Over the last couple of months I have seen some new online buzz words emerging, and one that relates to education (seemingly) is the new use of the term ‘disruptive’. This is based upon some of the books alluded to in one of the quotes below. The thing about all change is disruption…I always thought that on most cases these two terms could be seen as cognates…and thus I never saw the idea which has launched books and myriad websites and blog posts…sigh.
The interesting thing here is that while change and disruption may be inextricably connected, with education I have seen something similar. You see, to put it in my language, the very act of learning something is traumatic…at least to the degree that you have learned something. Learning implied absorbing or inculcating something new…doesn’t it?
A result to the use of this ‘new’ term is that it might represent and coalesce thoughts from a growing number of educators who do think that we are ripe for some changes in how and what we teach.
Disrupting College
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/disrupting_college.html
America is in crisis. Employers say paradoxically they cannot find the right people to fill jobs even though the country is facing its highest unemployment rates in a generation. Competition with a rising China and India and their vast populations lend urgency to the need for the country as a whole to do a better job of educating its citizens.
The institutions to which the country would turn to help tackle this challenge-its colleges and universities-are facing a crisis of their own. There is a rising chorus of doubts about how much the institutions of higher education which have been such a part of the country’s past successes can be a part of the answer. Graduation rates have stagnated despite a long track record of serving increasing numbers of students over the past half century. None of America’s higher education institutions have ever served a large percentage of our citizens—many from low-income, African-American, and Hispanic families. The institutions are now increasingly beset by financial difficulties, and the recent financial meltdown is but a shadow of what is to come. The further looming state budget crises spell difficult times for many colleges and universities. And there is a growing acknowledgement that many American universities’ prestige came not from being the best at educating, but from being the best at research and from being selective and accepting the best and brightest—which all institutions have mimicked.
The theory of disruptive innovation has significant explanatory power in thinking through the challenges and changes confronting higher education. Disruptive innovation is the process by which a sector that has previously served only a limited few because its products and services were complicated, expensive, and inaccessible, is transformed into one whose products and services are simple, affordable, and convenient and serves many no matter their wealth or expertise. The new innovation does so by redefining quality in a simple and often disparaged application at first and then gradually improves such that it takes more and more market share over time as it becomes able to tackle more complicated problems.
Disruption, Delivery and Degrees
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/02/09/online_learning_as_disruptive_technology_in_higher_education
Clayton M. Christensen, the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, coined the term "disruptive innovation" in a series of books (among them The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution) that examined how technological changes altered existing markets for key products and services, usually by lowering prices or making them available to a different (and usually broader) audience. While Christensen’s early work focused on manufacturing industries and commercial services like restaurants, he and his colleagues, in their more recent studies, have turned to key social enterprises such as K-12 education and health care.
Disruptive learning
http://blog.seattlepi.com/chalkboard/2008/07/14/disruptive-learning
I’m intrigued by the notion that school doesn’t necessarily need to be six hours a day of standard lessons and tests for a room full of kids with wide variations in learning styles.
Hot on the heels of Hara Marano’s book, I came across the Sunday editorial by Neal Peirce, “‘Disruptive” thinking builds high hope for nation’s schools.” Peirce suggests that we’re on the verge of immense change in our educational system, where technology will allow “student-centric” learning and true individualized instruction. Many of his arguments rely on a new book that’s out, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.
