Several commentaries on Howard Gruber's paper, "The Evolving Systems Approach to Creative Work," are offered: "How High Should One Climb to Find Common Ground?" (Robert Albert); "Where is the Evolving Milieu?" (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi); "Creativity: The Individual, The Systems, The Approach" (Todd Lubart and Robert Sternberg); and "Quality and…

Following a comparative review of the concepts of "systems thinking" and "scientific thinking," the author concludes that the powerful potential of the instructional systems development model can only be achieved through a reorientation to the systems concept. (Author/JOW)

Responds to Duncan and Solovey's article describing the role of insight in strategic therapy. Considers the importance of self-understanding and insight into how past relationships affect the present to family therapy. Views strategic intervention as an important first step in change, asserting that it must be followed by greater…

Describes a model for dynamic electronic performance support systems based on NNAble, a system developed by the training group at Apple Computer. Principles for designing dynamic performance support are discussed, including a systems approach, performer-centered design, awareness of situated cognition, organizational memory, and technology use.…

A systems approach to learning organizations recognizes the interdependence of factors in an organization: connected internal and external relationships, connected environment, lived experience, and shared vision. (SK)

The prevailing mental model of schooling is a series of linear events resulting in an educated individual. To make a school a learning organization requires systems thinking, interconnected team learning, and the collective intelligence of shared and personal vision. (SK)

Recasts home economics using systems theory, social construction, and feminist principles in terms of private/public (Hestian/Hermian) space. Suggests that this framework provides a nongendered vocabulary with which to look at family and state as interacting, self-regulating systems. (SK)

Notes that one of most important ways of examining artistic works, and of explicating psychotherapeutic theories, has been the application of psychotherapy's ideas to works of art. Explores the Roman sculpture, the Laocoon, from systems point of view, discussing ways in which this work embodies family therapy concepts and how in turn those…

Explains postmodernism and discusses the role of postmodernism as it relates to educational technology and various paradigms for educational technology. Highlights include the systems approach to instructional design and the relationship between the psychological paradigm of constructivism and the aesthetic paradigm of poststructuralism. (15…

Notes that systemic or interactional counseling approaches are based on alternative view of causality and symptomatic behavior, resulting in treatment, ethical, and legal challenges to counselor. Uses spouse abuse as example to review basic components of system approaches, identify potential problems inherent in their implementation, and offer…

Proposes the notion of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) as design in order to engage ITS development with more rigor. Topics include engineering design versus ITS design; systems approach; design as problem solving; a hierarchy of paradigms; the emergence of an agent-theoretic approach; and the need for an ITS design notation. (Author/LRW)

Presents a reformulation of Hershenson's theoretical model for rehabilitation counseling in systemic and ecological terms. This macrosystem is organized by precipitating event of disability and is composed of four systems: consumer, functional, provider, and contextual. Discusses the use of the model for selecting rehabilitation interventions…

In an interview, Peter Senge discusses results of efforts to turn companies into learning organizations, how to effect change, systems thinking, the importance of a powerful head of an organization, and the difference between organizational learning and a learning organization. (JOW)

Describes graduate students' personal genograms as an exercise to facilitate training in systems thinking. Discussion covers the objectives, the assignment, evaluation of the students' work, and evaluation of the exercise. (Author/MKA)

Summarizes the successful reengineering of business processes to take full advantage of new functionality in a vendor system upgrade at Western Iowa Tech Community College. Suggests that to truly benefit from implementing new systems or major system upgrades, an institution must streamline processes, eliminate duplication of effort, and examine…