Human Systems

A course designed by Joe Edelman: Human Systems.

It’s a semi-mass-medium approach to designing an Enabling environment, with expert facilitators ($600/student spent) adding additional structure to the experience.

The central idea is to ground as much as possible of the course materials in the real activities of the participants’ lives—their real design projects (Enabling environments focus on doing what’s enabled, Enabling environments’ activities directly serve an intrinsically meaningful purpose). But you can’t design an effective one-size-fits-all course which would work with everyone’s design projects.

So the course includes “guides” who interview students to understand their projects and their values. The guides sequence the textbook’s chapters accordingly. And they choose (or write) “missions” which can put those chapters’ ideas into practice in the context of the student’s real-world design projects. This sounds like an Enacted experience to me, but one that’s customized to an intrinsically meaningful context (How might we situate tools for thought within intrinsically meaningful contexts?). Their job is to “weave the curriculum into your life.” And to “weave the community into your life”, but I’m not sure what that means. Joe says: “guides make the course feel like a surprise birthday party: someone has thought about what’s perfect for you.” Quite a metaphor.

The guides have built up a database of these missions, each associated with some topics from the textbook. And they’re noticing patterns in students’ lives which make the assignment process easier. In some sense, this database is the mass medium. Once it’s large enough and the patterns well-enough recognized, adapting them to a new student may not be too effortful. Enacted experiences have incredible potential as a mass medium

The class also includes exercises and games (artificial Enacted experience) which aren’t explicitly grounded in real-world design activities. But they’re always presented and framed in terms of the next mission. So the meaning comes both from the fun of the game and from the anticipated connection to future real-world activity. Joe used the analogy of training to do parkour: you do practice jumps with mats in a gym until you feel ready to do the real thing out in the world. But your practice is motivated by your plans to go do parkour with your friends next weekend.

Q. In what context do students of Human Systems engage in “missions”?
A. Real design projects in their professional/personal lives

Q. How does Human Systems adapt project-based learning to students’ real design projects?
A. Each student has a “guide” who chooses/writes missions to cover the course material which suit the designer’s projects

Q. How are practice activities connected to authentic use in Human Systems?
A. Practice activities are always motivated by the “mission” they enable.

Q. How much does Human Systems spend on “guide” labor per student in his course?
A. $600

Q. In what sense is Human Systems an Enacted experience?
A. Its “missions” students acquiring certain understandings in the course of doing their own design work.

Q. What metaphor does Joe use to describe what Human Systems guides make you feel like?
A. Like you’re attending a surprise birthday party: someone has thought about what’s perfect for you.

Last updated 2023-07-13.