Systems Thinking Applied to Higher Education Curricula Development

Systems Thinking (ST) is a general and yet nebulous term that describes an approach to understanding and working with complexity in the real world. ST seeks to evaluate different behaviors of individual system elements when they operate in isolation as opposed to when they are integrated as part of a larger system and placed within a particular operating environment. The education environment consists of multiple systems with different digital content, learning goals/outcomes that serve different stakeholders including teachers, learners, and administrators. The inherent complexity and interaction among these various educational system elements and functions make this environment a worthy candidate for consideration within the ST context. In this paper we examine the application of ST principles to higher education. Specifically, our study suggests that systems thinking methods and concepts can promote improved outcomes in curricula development with a positive impact on student learning