The work that I would like to highlight from this class occurred during the second and third week. In the third week, we were asked to do a deep dive into systems thinking tools. Some of the options that we had for this exercise were: systems mapping, the check in, compassionate systems leadership: a three-legged stool, the iceberg, seeing the system requires many perspectives, stock and flow diagrams, archetypes – shifting the burden, mindfulness – presence and awareness, self-compassion, broader compassion, behaviour-over-time graphs, the ladder of inference, causal links, causal connection circle mapping, and causal loop diagrams.

Our group did systems mapping. We were asked to explain what systems mapping is as well as make connections to possible usage in the classroom. Some of the ideas we came up with were pretty heavily Science and Social Studies based. For example, systems mapping could be used to link the causal relationships in historical events; whether that’s looking at the causes of war within certain countries and time periods or doing meta-analysis of larger overarching trends in history and how they impact us today. In science, systems mapping could be used to do a deep dive into environmental factors and the relationships between them. In answering the question, “What causes climate change,” a topic of interest that is very relevant in science classrooms today, systems mapping could be used to collect all the elements and factors of climate change and arrange them into a cohesive causal map. Working with system mapping makes solving problems or finding underlying issues in systems much easier.

The other work, that occurred in the second week, that I would like to highlight is the impact of connecting one’s own experience (story and identity) to our learning as teacher candidates and future/present professionals. Our 441 teacher modeled a lot of the reflective thinking practice that we are going to be imparting to our students through her assignments, and she asked us to make connections between our past experiences as students and how those experiences will impact how we act, behave, or teach in the future.