Teaching and learning system thinking in technology

Complex technological systems have emerged during the last decade as an important strand in technology teaching in several national curricula for compulsory school. However, even though understanding the systemic aspects and connected nature of contemporary society, it remains unclear what such understanding entails in detail, and even more unclear what may constitute good teaching. We present the results from a teaching-learning design project on the topic of large societal and complex technological systems, which are seen as constituted of transformation and transport, acting on matter, energy and information. The main results are a suggested and evaluated plan of teaching developed in collaboration with a team of technology teachers, as well as descriptions of how pupils’ system thinking is constituted in terms of four basic aspects: Resource and intention of the system; System component constitution; Process and transformation in components and system; Network character. In total, a teaching plan spanning four lessons was realised in four different classrooms, with classes’ sizes ranging 15 to 25 pupils in the ages 14 and 15. The teaching design progresses through focusing specific parts of various systems, for example the transformation of polluted water to clean water in a water purification plant as part of the water supply system. There is an emphasis on the function of the part in relation to the system on the one hand, and on how the part is and can be realised technically, taking care to relate the latter to what is taken up in other curricular strands of technology. The last part focuses the examination of technological systems as constituted by interacting and meaningful parts, where their network nature may emerge.