Dr. Marina P. Bonser (Pushnaya)

 Thesis title

Global Thinking Development of High School Students in the Integration Process of Curricular and Extracurricular Education.

Keywords

Global education, global thinking, systems thinking, holism, creativity development, education for sustainable development, integration of curricular and extracurricular education, scale for evaluation of thinking process, diagnostic, educational technology, multilevel content analyses.

Please note: Global Thinking is not a subject of debates about Globalization. In foreword of thesis I considered the difference between Globalization and Globalistics. Globalistics is a field of knowledge of global systems development, the goal of it is Sustainable Development and in particular overcoming negative sides of Globalization process. It aims to help this process to turn into way of unity of plurality but not to unification. Global Thinking could be considered as a tool for Globalistics goals. Everyone, even antiglobalists could use it to solve large scale problems.

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Abstract

Discovered a new understanding of “Global Thinking” (sustainable way of thinking) by considering the nature of Global Thinking as Creative Systems Thinking. Based on this understanding I found parameters of Global Thinking  - integrity, dynamic, and alternativity. Then I developed the scale of Global Thinking (GT) via calibrating each parameter by levels.

It makes possible to measure personal level of comlexity of thinking structure by GT scale and to find out how systemic this structure is.

 Quantity of thinking operations on each level accumulates and turn into thinking operation of a new quality. This provides transition from one level to another.

Developed an evaluation system for GT by assessing students playing games associated with solving global and large scale problems.

I discovered the personal and educational process parameters that GT depends on theoretically and confirmed it experimentally with 243 students from 5 St.Petersburg's schools.

Levels of motivation, intellect and creativity determine the maximum level of GT a person can reach. Motivation, educational process’ impact and the other possible parameters determinate the realization of that potential. (graphs) The age impact to GT development was also considered. I found that high school age is the best time for the formation of Global Thinking.

The parameters of Educational Process providing GT development by building Global Worldview are:  unity of values and meanings in Curricular and Extracurricular Education; global-oriented content of programs of Curricular or Extracurricular Education; use of educational technologies for creativity development. (Diagram and table of educational process’ impact to GT development)

Built up a technology for GT development. Teachers manage this process by interaction between a teacher and students via student’s solutions of tasks. Content of tasks is directed to the GT parameters development (separately and in a system).  Developing a diagnostic of GT at each stage of solving tasks assists the teacher in choosing following tasks until the goal of the educational process is reached. (Diagrams of results: before and after)

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Significance for Sustainable Development

 Sustainable Development could be described as a way of development which does not destroy its preconditions and conditions. All large scale human actions should be planned in the frames of this way. People need to improve the traditional way of thinking in order to use for building strategies of development of any system at any level of its connection to the entire World. Such system of thinking should take into account:

 · multilevel interconnectedness of the considered system to other systems (and finally to the entire World);

 · dynamic of development of that system by its inner potential of development and of its interactions with other systems (and with the entire World);

 · alternatives of ways of system's development at each bifurcation point in context of development (inner and outer).

 This strategy of thinking could be called the Sustainable way of thinking or the global (universal) thinking (because any subject or phenomenon is considered by the categories of the whole World).
According to the philosophical principle of the interconnectedness and likeness of a person and the Universe the structure of thinking gradually becomes the same as the structure of Universe as a whole system via building the model of the World in the mind by the functioning of above-mentioned operations when solving problems. The structure of thinking gains the properties of integrity, dynamic, and alternativity. That means global thinking development.

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Content  of the manuscript

I. Nature of Global Thinking.

The new content of the term “Global Thinking”(GT).

Parameters and evaluation system of GT.

Correlation between GT and personal parameters.

Correlation between GT and periods of human development.

II. Impact of Educational Process to GT Development.

Functioning mechanism of GT. Conditions of GT development in educational process.

 Integration process in education. Integration of curricular and extracurricular education as a condition of GT development.

Methods of evaluation of educational process'  impact to GT development:

-         by eliminating impact of personal parameters;

-         by enucleating impact of the each educational process’ component.

Interconnectedness between personal and educational process’ parameters in GT development. Mathematical description of GT as a function of many variables.

III Principles of Diagnostic and Development of GT.

Organization of  diagnostic. Versions of tasks. Interpretation of answers by GT scale. Review of the most typical and most interesting answers in the experiment.

Technology of GT development. Description and results of the experiment.

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Downloads

Please note: Content access, copying or extraction are not permitted. All rights reserved.

Main content of the thesis:

• 6-paged version (pdf, 156Kb)

• 14-paged version (pdf, 159Kb)

Whole Abstract (in Russian) (pdf, 331Kb)

Whole manuscript (in Russian):

• Theoretical conception (pdf, 833Kb)

• Practical part (pdf, 650Kb)

• Bibliography (pdf, 146Kb)

Appendixes (in Russian):

• Principles of organization of competition for global thinking (pdf, 215Kb)

• Examples of task’s contents for 7 games (pdf, 144Kb)

• Interpretation of task solutions by global thinking scale (multilevel content-analyses as a toolkit for interpretation, methods of level’s calibrating, examples)  (pdf, 242Kb)

• Review of the most typical and the most special student’s solutions of tasks (pdf, 241Kb)

• Educational technology for global thinking development by workshop content (pdf, 136Kb)

• Graphs and diagrams of the intermediate results (pdf, 234Kb)

• Mathematical description for global thinking development (pdf, 128Kb)

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Feedbacks for thesis defence (October 2004)

• Dr. Adrian Campbell, Professor, School of Public Policy, the University of Birmingham (pdf, 18Kb)

• Dr. Unto Vesa, President of the European Peace Research Association, TAPRI, University of Tampere, Finland (pdf, 13Kb)

• Dr. Galina  Suhobskaya, Professor of Psychology at Saint Petersburg’s Academy of Postgraduate Pedagogical Education (in Russian) (pdf, 137Kb)

• Dr. Olga Krokinskaya, Professor of Sociology at Saint Petersburg’s Academy of Postgraduate Pedagogical Education (in Russian)

• Dr. Ludmila Kondrashkova, Head of Department of Enhancing Teacher’s Qualification, Committee of Education, Saint Petersburg’s Government (in Russian)

• Dr. Sergey Tarasov, Head of Department of Pedagogy, Vice-Chancellor for research work at Leningrad Region Univercity of Education Development (in Russian)

• Other feedbacks from Russian doctors in Education (Pedagogy) (in Russian)