Complex and complicated are not the same

How often do you hear people use the words “complex” and “complicated” interchangeably, in the same sentence, to mean the same thing? Did you ever stop to think that complicated and complex are not the same or that approaching complicated and complex problems in the same way might not be very helpful? What are the consequences of misidentifying a complex problem as merely complicated?

The simplest place to start building an understanding of the difference between complex and complicated is with the three simple distinctions: complicated problems are predictable, controllable, and designable while complex problems are unpredictable, self-organizing and emergent.

Let’s consider our educational settings and how identifying learning as complicated and not complex impacts our pedagogical approach and what students learn and retain. When I was in the classroom teaching physiology two decades ago (before slides were in common use), I did the usual thing of standing up in front of the classroom and copying my notes onto the board. These notes were about the concepts I thought my students needed to learn and then ask them about on their mostly multiple-choice exams. This type of traditional classroom is teacher-led and provides structured, predictable learning paths. At its core, this suggests learning is just a complicated process and successful learning is based on individual capacity and effort.

Nontraditional classrooms like the Semester in Dialogue are student-centered, inquiry-based, and use methods that prioritize students’ active participation, collaboration, and self-direction. This makes for unpredictable learning outcomes, self-organization among learners, and emergent insights that arise from the learners' interactions and individual contributions. This dynamic setting helps to prepare students for complex real-world challenges by encouraging them to explore, question, and engage deeply with the subject matter in their own way. This approach suggests learning paths vary for each student and are more meaningful in the long term when they emerge from the students’ experience in and outside the classroom.

Having spent the last six years teaching in a non-traditional classroom, I have little doubt about the value of this approach. We know our graduates from the Semester in Dialogue go on to do amazing things. Sadly, in this moment of budget deficits, academic institutions are doubling down on the complicated approach to post-secondary education. It is perceived as cheaper, easier, and more efficient to deliver. Unfortunately, it also seems to be much less effective.