From Chaos To Synergism: Research On The Situation Of Self-organization In Class-instructional System

Since 1970s, the research of educational sciences has witnessed a major paradigm shift from exploring general principles to seeking situated educational meanings. This shift requires researchers to regard education and teaching as a complex system in a view of integral inspection and survey it systematically in the light of multiple, open and dynamic perspective. In the process of system development, the influences of objective environments and conditions should be highlighted, the nonlinear interactions within the system should be emphasized, and the active consciousness of teachers and students should be inspired so that the hypercycle development of the system will be promoted. Self-organization theories, which rose in the 60s of the 20th century, such as Dissipative Structure Theory, Hypercycle Theory, Catastrophe Theory, Fractal Theory, Chaotic Theory and Synergetic Theory imply that evolution of system derives from interaction activities between system elements; the system should be open to the outside world to exchange material, information and energy with the external environment; the negative entropy should be introduced to the system to make it fluctuate far from equilibrium state and to achieve the orderly development of self-organization. This quite fits the modern educational research which emphasize the situated and dynamically, and they are all concerned about the cultivation of autonomy, initiative and subjectivity of system. Therefore, to construct the interpretative frame of class-instruction based on self-organization theories is of necessity, which is a practical appeal conforming to the requirements of the class-instruction innovate.Self-organization of class-instruction is a specific application of self-organization theories. On the basis of the detailed analysis of necessary conditions, significance, dynamics mechanism and evolution route of self-organization, this dissertation holds that the attributes of self-organization is reflected in its elements and systematic structure of class-instruction system, that the process of its dynamic evolution is a circle of continuous development of feedback, hypercycle and spiral movement. Each field of the circle process, with different states and features, interdependently promote with one another, and together constitute the panoramagram of self-organization evolution of class-instruction. In order to better disclose the principles of self-organization evolution and establish the theoretical framework of class-instruction, this dissertation follows the logic sequence of "obtaining information and cultivating chaos—→negotiating contents and clarifying objectives-→learning collaboratively and promoting together-→reflecting critically and regulating systematically-→making modification and feeding back", analyses in detail the origin, essence, specific formation and characteristics of each situation in the systematic evolution, clarifies the basic principles, improves the strategies and approaches of each dynamically generated situation, and revises them based on the analysis of typical cases.The orderly evolution of system always follows the principle from the lower order level to the higher order level, and always goes through a relatively disorderly chaotic state. As for the system of class-instruction, chaos is the dialectical unity of order and disorder, characterized by variance, dyssynergia, fuzzy and disorder at the macro level and relative order at the micro level. For learners, chaos is the "perplexity" state before "problems" arise, featured by regionality, unsteadiness, self-similarity and multi-dimension of development route. In order to cultivate the chaos of the system, the class-instructional system needs all-round opening up, to absorb the new information extensively, to promote equal rights of teachers and the students to participate in class-instructional activities, to construct a real situation of the reality by breaking down the teaching-method in tradition, to trigger the chaos of subjective cognition, emotional attitude and personal beliefs in class. In order to set up a relatively stable objective for class-instruction self-organization, it is necessary to establish an attractant (the common expectations) for system evolution, i.e. shared vision. The establishment of shared vision by teacher and learner should follow the principles of compatibility, negotiability, dynamics, and stratification. Starting with the elements and the whole system, to build up a moderate open vision base on the theory of Zone of Proximal Development(ZPD), to construct the whole system vision according to the personal specific goals, to set up a negotiatory system vision according to the topic or issues, to set up the dynamic vision according to the classroom situation, to outstand the goals of emotion attitude and beliefs base on personal knowledge and skills.In discussing the process of eliciting the collaborative development of the system, this dissertation conducts a detailed research of the order parameter of class-instructional self-organization, holds that the order—parameter of class-instructional system is not a concrete factor, it is a set of parameter, mainly including the activity, selectivity, creativity, the process method of class-instructional system, the culture and the rules of the class-instructional system, etc..The stimulation of the nonlinear synergism of system should be focused on building democratic and collaborative teacher-student relationship, diverse and generative curricula, and open class-instructional fields for cognition and affective interaction, and carrying out cooperative activities based on competition, the multilateral organizational forms for total involvement and the organization space-time in the whole process, etc.. The critical step in fostering the hyper-circular development of instructional system is appraisal, which should attach importance to the synthetic functions of positive and negative feedback, take into account the collaborative development of learners as individuals and the system as a whole, and adopt the assessment strategies of expansible, collaborative, ambiguity and accretion to improve the authenticity and efficiency of evaluation. To ensure the self-organization circular development of both learners as individual-system and the class-instruction as a whole system. The assessment should integrate diversified evaluation negotiators of teacher, companion and himself, make use of diversified evaluation method, strengthen the evaluation about the studying-method, teaching-method, and organizing method, particularly emphasize the critical reflection of teaching and learning, highlight the regulations and culture of instructional systematic organization.In short, this dissertation, based on self-organization theories, explores the realistic problems existing in class-instruction, discusses conditions, mechanism and characteristics of class-instructional self-organization system, analyses two dimensions of class self-organization system in terms of longitudinal evolution route and transverse situation features, and establishes an interpretative framework of class-instructional self-organization system as well as some specific strategies. The study is expected not only to enrich theories of class-instructional self-organization system but also to provide teaching participators with powerful support for changing their teaching beliefs and implementing class-instruction effectively.