Schools are ideal settings to promote adolescent physical activity (PA), yet school-based interventions have shown limited long-term impact. This position paper presents key issues surrounding school-based PA interventions. Collaborative conceptual thinking drawing on multi-author expertise and available evidence advanced our understanding and…

Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility and physical activity-based afterschool programs have been identified as two avenues for learning social and emotional learning (SEL) skills. However, the transfer of SEL skills learned in programs is limited. One issue restricting transfer may be the misalignment between values and messages among a…

This article provides an appraisal of collaborative conceptual modelling (CCM) as a tool for research translation. First developed by Newell and Proust (2012), CCM draws on the tools and frameworks of systems thinking as a way of addressing transdisciplinary problems. We applied CCM in two separate workshops - one discussing 'Digital Cities', and…

Research suggests that systems thinking is beneficial to education and it has been proposed that training students using systems thinking techniques may enhance their abilities to understand and solve some of the global grand challenges that society currently faces as outlined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, before…

Approaching elective courses and courses on special topics in Chemistry can seem daunting at times, given the varied backgrounds of the students, together with the broad nature of topics. Often, institutions may give incentives for creating sustainability related course offerings, but knowing where to start and how to organize the information…

System theory defines the life course ("Lebenslauf") as the medium of education. It is a medium, because the educator sees it as a potential for intervention, impressing pedagogically acceptable forms onto it. Yet the single individuals who are educated are autonomous observers who are exposed to an immense quantity of possible…

This study examines how middle school students develop an increasingly coherent understanding of aquatic ecosystems. As part of a broader design research study that used Structure-Behavior-Function (SBF) theory as an organizing conceptual representation, we created two instructional units that focused on pond and aquarium environments. We coded…

This report describes a study of three English teachers' and three students' participation in two high school environment clubs. Teachers' and students' interview perceptions were analyzed based a critical inquiry systems thinking framework involving inferences of purposes, outcomes, norms, and beliefs/discourses constituting…

Exploring students' systems thinking (ST) is essential in enhancing science learning, but existing studies have failed to understand students' ST fully as it relates to ecological issues. This study aimed to fill the aforementioned literature gap by exploring lower-secondary school students' ST regarding ecological issues. The Systems Thinking…

Anchored in the work of Fanon (1952), Mbembe (2019), and Spivak (1988), I take an autoethnographic journey that traces colonization and the subtle forces of coercion that exist in the academy and society, particularly in the US. I draw on Holland et al. (1998) to position myself in a figured world, a unique constellatory network of histories,…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to understand how context may shape multiple goal negotiation. Prior research has focused on identifying variables that influence goal pursuit in general, but little attention has been given to how these principles operate in different circumstances. This study adopted the Dynamic Systems Model of…

Despite long-standing efforts to address and eliminate disproportionality in special education, inequities remain and continue to negatively impact Black, Indigenous, and other students of color with Individualized Education Programs. This brief from the Western Educational Equity Assistance Center (WEEAC) supports state education agencies, local…

Higher education plays an important role in preparing future citizens and leaders with the capacity to address systemic issues behind complex problems such as climate change. There have however been few attempts to assess systems-related competencies in the context of complex problems. This study adapted an existing scenario-based assessment tool…

Learner motivation is an essential ingredient for successful language learning. This article investigates the motivating and demotivating factors affecting the motivation of fifty-eight EAP learners' L2 learning. Guided by complex dynamic systems theory, with a dual focus on both what factors are important and what role these play in the L2…

The decline of public education and the concomitant loss of the commons are increasingly recognized as significant and interwoven issues. Like other prevailing societal problems, such as the tenacity of institutionalized racism, classism, and patriarchy, these conditions are rooted in the ways growing numbers of people have come to think and act…