & Stengers 1984). Basic complexity principles have enriched such areas as education philosophy (Mason 2008;Semetsky 2008); structured but flexible curriculum design (Doll 1993(Doll , 2012Gough 2013); gifted education on the chaos-order continuum (Ambrose 2015); nonlinear transactional literary experience (Hayles 1991;Gillespie 1999); reciprocally interactive teaching-learning dynamics (Steenbeek & van Geert 2013); and doctoral programs that prepare educators "for one of their most important roles: to disrupt, to challenge, to disorient--in service of enhancing critical reflection, creativity, and transformative learning" (Wergin 2011 p.126). Placing education within the fluid frame of a creative turbulent universe, complexity gives educators insight into teaching-learning as an adaptive open system in which passively receiving information is less meaningful than actively contextualizing, connecting, and cocreating knowledge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Being in Uncertainties: An Inquiry-based Model Leveraging Complexity in Teaching-Learning

Rosen¹

2019

NEJCS

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Education is traditionally structured as a closed system, privileging result-driven methods that offer control and predictability. In recent decades this reductionist approach has been effectively challenged by interdisciplinary work in complex systems theory, revealing myriad levels of orderly disorder that make either-or, linear instruction an inadequate norm. Narrowing the broad implications of a complexity lens on education, this paper focuses on generative uncertainty in teaching-learning, a paradoxical state of epistemological and creative growth described by English poet John Keats as "the negative capability of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts." Opportunities to advance this potentiating capacity are especially abundant in constructivist curricula, for example the Methods of Inquiry (MoI) program discussed herein. MoI's open, complexitybased approach foregrounds uncertainty-tolerance and other interactive dispositions, providing a fluid structure for the emergent, often turbulent nature of meaning production. Such dynamic attitudes and strategies are seen as essential for any classroom practice that seeks to transform as well as inform, to guide and also empower.

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Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Education

Cited by 64 publications

References 0 publications

Creativity as an Emergent Property of Complex Educational System

Creativity as an Emergent Property of Complex Educational System

Intimate Scholarship in Research: An Example From Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices Methodology

Being in Uncertainties: An Inquiry-based Model Leveraging Complexity in Teaching-Learning

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