By considering the interconnectedness of various elements, such as curriculum, instruction, assessment, and school organization, systems thinking provides a framework to understand the underlying patterns, feedback loops, and leverage points that shape educational outcomes. Frick's (1993) systems view of restructuring education supports the notion…

Virtual reality is a rapidly growing technological innovation that continues to garner attention for use in education. This self-study of two teacher educators spans immersive head-mounted virtual reality implementation from 2014-2023 with middle-grades students, preservice teachers, and adult learners. Empirical data sources include learner…

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…

The majority of instructional design models have directed focus on instructional design activities such as analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. Criticisms regarding instructional design models have suggested that the use of these models provides instructional designers with a limited view of the design environment. This…

Designing within a system is ubiquitous to instructional design. In order to understand the systemic impact of design decisions within an organization, one must understand the interrelatedness of the objects within the system. Developing an understanding of context as it relates to the utility of instructional design solutions will position…

Virtual reality (VR) in education has tremendous potential in providing immersive and interactive experiences for students. Immersive virtual reality (IVR) technologies and IVR learning experiences have been increasingly used in education settings to support a variety of instructional methods and outcomes by providing experiential and authentic…

Underutilized in higher education, soft systems thinking can mitigate common challenges in implementing instructional design and technology initiatives. A valuable approach is soft systems methodology (SSM), which captures multiple stakeholder perspectives in rich pictures and activity models to support structured conversations about how to…

This paper explores the role and history of systems theory and thinking in the fields of instructional/educational technology and design. The foundations of ID/ET as fields are rich in behavioral, systematic, and positivist notions of process, but we assert that it is weaker in the reflective, thoughtful, deep and meaningful orientations. Woven…

Change is a constant presence within today's higher education institutions. Local faculty professional development opportunities may provide avenues for enacting these organizational changes through personal continuous improvement. While working to meet these organizational priorities, it is also essential that professional development must…

A core element of systems thinking is perspective taking. Perspectives help people distinguish between salient and irrelevant information, take particular types of actions, and make sense of the world. In this article, we consider what systems thinking and perspective taking means for designers in education. First, we present a framework,…

As part of a consulting initiative to guide a workforce development board in the design of a strategic plan, the authors created instruction integrating systems thinking and design thinking for the board and staff. The purpose of this instruction was to foster participant engagement in a holistic approach to the development of a strategic plan for…

This article presents the results of a collective case study exploring how K12 practitioners perceive the interaction of systems thinking, creativity, and learning from failure within their professional practice. In order to identify K12 practitioners who were well-versed in systems thinking, we targeted students within an instructional design and…

This article presents seven vignettes that focus on what technology specialists, instructional designers, teacher trainers, teachers, parents, corporate trainers and performance technologists can do to create positive and systemic change in education. These include: (1) "What Technology Specialists Can Do," by Brian Beabout; (2) "What…