Fostering students’ systems thinking in secondary biology education

Abstract

Systems thinking is important to make sense of the increasingly complex world around us, because complex problems cannot be solved by linear thinking. In science education systems thinking is important to help students make sense of complexity in (biological) systems, e.g., a muscle cell, the human body, an ecosystem. This higher-order thinking skill can assist students to create a more coherent understanding of biology by seeing the universal principles that apply to biological systems on different biological levels of organization. The question is: How can students’ systems thinking be fostered within secondary biology education? This dissertation answers this question and provides: (1) a definition of systems thinking that has been established by combining the perspective of systems biologists, teacher educators and biology teachers with insights from three systems theories; (2) useful design guidelines for educational practice to implement systems thinking in secondary biology education; (3) an example of the use of lesson study as a research method to bridge the gap between research and educational practice.