Clayton Christensen and a couple other people have written Disrupting Class ISBN:0071592067 about applying Disruptive Innovation to Educating Kids.

They have founded the [Innosight Institute] to promote their ideas.

Victor Lombardi reviews it.

My take

This is a very pragmatic book, predicting how computers will be Crossing The Chasm as Educational Technology. That's useful for people who have an interest in riding that trend, wanting to create/support the Disruptive Innovation.

On the downside, it's not a very attractive picture. He doesn't challenge any of the real content or structure of the system, just the fact that it's not spun in multiple ways to support different styles of learning. (And I think his framing of that model as the key future is somewhat magical.) I think there are much bigger problems to worry about.

Aside from the educational focus, this is a good book for showing an application of Christensen's Disruptive Innovation thinking.

Key notes

Can't push education into kids, they have to want it. They need motivation, and that motivation needs to be Intrins Ic.

• support: once JapAn improved its [Prosper Ity], fewer students entered college science/engineering programs

Students have different ways of learning ([Multiple Intelligences] model). Teachers and schools will have inherent bias on which they cater to. This kills motivation for lots of students. (Hmm, is this the biggest motivation-killer?)

Using computers as Educational Technology is a good way to provide student-centered education.

It's difficult for Disruptive Innovation to get adopted in Educat Ion, because (a) Public Schools have near-Mono Poly, and (b) there's much less [Non Consumption] available to serve with a Disruptive Innovation.

Public School-s have actually done well at changing. Society keeps moving the target.

1. Prepare people as citizens (1776): universal Elementary School and Middle School

2. Prepare everyone for a vocation (1900): universal High School added, explosion in course offerings (both for vocation breadth, and [Whole Person] offerings for the Middle Class (responding to [Prosper Ity]). Goal/metric: increase number of students; increase breadth of offerings.

3. Keep America competitive (1970). Move toward universal College Education. Goal: improve average test scores

4. Eliminate PoverTy (2000): No Child Left Behind. Goal: improve % of students "passing" tests.

As expected, schools have been applying computers as Sustaining Innovation-s instead of as Disruptive Innovation. Every dominant institution tries to do this. (See standard Innovators Dilemma argument. And Enter Prise software!)

• Putting more money into this approach will not improve results.

There are areas of [Non Consumption] to target disruption to

• [Advanced Placement] classes: most High School-s offer only a small subset of the available courses

• other advanced courses (e.g. college-level)

• Pre School

• remedial courses, tutoring, [GED], etc.

• non-core courses in resource-challenged schools: Small Schools and Lower Income (RurAl and UrbAn)

• [Home Schooling]

• After School (see Marc Presky)

Expect 2 phases of market penetration

• [Computer Based Learning]: automating what's already done. Monolithic ([Tightly Coupled]), proprietary, expensive.

  • [Virtual School]-s: e.g. [Florida Virtual School] ([FLVS]), [Utah Virtual High School]; [Virtual Chem Lab]

• [Student Centric Technology]: support for different learning styles, etc. To scale, must be Loosely Coupled and Open so that Crowd Sourcing can be used for Learning Object development.

Predicting rate of penetration

• [SCurve] model: plot log of ratio of [Market Share] new-divided-by-old.

  • (I'm hugely skeptical of how early you can make useful predictions with this approach, esp given rather noisy data.)

  • He uses this to predict that 50% of High School courses will be delivered online by 2019.

The future of testing

• Testing is supposed to do 2 jobs

  • Identify when a student has master material, and is ready to move forward. Current testing stinks at this. But it doesn't even matter, as long as factory process "wants" to keep pushing students forward.

    • New software will incorporate evaluation into the teaching process, so rapid Feed Back.

  • To compare students. Standardized Test-s. (Why? To pick winners of next-level scarce slots; to evaluate schools)

    • New software will allow comparisons along many dimensions.

Change in how Educational Technology is produced to get to 2nd phase

• Defines [Commercial System] as the Value Chain/Eco System that supports delivery of a product. (This goes beyond Whole Product concept.) For education, this includes Text Book development and purchasing, teacher training, Standardized Test development, etc.

  • [Oystein Fjeldstad] and [Charles Stabell]: 3 generic types of Business Model-s: [Solution Shop] (The Craft), Value Chain, [Facilitated User Network]

• Two changes coming, which will support move from phase1 to phase2

  • Plat Form-s making it easier to develop Learning Object-s (he never uses this term). User Generated Content.

    • Teaching others (developing materials) is a great way to really learn. (Construction Ism)

  • [User Network] to identify, review, self-assemble/integrate bits.

• Companies/tools to look at: Agilix's [Brain Honey]; [Wireless Generation]; [EduFire]; [Immersive Education]; [CurrIki].

Pre School: do we want it universal?

• he says it's a waste

• hige predictor of IQ is parents talking to children

  • esp when child is under 12mo old!

  • "extra talk", not "business talk" (Pre School-s involve lots of "business talk" (just because they're groups?).)

• best approach is to have High School classes for future parents preparing them to do lots of "extra talk".

Pro Gress requires we allow for tailoring of education processes to students. Then we can research/test effectiveness of combinations of student-type vs process-type.

Tools of [Co Operation] to use in different environments

• Success of a tool will depend on 2 dimensions of agreement among the Stake Holder-s in an environment: what they want (Goal); cause-and-effect

• Two ways of increasing agreement: success (reinforces development of a local CultUre); Shared Language for FramIng discussions.

• Mapping tools to agreement position

  • Both-low: use PowEr tools (Coerc Ion, threats, role definition, fiat, control systems)

  • Low-Goal, High-Cause-and-Effect: Manage Ment tools (measurement systems, stanadrd procedures, training)

  • High-Goal, Low-Cause-and-Effect: Leader Ship tools (charisma, vision, role modelling)

  • High-both: CultUre tools (rituals, Apprentice Ship, tradition, folk-lore, religion, democracy) (These groups can have a hard time changing.)

  • Meta-tool: separation - let factions go their own way (Secess Ion)

• In Public School environment, only tools with any hope are: Shared Language, PowEr, and Separation/Secess Ion.

Different Organization Models are appropriate depending on the scope of challenges associated with implementing an Innovat Ion

• component-level improvements can be handled in a [Functional Structure]

• predictable interface changes can be coordinated with a Lightweight team

• architecture changes (resulting in unpredictable interface changes) need a Heavyweight team

• Disruptive Innovation, striking at the whole Business Model, require an Autonomous team.

• Heavyweight/Autonomous teams are tools of Separation (Secess Ion).

• lighter-weight teams can take over more once disruptions have settled down

• Public School-s are structured around functional/lightweight teams.

  • this makes it hard/impossible for them to move Disruptive Innovation forward.

  • even Charter School-s have been turned into Sustaining Innovation. Even when using Project Based Learning. Even at High Tech High.

• even when new school types that seem replicable are created, they are often squashed by society. See [Tinkering Toward Utopia]: A Century of Public School Reform ISBN:0674892836

  • reviewed by Seymour Papert. In fact, I could learn from it -- the shift from a stance of reform to a stance of evolution does not exclude active intervention, but the role of the change agent becomes less like the architect or builder and more like the plant- or animal breeder whose interventions take the form of influencing processes that have their own dynamic. Hmm, Papert seems to be disagreeing with Christensen, thinking that significant change can come incrementally.

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