Annalotta Dessen Jankell

In November 2023, I completed my PhD with the thesis: Understand reality as systems. The thesis is about what systems thinking can mean in geography and how students can develop aspects of the knowledge through geography teaching in school. What is also investigated is how the development of systems thinking can contribute to students' understanding of complex issues such as climate change and global consumption and production.

The thesis contributes design principles and didactic models that can be used by teachers and researchers to enable the development of students' geographical thinking and knowing, where systems thinking is one aspect. Together with teachers at the upper secondary school, I have worked out and empirically tested a teaching design, where students are stimulated to investigate complex questions with the help of a model called "connection web". The articles show how teachers and students constructed and used the models in different ways and how they contributed to students' understanding of various complex issues. The models became a concrete tool with that students could use to analyse, draw conclusions about consequences, identify driving forces and discuss solutions. 

My research interest is still focused on the design of geography education that can contribute with tools to concretize and make visible complex and abstract content such as climate change and related challenges. I remain interested in exploring how students can investigate complex sustainability issues by modeling, analyzing and interpreting human-nature connections in integrated systems.

According to the UN, systems thinking is an important key competence for the population of today and the future. Especially in relation to climate change and the major system changes that are required. There is also an increased need in society to develop systems thinking as a way of understanding how what we do affects people and living organisms in different places on earth. Understanding of connections, relationships and the whole are also fundamental aspects of geographical thinking and knowledge.

I am also interested in developing practical-theoretical approaches in geography didactics and in the future also investigating how Learning Activity (Davydov, 2008) as a didactic framework can contribute to developing geography teaching.

For the time being I spend my time working at a gymnasium in Stockholm teaching geography, biology and science. I really enjoy being with the students and my teacher colleagues. This autumn I will also spend half of my time at the university focusing on new projects and teach becoming geography teachers. This I look forward to very much!