Systems Thinking and Modeling: From Butterfly Posture to Artificial Intelligence

One hundred years ago, Paul Weiss and Ludwig von Bertalanffy independently proposed that living organisms interact with their environment through systems. In the century that has followed, systems thinking and modeling have grown in tandem with discovery of the vast complexity of the universe at microscopic through astronomic levels. As our knowledge base increases, methods of organization for efficient mental models and insight into key variables for leverage points become crucial. This is particularly important in learning design environments. As educators increasingly grapple with fostering learning in ill-structured problem spaces, systems thinking and modeling provide means of aiding our cognitive processing capacity, enabling us to understand how to solve the problem systemically. The explosion of computing power throughout the century supports systems thinking for learning design through progressively robust modeling tools. Today, emergence of increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence capabilities is poised to provide an expanded toolset for insights into network interconnections and leverage points. This allows for improved learning design encompassing complex world issues, such as climate change, food insecurity, health care and education.