Session Information
27 SES 08 C, The Knowledge of Teachers in Professional Development
Paper Session
Contribution
Complexity theory in the physical sciences describes systems in which groups of agents acting in relation to only their immediate environment nevertheless develop an organisational structure which is able to evolve and adapt. It also highlights the sensitivity of this structure to small changes and the indeterminate nature of these changes.
In education, these characteristics have been applied to understanding action research (Radford, 2008); curriculum (Osberg, 2005; Doll, 2008) and change in educational systems (Mason, 2008). Whilst this is a promising field, complexity theory within education is still in its infancy, and a systematic and rigorous evaluation of the validity of transferring concepts from the physical to the social sciences is urgently required before analysing the usefulness of complexity theory in describing educational settings.
In this paper I evaluate the validity of transferring understanding about complex systems from the physical sciences to understanding the dynamic interactions in a classroom, through focus on the below research questions:
1. What general properties of complex systems can be defined from the physical sciences?
2. What is the validity of using this understanding of complex systems to consider learning in classrooms?
3. How useful are concepts from complexity theory in understanding classroom learning?
Through these research questions the paper leads to the development of a theoretical framework for describing classrooms as a complex system.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Cilliers, P. (1998) Complexity & Postmodernism – Understanding Complex Systems. London: Routledge Doll, W. (2008). Complexity and the Culture of the Curriculum. Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 40, No. 1 Mason, M. (2008) What is Complexity Theory and What Are Its Implications for Educational Change? Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40 (1) pp35-49 Osberg, D. (2005) Curriculum, Complexity and Representation – Rethinking the epistemology of schooling through complexity theory. Ph.D. Thesis, The Open University Prigogine, I. (1978) Time, Structure, and Fluctuations. Science, New Series Vol. 201, No 4358. Pp. 777-785 Prigogine, I. (1997) The end of Certainty: Time, Chaos, and the New Laws of Nature. New York: The Free Press Prigogine, I. & Stengers, I (1984) Order out of Chaos: Man’s new dialogue with nature. London: Flamingo Radford, M. (2006) “Researching Classrooms: Complexity & Chaos” 2006, British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 32, No. 2 172-90
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