T205 Systems Thinking: principles & practice
This is a level 2 60 point course. The course teaches Systems
Thinking, funnily enough, which is rather different from the
systematic thinking most of us usually do. Systems thinking is
all about looking at issues holistically, taking into account
the different perspectives of the various actors and
stakeholders, and looking at areas of soft complexity, which are
normally overlooked by systematic thinkers.
This description only just touches the surface of what
Systems Thinking is all about, I could also have mentioned
Traps, Causality, Feedback Loops, Control Models,
Interconnectedness, Hard Complexity, Difficulties & Messes,
Boundaries, Emergence, Dependence, Worldview and Unintended
Consequences, but I won't.
Diagramming is used extensively trough out the course, systems
maps are used to identify our system of interest, and Influence
Diagrams and Multiple Cause diagrams are used to explore
influences and causality. Sign Graphs can be used to identify
feedback loops.
The key to doing well in this course is using systemic language
throughout your TMA’s. Some of the course material I found
rather heavy going, although this is a technology course, a lot
of the material wouldn’t really be out of place on a social
science course.
The 1st module was easy enough, introducing us to the basics of
Holism, Hard & Soft Complexity and starting off diagramming, but
as the course went on the subject matter definitely got harder.
In Module 3 we looked at Stakeholders and used the ‘Sardar
Sarovar’ dam on the Narmada River in India as an example, this
module also had a strong theme of Sustainability. Although we
weren’t studying ‘sustainability’ and the Dam per see, they were
merely used to demonstrate System Thinking principles, an
interest in the area of sustainability and conservation would
definitely have helped!
This was also the 1st course in my (so far) 4 years of study
that involved an end of course exam, which made up 50% of the
marks for this course. For those new to OU study in general and
OU exams in particular I can’t stress the importance of revision
enough.
60% of the marks in the exam were from being able to answer
questions on the basics Systems Thinking, such as what diagrams
can be developed into what other diagrams, what complexity is
etc. The remaining 40% is on answering a mini case study using
systemic methods.
The other 50% of the course marks come from 6 TMA’s. The final
TMA, which is double weighted, non substitutable and non
extendable, is a case study on a subject of your choice. You
need to do a mini project plan, use all the main diagrams taught
during the course and use ‘systemic thinking’ throughout.
Luckily you get to do some ground work on the project in some of
the preceding TMA’s but you will need to decide what you subject
area is going to be and make sure you have plenty of time to
complete the project.
Some photos of the diagram types used in T205 are shown
on my TXR248 page. TXR248 is a week long residential course on
‘experiencing systems’.
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