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Table of Contents:

The Final Framework:

  

Numeracy: Workplace Systems Thinking

Purpose: To focus on the systems thinking and work process knowledge aspects of mathematics.

References: 9, 57

In a global knowledge economy which values the relationship between people’s skills, their culture (values & norms) and their processes, team work, communication, continuous learning at both the organisational and the individual level are sought, together with the competency of information literacy. In a society of information ‘glut’, the ability to detect ‘signal’ from ‘noise’ will become increasingly valued. Systems thinking is context-oriented and context-dependent. (NBEET/ESC, 1996).

  1. Does the program content develop and enhance the competencies of systems thinking?

Does it address:

    1. the ability to see parts/wholes in relationship to each other and to work dialectically with the relationship to clarify both similarities and differences? [In effect, this means the ability to balance the processes of both analysis and synthesis.]
    2. the ability to abstract complexity so that organising structures (visual, mathematical, conceptual) are revealed rather than imposed?
    3. the ability to balance flexibility and real world change against the conceptual need for stable system boundaries and parameters?
    4. the command of multiple methods for problem solving as opposed to employing a limited range of algorithms to the widest variety of situations?
    5. an awareness that the map is not the territory, and the ability to act accordingly in the use of systems models?

 

  1. In relation to mathematics and information technology:
    1. Does the program content combine information collection and analysis and management skills and systems thinking and meta-cognition skills with the ability to use information technology to express and enhance those skills?
    2. Does it include the decoding of information presented in a variety of forms ¾ written, statistical, graphic, together with critical evaluation of that information?

 

Work process knowledge is a synthesis of theoretical and experiential knowledge. While codified knowledge in the form of theory or written procedures [e.g., mathematics in this case] might not be sufficient to guide action by itself, when it is synthesized with personal knowledge of the work situation the resulting construction — work process knowledge — allows people to make sufficient sense of the situation to enable them to act. (Boreham, 2003, pp. 214-215)

  1. Does the program address work process knowledge which is constructed by employees while they are engaged in work, particularly when they are solving problems?
    1. Does it provide apprentices/workers with the intellectual resources relevant to their envisaged role as the creators, not just the users, of the kinds of knowledge that enable engagement in continuous improvement?
    2. Could it include, for example, mathematical models of work processes such as labour sequence graphs, formal models of production processes, and mathematical techniques for planning and organising flexible manufacturing