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# The construction of systems thinking pedagogy during a professional development institute

## Details

**Authors** Gretchen S. Goode, Laurie MacGillivray

**Year** 2023

**Publisher** Journal of Pedagogical Research

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Education

**Kind of engagement** scholarly

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.33902/JPR.202318879) 
10.33902/JPR.202318879

## In authors' words

### Abstract

The prevalence of systems thinking pedagogy is growing in classrooms because of its inclusion in the Next Generation Science Standards and its potential as a tool for addressing complex, global problems. While most of the research on systems thinking targets the ways students develop system thinking skills, this qualitative study explores teachers' construction of systems thinking as a pedagogy in a professional development context. With this paradigm-shifting pedagogy, teacher learning in professional development is a critical piece of understanding how the practice is taken up. Using social constructionism, discourse analysis, and systems theory, we conducted a holistic case study to analyze how teachers privileged language and ways of knowing during a professional development institute on systems thinking. We found that the teachers considered systems thinking as a catalyst for shifting their thinking, curriculum, and classroom dynamics; imperative to this shift was the implementation of systems mapping as the central activity of the pedagogy. Their model of systems thinking pedagogy respected both teachers and students as capable academics; additionally, it privileged a professional development culture of "becoming" in which the power of the collective was a point of leverage for teachers to disrupt what can be perceived as low expectations for their students and themselves as professionals.

### What they found (results)

Teachers came to treat systems thinking as a catalyst for reshaping curriculum and classroom dynamics, with systems mapping as the central practice through which the pedagogy was enacted.

## Commentary

### In short

A qualitative case study of a teacher professional development institute in which DSRP is the named account of the four skills systems thinking instruction should build, and facilitators' questioning during systems mapping was organized around those patterns. The paper documents how practicing teachers took up that pedagogy in their own terms.

**Patterns it shows** D, S, R, P

**Added** 2026-10-03

**How to cite this** Gretchen S. Goode, Laurie MacGillivray (2023). The construction of systems thinking pedagogy during a professional development institute. Journal of Pedagogical Research.