Disruptive Innovation in Education part 5

In this post, I want to simply identify the common themes and topics found in this book, Disrupting Class, they are all powerful and insightful and show how education needs to change and how online learning is the vehicle for this change.

Monolithic Instruction – What currently exists in many schools in the U.S. Born out of the factory model, industrial age. Categorizing students by age into grades, teaching batches of students with batches of curriculum. Teachers teach “the same subjects, in the same way, and at the same pace to all children in the classroom.” In the world today, students are wired in different ways. Using Gardner’s multiple intelligences, some student gravitate towards different teachers because of common ways of learning and interacting (e.g. logical-mathematical students gravitate and better relate to math teachers who teach in a similar way).

Interdependence – Different companies make different products that fit together. Generally proprietary products and sometimes, the products made by one company don’t fit with the others which causes problems in production. Sometimes results in “unpredictable interdependencies.”

Modularity – A design where the components fit and work together in “well-understood, crisply codified ways…fits designed specifications.”

Student Centric - A way for students to learn in ways that match their intelligence types “in the places and paces they prefer.”

Disruptive Innovation – A product or service that is more affordable and easier to use than existing products and services.  To be successful, this product or service needs to take root outside the mainstream culture of a company or organization.

Disruptive Innovation in Education part 4

Continuing my summary and review of the book, Disrupting Class, this next section discusses how computers have been used in current schools and how they will transform learning from the current monolithic structure to student-centric learning.

Have cramming computers in schools helped education?  It all depends who you talk to. According to the authors, in 1981, there was one computer for every 125 students in school. In 2000, there was one computer for every five students. Schools decided computers were important for students to use. Unfortunately, “schools use computers as a tool and a topic, not as a primary instructional mechanism that helps students learn to their type of intelligence.” They discuss the educational computer use research of Larry Cuban, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University. Overall, computers and computer technology get used in limited ways in classrooms.

The authors then make the case for computer-based learning – an education that is student-centric. They quote the statistics that show the number of students in online learning courses has gone from 45,000 in 2000 to roughly 1 million today. Consistent with the theory of disruptive innovation, there is considerable “non-consumption” of computer based learning in traditional schools. Therefore, the likelihood for online learning to gain a foothold is strong. The authors illustrate, and those already involved in online education know, there are limited educational opportunities for students across the U.S. to take Advanced Placement courses, to take credit recovery courses to graduate, and a need for home schooled students to access high school content. The North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL), will soon publish a policy brief illustrating the use of online courses for credit recovery.

The book explains how computer-based learning is not as completely monolithic as the teacher-delivered mode is. Over time, computer-based learning will be a disruptive transition from utilizing the dominant type of instructional pedagogy to one that is student-centric and allows students to learn material that is consistent with their type of intelligence and learning style. They illustrate the increased enrollments in online courses offered by providers such as Apex Learning , Florida Virtual School, and VHS, Inc. Throughout this section of the book, the authors emphasize the themes of customization and personalization of student learning. Sounds similar to the themes of Web 2.0, the World is Flat and other recent publications.

The ultimate goal is to move to more individualized instruction for students. The current monolithic content delivery system does not allow more than 20% of a teacher’s time to individually work with students.

The authors conclude this section, “Much of the opportunity for student-centric technology to take root and transform the learning landscape is outside the present K-12 public education system.”

Disruptive Innovation in Education part 3

In the book, Disrupting Class, the authors spend some time defining a “disruptive innovation.” This theory has been around since it was first printed in articles and books in 1997. As the graph below illustrates, a regular product or service gradually improves, which is termed a “sustaining innovation.” Over time, the company learns what their customers want and make these improvements on the product. So, the customers continue to purchase the product or service. Over time, there is gradual growth in the company. However, from time to time, a “disruptive innovation” emerges that challenges that standard product or service. A disruptive innovation is a product or service that existing customers have not been able to consume or afford. The disruptive innovation is NOT a breakthrough improvement of the old product or service, but it brings to the market “a product or service that actually is not as good as what companies had been selling”. By making the product affordable and simple to use, the disruptive innovation benefits different customers. Over time, the original product or service is influenced by the disruptive innovation and has to change or it will be eliminated. One example from the book is the Digital Equipment Corporation or DEC who manufactured the first “minicomputer” in the 1970s which did not fill an entire room. They were the leading producers of minicomputers until Apple came along and produced the Apple IIe which was first marketed to children as a toy. We all know this story…Apple, and then others, created a better personal computer that was smaller, cheaper and easier to use than what DEC had been producing. “What is disruptive to one company is sustaining to another.”

(Graph from Wikipedia, a disruptive innovation in itself)

So, how does this apply to education? First, the authors needed to define the product or service of education. According to the authors, the jobs of education are:

• Preserve the Democracy and Inculcate democratic values
• Provide something for every student
• Keep America competitive
• Eliminate poverty

What do you think, are these the jobs of education?

Part 4 tomorrow – “computers and schools.”

Disruptive Innovation in Education part 2

Throughout the book, Disrupting Class, the authors refer to traditional school as a “monolithic structure” – one that has standardized instruction to groups of students.  They point out that not all students learn the same and that in the current structure, school is able to meet the needs of some students but not all.  As one example of the ways students learn differently, they use Gardner’s eight intelligences to illustrate what they mean.  As most educators know, all students learn differently and Gardner has illustrated this with his theory of eight intelligences including:  linguistic (Walt Whitman), logical-mathematical (Albert Einstein), spatial (Frank Lloyd Wright), bodily-kinesthetic (Michael Jordan), musical (Mozart), interpersonal (Mother Teresa), intrapersonal (Freud), naturalist (Rachel Carson).   The challenge is that, within the traditional structure of school, how do you meet all these needs?

What is needed is customization and personalization for learning, but this can’t happen in the current traditional current structure of school.

The authors illustrate how all products and services have an architecture or design (a la A Whole New Mind).  The place where two parts fit together is an interface, which exist within a product and  between groups of people.   There are two types of interface: interdependence and modularity.  If a product or service is interdependent, you can’t predict if they will work well together.   The better interface is modularity, because modularity optimizes flexibility which allows for easy customization.  One comparison made was Microsoft’s Windows Operating System is interdependent, while Linux is modular.  Customization or modularity is always more expensive, but it is one way of better meeting the learning needs of students.

The authors suggest that all schooling should move towards a “student-centric model.”  The continuum shared is that on one end of the continuum are “monolithic structures that are interdependent” and on the other end are “student-centric modular structures.”  They conclude this section by saying, “computer-based learning is emerging as a disruptive force and a promising opportunity.”  And, then they agree that schools have done a “remarkable job of shifting to meet the public’s demands – and have improved over time.” (Chapter 1)

The examples and analogies shared in these chapters are all business models – Apple computers, Microsoft, Dell, Ford motor company.  Every time I read these business books – and you find them in all of these – Good to Great, The World is Flat, etc. – there are always business analogies compared to education.  No doubt this can be done, but I wonder if it is really a valid comparison.  Businesses do deal with products, services and people, but education primarily deals with services and people.  Unlike business, K-12 education is compulsory.  Whatever student that walks through the door needs to be taught.  But, yes, the challenge is how to make education more personalized and customized for the learner and few current, traditional schools are doing this now.

More tomorrow.

Disruptive Innovation in Education part 1

I just got my copy of the book, Disrupting Class, by Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn and Curtis Johnson delivered to my doorstep. The timing was perfect since I had a three-day weekend! I was interested in reading this book because of the article entitled “Online Education Cast as a Disruptive Innovation” published in EdWeek earlier in May. When I blogged about this earlier this month, I thought it was interesting that this article appeared on the front page of Ed Week. I have now started reading the 238 page book and discovered in the author’s acknowledgments, that one of their advisors on this project was Ron Wolk, the retired founding editor of Education Week. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that this article appeared on the front page of Ed Week, but I was a bit curious how an article about online education as compared to recent assessment scores or NCLB proficiency was front and center of Ed Week. I also learned that Michael B. Horn was a student of Clayton Christensen at the Harvard Business School and that Curtis W. Johnson was one of the early proponents of the chartered school movement. (In the book, they explain that they prefer the term “chartered school” rather than “charter school” because, as a verb, it more accurately characterizes the shift in public policy that began in the early 1990s. Many charter schools simply reflect the traditional practices in schools, while others such as student-centered or online schools are not as traditional).

Christensen, Horn and Johnson open the book suggesting that we have high hopes for our schools and these aspirations can be summarized in the following four:

• 1. Maximize human potential
• 2. Facilitate a vibrant, participative democracy in which we have an informed electorate…
• 3. Hone the sills, capabilities and attitudes that will help our economy remain prosperous and economically competitive.
• 4. Nurture the understanding that people can see things differently – and that those differences merit respect rather than persecution.

They characterize schools as continuing to improve based on the metrics that continue to change. They suggest that everyone has a theory about why schools struggle to improve. These include: a) schools are underfunded; b) there aren’t enough computers in the classroom; c) the problem is with the students and the parents; d) the U.S. teaching model is broken; e) the problem is the teachers unions; f) the way we measure schools’ performance is fundamentally flawed. They then discuss the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and suggest that many students in schools are extrinsically motivated. And then they state, “Schools need to create intrinsically engaging methods for learning.”

The theory and term, disruptive innovation was originated by Christensen and applied to the business world. His previous works, The Innovator’s Dilemma (1997) and The Innovator’s Solution (2003) received positive reviews throughout the business community. He is now a sought-after speaker to discuss how a company can innovatively disrupt their services and products which results in better products and profits. As a professor in the Harvard Business School, his focus has been on business until, as he explains in the book, he was encouraged by others to “stand next to the world of public education and examine it through the lenses of your research on innovation…”

In the first part of the book, the first major assertion is that schools need to move away from the “monolithic” instructional structure where instruction is standardized for all students to modular, customized and student-centric approaches.

The above assertion is based on the dominant model of public education and its current interdependencies:

• temporal: you can’t study this in ninth grade if you didn’t cover that in seventh.
• lateral: you can’t teach foreign language in more efficient ways because you’d have to change the way English grammar is taught.
• physical: the layout of buildings limits widespread adoption of project-based learning, even though there is strong evidence that project-based learning is highly motivating for student learning.
• hierarchical: well intentioned local, state and federal policies that influence what happens in schools from textbook and curriculum decisions to union negotiated work rules.

More tomorrow.