• WAIER on The Wire: Series 3, Complexity Theory and Change in Education

  • May 5 2024
  • Length: 23 mins
  • Podcast

WAIER on The Wire: Series 3, Complexity Theory and Change in Education

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  • Summary

  • In this series we chat to Dr Sian Chapman, a Senior Lecturer and Associate Dean (Post-Graduate Studies) at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia. Worked across the range of education settings from K-12 (for over 30years) and in higher education for over 10 years.

    Her research interests include creative practice, education policy and practice, teacher agency and change, and understanding systemic difference through complexity theory. These concepts are explored across a range of topics including arts education, teacher education and school diversity.

    What is complexity theory?

    • Theory of change, evolution and adaptation that may be used to describe the systemic nature of education
    • Demonstrated patterns of behaviour are the result of interactions between different elements of the system
    • Elements of the system move at different speeds – change for a teacher happens quicker than change for a class or change across a school or change across a jurisdiction

    So how is this useful for schools and classrooms?

    • Schools are complex systems…the macro and micro, dynamic and unpredictable • Complexity theory is useful to understand how and why ‘things’ (programs, interventions, policies) that work well in one setting may not work at all in another. • Complex emergence – teachers need to be out of their comfort zone for change to be possible “on the edge of equilibrium” – what does this look like for teachers?? How does this happen in our current environment?? • Specialisation and redundancy – getting the balance right…
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