My 5-week online course Making Sense of Systems starts this Friday, February 28. With over 20 participants signed up from Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand I am looking forward to it! Check out the page linked above to learn more and to register. I have copied the course schedule below. I offer the course on a sliding scale ($49-$199) to keep it accessible. Feel free to share with others you think might be interested. Reach out with any questions you might have.
Know that video lectures are pre-recorded, so you do not have to be available at a set time each Friday (when new lessons become available) to access them. I open new lessons on Fridays so participants can read through them over the weekend, and participate in discussion forums and weekly Zoom calls over the coming week as their schedules allow.
Course Schedule
Week 1: Introduction (February 28-March 6): This first lesson introduces basic system vocabulary and core concepts: systems, resources, stocks, flows, relationships, causality, nested systems, agents, goals, and outcomes. It also introduces systems mapping, a basic tool for systems analysis. This week’s case study focuses on the human holobiont, the assemblage of species large and small that collaborate to create the human being.
Week 2: System Regulation (March 6-March 13): This lesson explores how systems self-organize and regulate themselves. This week’s case study investigates how feedback loops regulate our planet’s climate system and how certain human activities undermine that regulatory capacity.
Week 3: System Change (March 13-March 20): This lesson explores two models of system change, the ball & trough model and the adaptive cycle. This week’s case study looks at system change writ large by investigating factors linked to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.
Week 4: System Intervention (March 20-March 27): This week introduces the iceberg model of systems intervention as well as strategies put forwards by Donella Meadows in her work. The concepts of paradigms and worldviews are introduced. This week’s case study focuses on how the human nervous system regulates itself and how nervous system dysregulation impacts human social behavior and lays the foundation for many social and environmental problems.
Week 5: Living in Systems (March 27-April 3): This week introduces (or reintroduces) participants to concepts that attempt to guide how we engage with systems, including sustainability, resilience, robustness, resistance, and adaptation. This week’s case study contrasts two alternative organizing principles: sustainability and adaptation.