Systems Thinking
© Copyright Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Adapted from the Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development and Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development with Nonprofits. Three of the biggest breakthroughs in how we understand and successfully guide changes in ourselves, others and organizations are systems theory, systems thinking and systems tools.
Harvard Open Courses
At Harvard Extension School, free and open learning is hardly a new concept. In fact, the Extension School was founded with this mission in mind: to create an affordable way for any motivated student to take courses at Harvard. We stay true to this mission today, offering several free courses and nearly 800 for-credit courses at reasonable tuition rates. Explore our series of free or low-cost courses below.
Understanding Delays
2.2 Studying the First Order Negative Feedback System with Excel I program the system in Excel and carry out further experiments. I also notice the programming task becomes much easier. 2.2.1 First Order Negative Feedback Loop Responseto a Step in the The first driver function I use for the First Order Negative Feedback model is the Step.
Sociotechnical systems
Sociotechnical systems (STS) in organizational development is an approach to complex organizational work design that recognizes the interaction between people and technology in workplaces. The term also refers to the interaction between society's complex infrastructures and human behaviour. In this sense, society itself, and most of its substructures, are complex sociotechnical systems. The term sociotechnical systems was coined by Eric Trist, Ken Bamforth and Fred Emery, World War II era, based on their work with workers in English coal mines at the Tavistock Institute in London.[1]
Systems thinking
Impression of systems thinking about society[1] A system is composed of interrelated parts or components (structures) that cooperate in processes (behavior). Natural systems include biological entities, ocean currents, the climate, the solar system and ecosystems. Designed systems include airplanes, software systems, technologies and machines of all kinds, government agencies and business systems. Systems Thinking has at least some roots in the General System Theory that was advanced by Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the 1940s and furthered by Ross Ashby in the 1950s. The term Systems Thinking is sometimes used as a broad catch-all heading for the process of understanding how systems behave, interact with their environment and influence each other.
AVID Leadership
Dr. Sandy Husk, Chief Executive Officer Dr. Sandy Husk joined AVID Center as Chief Executive Officer in January 2014, bringing more than 17 years of experience implementing AVID in the three districts where she has served as superintendent, most recently in Salem-Keizer, Oregon, the second largest district in that state.
PISA
This years focus is mathematics with an additional test in creative thinking. The new PISA 2021 mathematics framework was recently launched. Preparations for this test are underway with participants from 36 OECD members and likely 50+ non-members involved. The PISA 2024 innovative domain, Learning in the Digital World, aims to measure students’ ability to engage in self-regulated learning while using digital tools. The tasks measure students’ capacity to monitor their progress, use feedback and stay engaged while they build models and develop solutions with digital tools.
Is shale gas as green as the oil companies say?
"You just wouldn't believe you could get gas out of that, would you?" said Mark Miller, chief executive of UK gas company Cuadrilla Resources, turning over a lump of hard black rock. It is dark, extremely dense and very heavy, with a smooth and almost chalky feel, and is found buried thousands of feet beneath the surface of the earth in deposits made 300m years ago. There are no holes, nothing to betray the fact that this shale rock can be made to yield natural gas in such quantities that it could power the globe for centuries. Shale is being hailed as the green energy of the future because new technologies can be used to fracture the dense rock and flood it with water to release bubbles of natural gas that can be burned for electricity with – according to the gas industry – only about half of the carbon dioxide emissions of coal. "This source of gas is revolutionary," said Malcolm Brinded, foremost expert on the technology at Royal Dutch Shell.
