I. Rationale
Please provide a rationale for the course which explains how the course being proposed fits into
this Cluster based on the Cluster's description. For your convenience, the overall description and
rationale for this component are included below.
Overall Description and Rationale for Thematic Transdisciplinary Cluster on
Foundations for Systems Thinking
We all realize that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Why is this, and how do
parts of systems fit together? Understanding of the mechanisms that generate whole-system
level, emergent patterns is the focus of the Foundations in Systems Thinking Cluster.
The world around us is fundamentally hierarchical – systems within systems, nested like
matryoshka dolls – from human societies that build from individual to family, neighborhood,
community, and nation, to the natural world, which builds from organism to population,
community, and ecosystem. All such systems have internal feedbacks and dynamics (e.g., supply
and demand, competition for resources) that can produce emergent properties difficult to predict
by examining a single level of organization (e.g., economic globalization, altruistic social
networks). Groundbreaking advances in any one discipline have often occurred when
investigators apply systems thinking from a different discipline. By understanding that systems
are nested hierarchies and bringing insights from different disciplines to bear on new problems,
students can learn how to look to lower levels of organization for mechanistic processes and to
higher levels for other kinds of constraints on system dynamics and organization.
Brief Statement of Rationale for Course’s Inclusion in Foundations for Systems Thinking
Cluster
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II. Common Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)
Each course must address all of the Common Student Learning Outcomes for this Cluster and list
these Common SLOs along with course-specific SLOs in the model course syllabus (to be
attached). For each Common SLO, list the course SLOs that address the common SLO, describe
the opportunities which will be provided for students to learn the outcome (readings, class
discussion and/or activities, applied projects), and list the means of assessment (exams, papers,
projects, quizzes, etc.) that will be used to determine the level of student understanding.
TTC 1. Students will identify multiple ways that linkages between parts of systems change
overall system function.
Course SLO(s) to Address TTC 1
Opportunities for Student Learning
(reading, researching, discussing, listening, viewing, etc.)
Means of Assessing Course SLO(s)
(exams, papers, projects, quizzes, etc.)
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TTC 2. Students will apply integrative understanding of feedback, dynamics and adaption
to critical evaluation of systems.
Course SLO(s) to Address TTC 2
Opportunities for Student Learning
(reading, researching, discussing, listening, viewing, etc.)
Means of Assessing Course SLO(s)
(exams, papers, projects, quizzes, etc.)
Submission instructions:
Please submit cover form, all component forms, a model syllabus, and College/School’s course
action form (if needed) to your department chair. Department chairs should then submit these
forms, syllabus, and course action form (if needed) in one email message to
universitystudies@uncw.edu from their UNCW email address.
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