I will send out Week 2 summary email later today (and post it here). Before that I wanted to respond to some of the feedback. First, many thanks. It really is very helpful to understand your experiences. Before I get into the specifics some general comments and explanations.
Some of you are finding some of the material a bit abstract and challenging. In the first instance if there is anything you donāt understand, then please talk to me in class or drop me an email. Now we are in groups, you can talk to your group members about issues. Review the lecture videos, considering the readings and then discuss this in your groups. The peer learning aspect of this module is potentially very important. There is a lot we can learn together.
On the other hand, some of you are finding the material too superficial. We arenāt getting into the details enough. For example, some of you are worried that there was little content today about the actual global challenges, particularly with the first assessment deadline coming up. And some of you are worried about the number of assessment. Please donāt worry! The first assessment – the report about systems – should be straightforward. You should all get a very good mark. Weāve already started to cover that material in this Tuesdayās lectures and the readings from Thinking in Systems. We continue on with that next week. I will have a report template online before the next lecture. By the end of next week you should be in a position to start writing your first report.
We will get into much more depth next week about climate change and the perfect storm. So, the workload is going to significantly increase. Thatās why it’s important to have group and peer support in place beforehand. In the meantime, if you want to get into any depth with any of the global challenges, then look at the Resources section on the course website and feel free to watch the guest lecture videos that are currently online on the YouTube channel.
There were lots of positive comments. Great to hear things are going well. Here are some specific ādonāt likesā and my responses
Donāt like:
- 6 Hats – I appreciate this. It does work. Trust me! But you donāt have to use this. Figure out what works best for you
- 9am starts – Me neither! Alas we are the mercy of timetabling. Because we are such a diverse group we have to take the time with least clashes
- lecture venue – itās not ideal for group work. Iām going to think of some solutions
- no lecture slides – I have uploaded pdf files of all the previous lecture slides and where possible I will upload them before lectures (but these very often change!)
- climate change material – We arenāt going to go into the scientific details, but how we can understand this in a systems dynamics context. Itās important!