June 27, 2012
First, apologies for the silence. We ran into some transition issues
between the old team and the new team you just elected that resulted in
no one having access to the list serve after the Annual Meeting. We've
fixed that and I will be the transition contact for the next couple of
weeks until the new leadership team is in place and set up for managing
the SIG. So, some updates:
SIG Elections
May as well go with the big one first. As you are probably aware, our
elections occurred very late in the process. AERA is very insistent that
we have two individuals nominated for each open position. That did not
happen, so we were required to go through additional steps in the
process to receive approval to have a write-in option as second
candidate for chair and secretary before AERA would run our election.
Voting closed last Friday, June 22nd. It will take a week or two for
AERA to certify the new officers, so I will be serving a transition role
until then.
2012 Vancouver Meeting
We had a great slate of sessions this year. We were allotted two full
sessions, two roundtable sessions, a poster session, and our business
meeting. The two sessions were both symposia: one featuring the efforts
by the Waters Foundation to create systems-based schools with systems
thinking integrated into both school organization as well as the
learning curriculum; the other a coordinated set of presentations on the
use of game theory and its integration into instructional design
models, including Quest to Learn in New York City. The two roundtable
sessions were lively and engaging with one focused on practical
applications of systems thinking to classroom learning and the other
focused on systems thinking frameworks for thinking about education.
Lance Vikaros delivered the keynote for the business meeting, presenting
his paper on using knowledge visualization to better understand how
students engage in systems thinking. I've attached a brief program
report to this message is you're interested in the specific stats for
this year.
2013 San Francisco Meeting
By now you should have received a reminder from us to consider
submitting a proposal for the 2013 meeting in San Francisco. The theme
for 2013 is Education and Poverty: Theory, Research, Policy, and Praxis.
This is an ideal theme for those of us engaged in systems and systems
thinking. The interaction between poverty and educational achievement as
well as attainment has critical implications for children and for our
future. Those of you engaged in school improvement efforts are well
aware of the importance of context in implementing turnaround,
transformation, or improvement efforts. We'd love to see some
submissions that address the role of a systems perspective in addressing
school improvement, student achievement, and educational attainment.
Submissions are due July 22. Midnight, Pacific Time, is the witching
hour, so get your laptops revved up and get those submissions coming in.
Conference sessions are allocated based on the number of submission
each unit receives as a proportion of the overall number of submissions
that come into AERA. Over the past three years, we've been able to
increase our allotment each year - thank you all! So, let's keep growing
our presence on the program.
Membership
For the past two years, membership has hovered between 108 and 130. That
is down from three years ago when we had 215 members. A large part of
the drop is linked to people letting their AERA membership lapse. Let's
see what we can do to build our membership back up. Spread the word
about the SIG, encourage people to go to San Francisco and to go to SIG
sessions as well as the business meeting. Get people involved in systems
thinking. It's a much bigger field than just examining systems -
there's a wealth of possibilities for using systems paradigms in
research, evaluation, and practice. So, let's work to grow this year,
both in level of submissions as well as membership. And, please, if you
attend AERA in 2013, do make a commitment to attend the business meeting
and SIG sessions. Some great networking conversations came out of all
our sessions this past year - we'd love to see you involved in those
conversations next year.
That's our update for now. As your outgoing program chairs, we have
enjoyed working to build the SIG and look forward to supporting the new
leadership team as they come on board.
Jan Noga and Gary Skolits
Program Co-Chairs
Systems Thinking in Education SIG