January 21 – 23, 2025
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge, MA
About this year’s conference theme: “Generative Social Fields”
As a point of departure, last year at our first annual Systems Awareness Research Conference, Dr. Mette Miriam Boell, Research Director of the MIT Systems Awareness Lab, summarized a multi-level, multi-generational picture of a system of education:
The MIT Systems Awareness Lab Conference brings together researchers, educators, policymakers, and practitioners dedicated to the scientific study of transformative, ongoing systems change. This conference will explore the complex realities that shape human and societal systems through both tangible artifacts such as formal structures, policies, and metrics, and intangible mental models—habits of thought, feeling, and action. We believe meaningful and ongoing change only occurs through the intertwined evolution of both, and that the failure to do so accounts for recurring frustration with disappointing change efforts. We also believe that meaningful study of such change requires partnership between scientists, researchers and practitioners engaged in trying to bring it about. This year’s conference seeks to gather such communities in dialogue to advance a science of systems change.
Conference Objectives
Key Topics
Featured Speakers: Dr. Mette Miriam Boell, Research Director and Co-Founder, MIT Systems Awareness Lab; CEO and Co-founder, Center for Systems Awareness Dr. Peter Senge, Co-Founder, MIT Systems Awareness Lab; Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management; Co-Founder, Center for Systems Awareness Dr. Michael Fullan, Professor Emeritus, OISE/University of Toronto; Co-Director of New Pedagogies for Deep Learning Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, NoVo Foundation Endowed Chair in Social and Emotional Learning and Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Illinois Chicago. Dr. Deb Roy, Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT; faculty director, MIT Center for Constructive Communication. And more to be announced shortly.
Participants will gain insights into cutting-edge research and methodologies for studying compassionate systems change, hearing from leading experts in our morning plenary keynotes and participating in afternoon breakout sessions led by systems change practitioners, sharing cases from the field. The conference will provide a participatory platform for sharing experiences, challenges, and opportunities in growing systems change in education, social impact, and other fields. Attendees will have the opportunity to network with experts and peers, fostering collaboration and innovation in their own work.
In Person = 🏛️ Virtual = 💻
1:00 -1:45 pm – History of Systems Change Approaches
1:45 – 2:45 pm – Compassionate Systems in California
2:45 – 3:00 – Break
3:00 – 4:00 pm – Systems Change Approaches across California
4:00 – 4:20 pm – Open discussion, facilitated by: Laelia Maynor and Isamu Thung, Center for Systems Awareness Youth Council
4:20 – 4:30 pm – Closing Remarks
4:30 – 6:00 pm – Reception
8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. – Registration 🏛️
9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. – Welcome 🏛️ 💻
9:30 a.m. -10:15 a.m. – Keynotes 🏛️ 💻
10:15 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. – Break
10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Keynotes 🏛️ 💻
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. – Lunch 🏛️
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. – Systems Change Breakouts: Stories from the Field 🏛️
2:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. – Break
3:00 p.m. – 4:30 pm – Systems Change Breakouts: Stories from the Field 🏛️
4:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m. – Break
4:45 p.m.- 5:30 p.m. – Closing Reflection 🏛️ 💻
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. – Reception 🏛️
8:00 a.m – 9:00 a.m. – Registration 🏛️
8:00 a.m – 8:45 a.m. – (Optional) Morning Meditation 🏛️
9:00 a.m – 9:30 a.m. – Welcome 🏛️ 💻
9:30 a.m -10:20 a.m. – Keynotes 🏛️ 💻
10:20 a.m. – 10:40 a.m. – Break
10:40 a.m – 12:00 p.m. – Reflective Circle 🏛️ 💻
12:00 p.m – 1:00 p.m. – Lunch
1:00 p.m – 2:30 p.m. – Systems Change Breakouts: Stories from the Field 🏛️
2:30 p.m – 3:00 p.m. – Break
3:00 p.m – 4:30 p.m – Systems Change Breakouts: Stories from the Field 🏛️
4:30 p.m – 4:40 p.m – Break
4:40 p.m – 5:30 p.m – Closing Reflection 🏛️ 💻
Stay in Cambridge an extra night and join us for a post-conference design and strategic planning gathering at the MIT Systems Awareness Lab
Friday, January 24, 2024, 9 am – 12 pm.
By invitation only. If interested, please contact systemsawareness@mit.edu
We welcome attendees from around the world as well as those local to Cambridge. Visit this guide to learn more about traveling to MIT as well as places to visit while you’re here.
Hotel Information
A hotel block for conference attendees is available at the Marriott Cambridge, a short 5-10 minute walk from the conference.
Questions?
Email systemsawareness@mit.edu.
We invite you to join us our ongoing virtual seminar series to collaboratively explore diverse research approaches and methodologies in our study of compassionate systems and systems awareness more broadly. The aim of this series from the MIT Systems Awareness Lab is to inspire communities of practitioners and researchers to work together in considering the role of research in their own systems change work.
From this series of research design seminars, we will iterate on research designs that our community can then build upon, refine, implement, and learn from with our partners.
For More Information, contact systemsawareness@mit.edu
Featuring Dr. Mark Greenberg
Emeritus Bennett Chair of Prevention Research and Founding Director, Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, Penn State
A design session with Dr. Eric Klopfer, Dan Roy (MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program, Education Arcade) with Gustav Boell and Youth Ambassadors (Center for Systems Awareness)
A conversation with Dr. Jean Clinton (McMaster University), Dr. Peter Senge (MIT), Jacob Martin (Dulwich College Singapore), and Charlotte Ruddy (Dulwich College Singapore)
October 2024
MIT Campus – Various Locations
We invite you to join the MIT Systems Awareness Lab and the MIT Center for Constructive Communication for a lunch-time dialogue series on campus in October on generative social fields – the conditions in communities that enable a sense of belonging, shared aspiration, psychological safety, greater collaboration and creative output.
What makes for a generative community, team, lab or environment? We invite you to share your stories of communities and spaces where you felt a sense of creativity, safety, trust, or belonging.
Join us for one or all of the following lunch-time dialogues across campus:
Lunch will be provided. RSVP to join: https://bit.ly/gensocialfields
In this interactive session, you will participate in small MIT-community dialogue circles reflecting on your experiences and stories of community. The dialogues will be recorded, transcribed, and anonymized for research purposes (participation in the research study is optional).
We also invite you to join in our community sensemaking session in November, where as a community, we will reflect on our stories of generative social fields and how we can grow these conditions as a campus community.
To join, register at: https://bit.ly/gensocialfields
We hope to see you there!
Mette Boell
Research Director, MIT Systems Awareness Lab; Executive Director, Center for Systems Awareness. Mette Miriam Boell (Böll) is a biologist specialized in the evolution of complex social systems, mammalian play behavior and philosophy of nature. Mette Miriam has a Ph.D. in organizational ethology from the Center for Semiotics, Aarhus University, and holds additional degrees in contemplative leadership and the philosophy and history of science.
Hanneli Ågotsdatter
Contemplative Faculty, Center for Systems Awareness: Ågotsdatter holds her M.A. and is a psychotherapist, architect and meditation teacher. Hanneli is the founder of Kontemplation which offers contemplative programs and group retreats where mindfulness, presence yoga, compassion and creativity are interwoven into an integrated practice.She is a part of the organizational group behind The Danish Society for the Promotion of Life Wisdom in Children, an association placing special emphasis on relational competence, teaching the practice of empathy and presence to professionals working with children and young people.
Søren Munk
Contemplative Faculty, Center for Systems Awareness: Søren Munk received his Educated Master of Science from The Technical University of Denmark and is also a certified psychotherapist from ID Psychotherapist Education. Søren has devoted a large part of his life to the study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism, and for 16 years lived, studied and meditated at the monastery of Pullahari, completing their 5 years programme of training in philosophy and meditation.
Questions?
The MIT Systems Awareness Lab Conversation Series is a series of virtual conversations on systems change.
We believe that education can be a leading sector in helping shape the cultural changes needed throughout society and that education innovators around the world are busy doing just that. This conversation series brings researchers, educators and practitioners together to explore work in student and educator wellbeing, classroom practice, and collaborative leadership at the district, region, state and international levels.
Launched in January 2022, discussions focus on the most pressing issues of our time, from climate change and equity to declining mental health and well-being. Some key questions and themes we explore in this series are:
Join us for these ongoing important and timely conversations as we explore how we understand, enable and measure system change in the making within education. Our hope is that the conversations will be helpful to educators, school leaders, teacher leaders, researchers, and anyone interested in deep change in education.
