Teachers’ and educators’ perspectives on systems thinking and its implementation in Dutch biology education

Abstract

Systems thinking, the ability to reason about systems in abstract terms, fosters students' coherent understanding of biology. This study aimed to determine to what extent the integration of systems thinking in Dutch biology education is in line with perspectives from systems theories and experts. We related the perspective on systems thinking of systems biologists (n = 7) to those of biology teachers (n = 8) and educators (n = 9). The resulting perspectives were interpreted in terms of three systems theories, General Systems Theories (GST), Cybernetics and Dynamical Systems Theories (DST). Thirdly, we determined to what extent and how teachers and educators pay attention to systems thinking in their teaching practice. This was all done by the use of open-ended interviews and online questionnaires. The results show that the systems biologists and teacher educators involved implicitly refer to three systems theories, whereas the teachers refer to the GST and cybernetics only. Despite this, the results suggest that the implementation of systems thinking in Dutch pre-service teacher training and secondary biology education falls short of expectations. These outcomes underline the importance of teacher (educator) professional development on teaching systems thinking to bridge the gap between research and teaching practice.

Bringing systems thinking into the classroom

“…In a previous study (Gilissen et al, 2019), the perspectives of current systems biology experts were studied in the light of these three systems theories. This study led to a description of systems thinking in terms of seven system characteristics as summarised in Table 1.…”

“…Summary of the three systems theories in terms of seven system characteristics. This table is based on the system theoretical concepts of three systems theories described by Boersma et al (2011) and the input from systems biologists and biology teacher educators in a previous study (Gilissen et al, 2019).…”

“…In summary, several recommendations are given in literature on how to support students' systems thinking. Nonetheless, the results of a previous study (Gilissen et al, 2019) suggest that Dutch secondary biology teachers rarely include systems thinking in their teaching practice, while systems thinking has been included as a domain-specific skill in the curriculum for secondary biology education since 2010 (Boersma et al, 2010, p. 33). To improve the implementation of systems thinking in education teachers need to be supported to foster students' systems thinking.…”

Can Elementary School Students Understand the Complexity of the Lesser Kestrel’s Ecological system?

“…Perceiving systems, as suggested by Gilissen et al (Gilissen et al, 2019), requires current secondary biology education to address the investigation of the universal characteristics of biological systems by students: identification of the system, inputs and outputs, emergent properties, and the development of systems over time. Biologists study living organisms varying from cells and plants to human behavior and ecosystems.…”

Enhancing Students' Biology-Critical Thinking Skill through CIRC-Based Scientific Approach (Cirsa)

“…Studying biology should not merely focus on knowledge related to the curriculum components. However, it should be able to empower a variety of thinking skills required by learners [11,12]. As human beings living in the 21st century, learners must be equipped with four skills, namely collaboration, communication, creative thinking, and critical thinking [7,[13][14][15].…”