How can we think the complex?

In this chapter we want to provide philosophical tools for understanding and reasoning about complex systems. Classical thinking, which is taught at most schools and universities, has several problems for coping with complexity. We review classical thinking and its drawbacks when dealing with complexity, for then presenting ways of thinking which allow the better understanding of complex systems. Examples illustrate the ideas presented. This chapter does not deal with specific tools and techniques for managing complex systems, but we try to bring forth ideas that facilitate the thinking and speaking about complex systems

Design thinking in medical education: the key features and practical application

Design thinking is a process that applies both creativity and innovation to iteratively develop and implement a new product. The design thinking process also enhances design thinking skills that are essential for personal and professional life in a complex world. Healthcare is increasingly being faced with complex problems and the education of current and future doctors in design thinking is an important curricular challenge for all medical educators. Medical educators will need to enhance their own design thinking skills to enable them to effectively respond to this challenge. <br/

Teaching and Learning in Interdisciplinary Higher Education: A Systematic Review

Interdisciplinary higher education aims to develop boundary-crossing skills, such as interdisciplinary thinking. In the present review study, interdisciplinary thinking was defined as the capacity to integrate knowledge of two or more disciplines to produce a cognitive advancement in ways that would have been impossible or unlikely through single disciplinary means. It was considered as a complex cognitive skill that constituted of a number of subskills. The review was accomplished by means of a systematic search within four scientific literature databases followed by a critical analysis. The review showed that, to date, scientific research into teaching and learning in interdisciplinary higher education has remained limited and explorative. The research advanced the understanding of the necessary subskills of interdisciplinary thinking and typical conditions for enabling the development of interdisciplinary thinking. This understanding provides a platform from which the theory and practice of interdisciplinary higher education can move forwar

Сигнальні системи та проблеми мислення особистості норми і патології (Signal system and problems of thinking of personality in health and disease)

У статті розглядаються історичні складові та перспективи міждисциплінарних досліджень сигнальних систем, мови і мислення особистості у єдиному функціональному комплексі. (This article offers to review different historical components and prospects of interdisciplinary researches in the signaling system of language and thinking of a personality in its indivisible functional complex.

Managing systemic risk using systems thinking in practice

Managing uncertainties associated with, say, water security, toxic wastes, or biotechnology, invites growing relevance from the field of complexity sciences that everything is connected. Systems ideas such as complex adaptive systems or the ecosystems approach have consequently gained attention in recent years for promoting more joined-up thinking. But such ideas of systems have limited currency. Issues about interconnections – and calls for joined-up thinking – ought not to be seen in isolation from related systems issues of multiple values and different stakeholder perspectives. Moreover, such issues are related to political issues of partiality and selectivity – that is, system boundary judgements that circumscribe perspectives. A practical dimension of systems thinking using the metaphor of conversation and creative space prompts a more systemic appreciation of real world interconnections in relation to multiple perspectives and boundary judgements. Systems thinking in practice provides a more appropriate systemic space for managing systemic risk

Bells that still can ring: systems thinking in practice

Complexity science has generated significant insight regarding the interrelatedness of factors and actors constituting our real world and emergent effects from such interrelationships. But the translation of such rich insight towards developing appropriate tools for improving real world situations of change and uncertainty provides a further significant challenge. Systems thinking in practice is a heuristic framework based upon ideas of boundary critique for guiding the use and development of tools from different traditions in managing complex realities. By reference to five systems approaches, each embodying more than 30 years of experiential use, three interrelated features of the framework are drawn out – contexts of systemic change, practitioners as change agents, and tools as systems constructs that can themselves change through adaptation. The ‘bells that still can ring’ refer to tools associated with the Systems tradition which have demonstrable capacity to change and adapt by continual iteration with changing context of use and different practitioners using them. It is in the practice of using such tools whilst being aware of significant ‘cracks’ associated with traps in managing complex realities that enables systems thinking in practice to evolve. Complexity tools as examples of systems thinking can inadvertently invite traps of reductionism within contexts, dogmatism amongst practitioners, and fetishism of our tools as conceptual constructs associated with ultimately undeliverable promises towards achieving holism and pluralism. The heuristic provides a guiding framework on monitoring the development of tools from different traditions for improving complex realities and avoiding such traps

Using complex adaptive systems to investigate Aboriginal-tourism relationships in Purnululu National Park: exploring the role of capital

Resource management systems such as national parks are complex and dynamic with strong interdependencies between their human and ecological components. Their management has become more difficult as scale, impacts and consequences have increased and local communities have become increasingly involved. Increasing pressures from tourism have added to this management complexity. Complex adaptive systems thinking, and especially the metaphor of the adaptive cycle (Holling 2001), can potentially enhance our understanding of these resource systems, including national parks. The concept of the adaptive cycle can help understand changes over time in a system such as a national park