Week7_Complexity

**Week 7: Complex Adaptive Systems**

**Overview**

Complex adaptive systems (CAS) are a significant shift in thinking. Instead of seeing the world as a mechanistic structure that produces set outcomes, CAS states that multiple interacting elements respond continually to feedback from each other and the environment. As such, it is difficult to predict outcomes. This limitation suggests that since outcomes are not always knowable, our attention is best served when directed at the elements interacting and the nature of their interactions. **Readings**  **Seminars** Thursday, 8 pm Eastern Time. Elluminate: [] See time zone conversions ([]) **Activities**  At this stage in the course, your concept map should be reasonably developed and you should start to see ideas from different weekly concepts connecting. Your final project should now be one of your main areas of focus.
 * Wikipedia, [|Complex Adaptive System]
 * Peter Fryer, [|What Are Complex Adaptive Systems]
 * Open University, [|Managing Complexity]
 * Jean Boulton, [|Managing in an Age of Complexity]
 * Neil Pearce and Franco Merletti, [|Complexity, simplicity, and epidemiology]
 * Keith Morrison, [|Complexity Theory and Education]
 * Keith Hamon, [|Complexity and Personal Learning Environments]
 * C. F. Kurtz and D. J. Snowden, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #0000cc; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; text-align: left;">[|Bramble Bushes in a Thicket]
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Dave Snowden's Cynefin framework is detailed here: <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; text-align: left;">[]
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; text-align: left;"> This short video contains a well-known Snowden narrative of "how to organize a birthday party" that reflects his views on complexity: <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; text-align: left;">[]