System Problems to Develop Systems Thinking in Computer Science Education

Teaching programming is usually about algorithms, data structures, language elements, or how different technologies work. The aim of the teaching methodology is usually to convey these to the students in a problem- or project-oriented way, possibly in a playful way. The problem is that in this way we cannot consciously develop systems thinking competence, since there are no “systems problems”, i.e., there are no such collections of tasks or projects. The reason why it is a problem is because recent studies show that systems thinking is one of the most important competencies not only in the IT field but in general across different disciplines. In this article, we attempt to define and categorize IT system problems and illustrate with example tasks that it is possible to create a task collection focused on systems thinking and even to teach it from primary school to adult education. If we can do this, we will not only be able to develop this IT competence but will also be able to measure systems thinking maturity.