Thursday, April 21, 2022 1 pm (Eastern Time US) – Click here to watch meeting recording!

Thursday, February 24, 2022 12.00 noon (Eastern Time US) Click here to watch meeting recording!

Agenda

• We have an activity planned for part of this Pre-college SIG meeting.  One of our SIG leaders, Nilay Yilmaz, is a children’s book author in Turkey.  Nilay is in the leadership team of a multidisciplinary group of preschool, primary school, and middle school teachers, a medical doctor, and an engineer. The group has been working on systems thinking concepts (interconnection, feedback dynamics, stock/flow relationships, etc.) that should be found in storybooks so they can become the foundation of systems thinking lessons in early childhood education. To that end a systems thinking assessment tool was created to score the systems thinking concepts in children’s storybooks.
• Sometimes these stories are difficult to find at a given grade level.   Sometimes teachers have written children’s stories to support this work in their classes.  We have attached one such story written by a preschool teacher in Turkey, with the author’s permission.  (Note: the attachment is only the text of the story and does not contain the beautiful illustrations that were done to support the story.) As part of this SIG meeting we would like to take you through the process of scoring this story.  Please read the story (English version) before attending the SIG meeting.  Then you will be able to download the assessment sheet during the meeting and we will go to work.
• After we do this activity we will identify a URL that will allow you to upload (in English) your own assessments for other children’s stories you may use with your children or students, so we can collect a list of stories (and their ST strength) to help other teachers who want to bring ST into their classes (or help parents who want to introduce ST concepts to their young children).  The stories can be at any level of pre-college education.

 Here are some other topics we will discuss during the SIG meeting in February;

• Advertising the great webinar we are planning for March.  We will have 3 speakers talking about an overview strategy they used to start the process of infusing ST in pre-college education in Turkey.
• Selecting the 2-3 major goals we want to focus on for 2022 for our Pre-college SIG.
• (If time)Setting up a mentoring program for pre-college teachers who want to start using ST/SD in their classes.  More details in the April SIG meeting.

Repeat Meeting / Tuesday, March 1, 2022 12.30 noon (Singapore Time), Click here to watch meeting recording!

Thursday , December 16, 2021 / Click here to watch the meeting recordings!

Agenda:

• A webinar with 3 presenters (45 minutes):
  • Sebnem Feriver talking about her research using systems thinking with pre-school children.
  • Özgün Çetinkaya talking about using systems thinking with primary school children.
  • Sena Yildiz Degirmenci and Görkem Girgin talking about using systems thinking and system dynamics modeling with middle school children.
• The formal SIG meeting (at most 45 minutes), follows the webinar:
  • Conversations with invited researchers who have published articles on using ST/SD in pre-college education.
  • Presentation by Alan Ticotsky (author of The Shape of Change) on his new environmental science book for middle/high school.  Fresh off the press:  “Now What? A Call to Action – Environmental Systems Lessons for Upcoming Generations,” in collaboration with the Creative Learning Exchange.
  • Discussion about new focus areas for submitting papers for the ISDC for each thread.  We will discuss the focus areas for the Learning and Teaching thread.
  • (if time) an update on systems thinking assessment questions.
  • Other topics of interest from the participants.

Thursday , October 28, 2021 2.00-3.00 pm (Eastern Time US) – Click here to watch the meeting recording!

Agenda:

• Identifying potential dates (and times) for Precollege SIG meetings this academic year: (December 16, 2021, February 24, 2022, April 2-3, 2022, May 26, 2022, July-ISDC?)
  
• Presentation (15 minutes): ST/SD lesson in science for students ages 12-14 from a teacher in Meltem’s school in Turkey.
  Please let us know if you would like to make a precollege ST/SD lesson presentation at a future meeting.
  
• Identifying researchers and research articles in the area of ST/SD in precollege education (Emre Göktepe – Özgün Kurt Çetinkaya)
  A link to hundreds of relevant articles in ST/SD and education, along with another link of authors of those articles and either their website or email contact information will be provided during the Precollege SIG meeting
  •  Bibliography List for researchers in the area of ST/SD in precollege education 
  • Please fill this form if you can not find your article, monograph, report, chapter or dissertation in the list above
• The SDS Precollege SIG webpage will be under construction for the next few months. Many exciting changes will be made, with resources and important links. The work is being done by Özgün and we are very lucky to have her innovative ideas for the webpage.
  https://systemdynamics.org/special-interest-groups/pre-college-education-sig/
  
• Discussion on other relevant topics related to the use of ST/SD in Precollege education.

Thursday , August 19 2021 1.00-2.00 pm EDT – Click here to watch the meeting recording!

Agenda:

•  Introduction of new associates who will help lead the planning and discussion of the SDS Precollege SIG. All of our new associates are from Turkey. We are so lucky to have their experience and help.
  •  Meltem C. Alibeyoglu –after working 5 years as an academic coordinator, now working in the same school as R&D Coordinator in middle & secondary school and Nilay Yilmaz storybook author, holding PhD on Turkish and children’s literature. She will collaborate on determining the SIG agenda and planning for future meetings and setting up an SDS Precollege SIG Forum to promote online discussion.
  •  Sebnem F.Gezer – researcher, holding PhD in early childhood education (Title of her thesis: Systems Thinking Skills of Preschool Children in Early Childhood Education Contexts of Turkey and Germany) and Özgün Cetinkaya Kurt – classroom teacher, hoping to pursue a PhD in systems thinking in elementary education. She will be maintaining the ST/SD in Precollege Education practitioners database; maintaining the SDS Precollege SIG webpage.
  •  Göksen Kizilkaya – English language teacher in Turkey.
  • She is translating 100 systems thinking assessment questions the Turkish ST/SD educators have created over the past 5 years to English and submitting them to the ST/SD Assessment Database.
•  Current and planned activities for the SDS Precollege SIG for 2021
  • Meetings – every other month, starting in August
  • Continue to collect ST/SD assessment questions to add to the database
  • Submit questions at: https://forms.gle/6hhP2csJky8fexTRA
  • Update the SDS Precollege SIG webpage and forum – (Şebnem and Özgün)
  • Set up a convenient forum for precollege ST/SD discussions – (Özgün)
  • Maybe use the CLE listserv? Or do we want to use Slack?
  • At least one 15 minute video presentation every SIG meeting by educators who use ST/SD in their precollege classes – different levels (early childhood, primary, middle school, secondary school). Please let us know if you want to present at one of the SIG meetings.
  • Note: Özgün is preparing a presentation and handout in English for August meeting
  • Identifying academicians working in ST/SD precollege education (Emre Göktepe) We will focus on this for our next SIG meeting and have a significant list of articles for you.
  • Update and maintain a database of educators using ST/SD in precollege, globally (Sebnem and Özgün)
    • PLEASE let us know of names who should be added to the list. Please make sure the person you suggest is OK with us knowing his/her name. That person can use the link below to submit his/her name and information for our database, or you can give us his/her contact information and we will contact them for permission.
    • Google form was created – Link is https://forms.gle/8WKdjKT4aZrxRAWw9
    • We will request information from SDS Chapters regarding any ST/SD work being done in precollege
  • Find contacts in International Baccalaureate (IB) schools (Özgün) Information about potential of influence of ST/SD in IB schools will be discussed in our.