scholarly journals Seven Traits of Personal Learning Environments for Designing Quality Online Learning Programs

Author(s):  
Jolie Kennedy

This chapter reports on research findings that illustrate a system view of connectedness across personal, professional, and academic contexts with implications for designing quality online learning programs. Connected learners organically blur the line between formal and informal learning when they call on their social networks and engage in online learning systems towards goals in their personal, professional, and academic lives. The phenomenological study referenced in this chapter is framed by complexity theory and grounded in research on complex adaptive systems applied to educational contexts. Examples of lived experiences illustrate how being connected in a personal learning environment is experienced as immersion in a complex adaptive system. Implications and recommendations for quality online learning programs are discussed.

Author(s):  
Marc Rabaey

This chapter introduces Complex Adaptive Systems Thinking (CAST) into the domain of Intellectual Capital (IC). CAST is based on the theories of Complex Adaptive System (CAS) and Systems Thinking (ST). It argues that the CAST, combined with Intelligence Base offers a potentially more holistic approach to managing the Intellectual Capital of an organization. Furthermore, the authors extend this IC management with additional dimensions proper to a social entity such as an organization. New organizational design methods are needed and the capability approach is such a method that supports IC in virtual and real organizations. The characteristics of Intellectual Capital are discussed in the iterative process of inquiry and the Cynefin Framework, guaranteeing a holistic view on the organization and its environment.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-143
Author(s):  
Levente Bakos ◽  
Dănuț Dumitrașcu

Abstract Risk assessment is one the key activities of any project. The unexpected situations can have catastrophic consequences. Risk assessment tries to estimate to potential known unknowns, but there is no guarantee to foresee all circumstances around a project. In this situation the project team must be adaptive and find solutions by cooperation, creativity and abductive reasoning. In the paper we tried to analyse on what extent a project and a project team can be handled as a complex adaptive system. More precisely, how the scientific and practical achievements of the theory of complex adaptive systems (CAS) can be used in project management. More exactly, we analyse the applicability of the Holonic Multi-Agent Systems in risk management of the projects. We consider the way in which holons handle the unexpected situations can be a model in project management.


Complexity ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Brous ◽  
Marijn Janssen ◽  
Paulien Herder

Organizations are increasingly looking to adopt the Internet of Things (IoT) to collect the data required for data-driven decision-making. IoT might yield many benefits for asset management organizations engaged in infrastructure asset management, yet not all organizations are equipped to handle this data. IoT data is collected, stored, and analyzed within data infrastructures and there are many changes over time, resulting in the evolution of the data infrastructure and the need to view data infrastructures as complex adaptive systems (CAS). Such data infrastructures represent information about physical reality, in this case about the underlying physical infrastructure. Physical infrastructures are often described and analyzed in literature as CASs, but their underlying data infrastructures are not yet systematically analyzed, whereas they can also be viewed as CAS. Current asset management data models tend to view the system from a static perspective, posing constraints on the extensibility of the system, and making it difficult to adopt new data sources such as IoT. The objective of the research is therefore to develop an extensible model of asset management data infrastructures which helps organizations implement data infrastructures which are capable of evolution and aids the successful adoption of IoT. Systematic literature review and an IoT case study in the infrastructure management domain are used as research methods. By adopting a CAS lens in the design, the resulting data infrastructure is extendable to deal with evolution of asset management data infrastructures in the face of new technologies and new requirements and to steadily exhibit new forms of emergent behavior. This paper concludes that asset management data infrastructures are inherently multilevel, consisting of subsystems, links, and nodes, all of which are interdependent in several ways.


2008 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Newell

Educational theorists are making increasing use of the metaphors and concepts of complexity thinking in their discourses. In particular, Professors Brent Davis, Elaine Simmt, and Dennis Sumara have written extensively about using complexity thinking to shift attention from the individual student as the locus of learning (cognizing agent) to the social collective—the class—as the locus of learning. In this model, the class (students and teacher) is (potentially) a complex adaptive system. The students and teacher remain complex adaptive systems in their own right, but through dynamic local interactions there is the possibility of emergent behaviours indicative of learning that transcends that of the individuals within the class. The social collective we know as a class becomes an instance of the Aristotlean adage, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” (With the coda that we cannot understand the whole by merely understanding the components.) Davis, Simmt, and Sumara have segued from complexity-informed descriptions of educational collectives to discussions about facilitating the self-organization of classes into complex adaptive systems – learning systems, in their language. In this paper, I discuss complex adaptive systems and look at how Davis, Simmt, and Sumara developed their thesis that the class collective, rather than individual student, is the appropriate level to investigate learning and teaching. We conclude by addressing some of the possibilities and challenges inherent in such a redescription of communities of learners.


2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 563-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias A. Mattei

AbstractIn self-adapting dynamical systems, a significant improvement in the signaling flow among agents constitutes one of the most powerful triggering events for the emergence of new complex behaviors. Ackermann and colleagues' comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the brain structures involved in acoustic communication provides further evidence of the essential role which speech, as a breakthrough signaling resource, has played in the evolutionary development of human cognition viewed from the standpoint of complex adaptive system analysis.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-153
Author(s):  
Patrick Schotanus

The aim of this paper is to contribute to Jung's later work, with a particular focus on the numerical archetypes viewed from an investor's perspective. It attempts to achieve this via a three-pronged approach. First, placing complex psychology in the framework of complexity theory allows a robust acknowledgement and treatment of ‘elusive’ macroscopic properties, i.e. archetypal dynamics, involved in the ordering of a mind as a complex adaptive system. Second, modern insights in number sense (the direct intuition of what numbers mean) provide neuroscientific support for numerical archetypes and clarify their primacy. Third, this paper points to the empirical relevance of numerical archetypes in price discovery, the self-organizing principle of the capital markets (which allocate resources in modern society). The resulting proposition is that the (collective) mind's unconscious and conscious forces can be considered as ‘intelligent’ agents. The competition between these two domains provides the necessary condition to endogenously generate innovative outcomes, the essential capability of complex adaptive systems. According to this view producing such adaptive novelty is achieved in the form of intuitive insights and imagination, which result in a vast array of symbols, e.g. prices in the case of the market's mind.


Urban Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Annetta Burger ◽  
William G. Kennedy ◽  
Andrew Crooks

Increasingly urbanized populations and climate change have shifted the focus of decision makers from economic growth to the sustainability and resilience of urban infrastructure and communities, especially when communities face multiple hazards and need to recover from recurring disasters. Understanding human behavior and its interactions with built environments in disasters requires disciplinary crossover to explain its complexity, therefore we apply the lens of complex adaptive systems (CAS) to review disaster studies across disciplines. Disasters can be understood to consist of three interacting systems: (1) the physical system, consisting of geological, ecological, and human-built systems; (2) the social system, consisting of informal and formal human collective behavior; and (3) the individual actor system. Exploration of human behavior in these systems shows that CAS properties of heterogeneity, interacting subsystems, emergence, adaptation, and learning are integral, not just to cities, but to disaster studies and connecting them in the CAS framework provides us with a new lens to study disasters across disciplines. This paper explores the theories and models used in disaster studies, provides a framework to study and explain disasters, and discusses how complex adaptive systems can support theory building in disaster science for promoting more sustainable and resilient cities.


Author(s):  
Asif Khan ◽  
Khursheed Aurangzeb ◽  
Sheraz Aslam ◽  
Musaed Alhussein

Megacities are complex systems facing the challenges of overpopulation, poor urban design and planning, poor mobility and public transport, poor governance, climate change issues, poor sewerage and water infrastructure, waste and health issues, and unemployment. Smart cities have emerged to address these challenges by making the best use of space and resources for the benefit of citizens. A smart city model views the city as a complex adaptive system consisting of services, resources, and citizens that learn through interaction and change in both the spatial and temporal domains. The characteristics of dynamic development and complexity are key issues for city planners that require a new systematic and modeling approach. Multiscale modeling (MM) is an approach that can be used to better understand complex adaptive systems. The MM aims to solve complex problems at different scales, i.e., micro, meso, and macro, to improve system efficiency and mitigate computational complexity and cost. In this paper, we present an overview of MM in smart cities. First, this study discusses megacities, their current challenges, and their emergence to smart cities. Then, we discuss the need of MM in smart cities and its emerging applications. Finally, the study highlights current challenges and future directions related to MM in smart cities, which provide a roadmap for the optimized operation of smart city systems.


Author(s):  
David G. White ◽  
James A. Levin

The goal of this research study has been to develop, implement, and evaluate a school reform design experiment at a continuation high school with low-income, low-performing underrepresented minority students. The complexity sciences served as a theoretical framework for this design experiment. Treating an innovative college preparatory program as a nested complex adaptive system within a larger complex adaptive system, the school, we used features of complex adaptive systems (equilibrium, emergence, self-organization, and feedback loops) as a framework to design a strategy for school reform. The goal was to create an environment for change by pulling the school far from equilibrium using a strategy we call “purposeful perturbations” to disrupt the stable state of the school in a purposeful way. Over the four years of the study, several tipping points were reached, and we developed agent-based simulation models that capture important dynamic properties of the reform at these points. The study draws upon complexity theory in multiple ways that have supported improved education for low-achieving students.


2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (6) ◽  
pp. 742-759 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sitki Corbacioglu ◽  
Suleyman Celik ◽  
Ulvi Saran

This paper examines the response to the 2006 avian influenza crisis in Turkey. Using complex adaptive systems as the theoretical framework, the paper discusses the extent to which the Turkish disaster management system showed self-adaptation during the crisis. Self-adaptation requires organizational flexibility that facilitates sufficient information flow through technical and cultural infrastructures. This study uses qualitative methods to analyze the data. The research findings indicate that during the crisis, Turkish disaster management was faced with critical difficulties related to organizational, technical and cultural capacities that undermined its capacity to adapt to changing conditions. The system was able to manage these difficulties in seven to ten days; however, Turkey’s contemporary disaster response services still require a transformation to effectively respond to any influenza pandemic.


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