In my last post, I discussed how Clayton Christensen advocated for a move from standardized instruction to more "student-centric" instructional models. For public schools to move towards this type of organizational and instructional approach, he argues that it will take significant changes to the status quo. In this post, I will discuss why Christensen believes substantive change is so difficult to achieve in the public school system.
Christensen argues that the standardized model we have in education today, which categorizes students into grade levels and teaches them in large groups, was based upon the efficient factory system of the Industrial Revolution. Students were educated in this system because it was designed to ingrain the basic skills and attitudes necessary for students to thrive in the assembly lines prevalent during this time. Over 100 years later, we still employ the same "batch" instructional delivery system even though the desired outcomes for students have changed dramatically in the 21st century. So why haven't schools changed?
Christensen uses his theory of "Disruptive Innovation" to explain why schools have maintained their traditional structures and have been relatively impervious to change. He argues that it is very difficult, if not impossible, for any type of organization to change from the established norms on its own. When established organizations are confronted with change, they tend to take the change initiative and morph it into the existing system, thereby minimizing any impact on those within the organization. Therefore, most all changes in established organizations result from outside competition. He cites many examples of this disruption happening to various U.S. industries (i.e. Toyota disrupting U.S. auto industry, Canon disrupting Xerox, Sony disrupting RCA, etc.). The established company either responds to the challenge and thrives, or fights the change and eventually dies. However, public schools live in a very different environment than private business.
Historically, the public school system does not face competition for its services, and therefore, it has never been forced into substantive change due to the threat of outside competition. As a result, public schools respond to change in the same way any organization would when absent viable competition; morph the change into the existing structure, or reject the change all together.
However, Christensen argues that the playing field is about to change because competition is coming in the form of online education opportunities. He predicts this will be the "disruptive technology" that will be the catalyst for change in the public school system of the U.S. In the next post, I will discuss his analysis of online education and the predicted impact it will have on public schools.
In the mean time, once again, this discussion raises some interesting questions for discussion. What are the skills our students need for success in the 21st century, and how are these skills different from those deemed vital during the Industrial Revolution? Are there skills from the Industrial Revolution that are still important for our students today? Are there inherent advantages to the current standardized system of instruction in public schools? Is competition healthy or a hindrance to the public school system? I would enjoy hearing your thoughts and ideas.
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I believe that work ethic and a sense of pride was partly fostered with the Industrial Revolutionary way of thinking. Today's parents are not the same as 100 years, or 20 years ago. Today's students are not the same either, but today's schools are. If you expect change, you need to be willing to do so also. I think competition is exactly what we need in the U.S., not just in education.
ReplyDeleteFor success in the 21st century, I think important skills to have include problem-solving, creativity, and thinking globally. Very different because the essence is teaching outside the box instead of conforming to the box. These skills are possible to teach, but more difficult to assess. That may be one of the biggest hurdles when thinking about schools moving away from the standardized system - assessment. We know it's difficult to assess in a way that benefits all learning styles, but teachers at least have a baseline. When something new is added to the curriculum, they can compare results to how students performed before. Changing the whole system is scary - how do you know it truly is benefitting everyone? How do you assess? Where do you get your baseline data? Who has gone before you as a model? As for competition - wow - hard question. Isn't that part of the reason we have NCLB? Competing with students around the world? My first reaction is to say that competition would require too much time and too many resources. On the other hand, nothing is stagnant - the world is always changing around us - so maybe the school system does need some competition to keep itself from becoming obsolete.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that the real problem is not that the student has changed but that the needs of society have changed? The author mentions, the current educational system was developed to help industry ingrain basic skills to fit a system i.e. an assembly line. For the past thirty years, the United States has been moving away from creating goods and moving towards providing services. This requires a different type of employee.
ReplyDeleteThe employee in this type of society cannot funtion on just "knowing the basics". He needs to be able to analyze, synthesize, and predict items that could be a boon for himself, his company, and his customers. This is not something that is easily taught in a classroom of 30 different learners.
Competition is healthy, but only if it creates a better product. If the end result is only a different product, then we haven't gained much except a title change. How do we prove that it is a better product?
You bring up a salient point regarding the role of assessment in this age of increasing State and Federal accountability for public education. Christensen would argue that "student-centric" learning should decrease the need for traditional assessment via examinations. Instead, a student-centric approach would allow public education to measure students "not by what percentage of material they have mastered, but by comparing how far they have moved through a body of material." To me, this sounds more like a "mastery learning" approach with reporting to parents and the public being accomplished through a standards-based format. Interesting to think about.
ReplyDeleteDavid...Thanks for joining the conversation. I think you hit the nail on the head when you identify the new skills 21st century students need (i.e. sythesis, prediction, critical thinking)and question how we teach students those skills within our traditional structure. Christensen would argue that our current "batch" system of instructional delivery (i.e. 30 kids with very different learning styles learning the same thing, in the same way, at the same time)is what has to change. He would agree with you that it is next to impossible to teach these higher order thinking skills to a classroom of diverse learners in the traditional classroom format. The question then becomes, is there a cost effective way to alter the system that would allow teachers the ability to address different learning styles and promote higher order thinking skills?
ReplyDeleteThe assessment question seems to be the key element in the debate. State and federal mandates have set prescribed or predetermined targets as barometers of the "success" or "failure" of public schools. These are hard numbers based on fairly strict definitions (standards) of what it means to show mastery or proficiency in a delineated academic area. The American Diploma Project is one more step in that direction, developing a set of national learning standards for public schools with assessments to follow that would test a school's adherence and progress toward proficiency at mastery of those standards. The educational system that Christensen advocates and that Dr. Bugg has summarized for us seems to be diametrically opposed to the standards movement that has been adopted by so many school districts in response to the high stakes/standardized testing culture that is the reality in public education today.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that one step in creating a congruence between Christensen's vision and the state of public education as it stands today is the essence of assessment. As it stands currently, a student could show 100%+ improvement in an academic area and, if that level of performance/achievement still falls under the stipulated level of "meets" on the standardized assessment, would be considered a "failure' to himself, his school, his state, and even his nation. Conversely, another student could, theoretically, show a decline, but if he scores above the prescribed line of demarkation, he would be considered to have met or possibly even exeeded the standard. There seems to be something inherently wrong with a system that does not reward "real" progress but could reward a lack there of.
Perhaps one step toward Christensen is to establish a system of assessment that does exactly that - rewards individual student progress and achievement instead of charting the percentage of students that attain proficiency at someone's preconceived ideas of what "proficiency" actually means. In reality, there are students in our district and our state that, through no fault of their own and for a variety of reasons, will never meet the standards that have been set for them. So, because they are not able to achieve at a certain level their successes are not valid and should not be celebrated? When what we measure progress in the terms of individual performance and progression, not just in word but in policy and deed, that is truly when no child is being left behind.
Greg...So glad you were able to join the conversation. I think you bring up two very interesting topics in your post. First, you discuss what seems to be an inherent contradiction between standards-based education and the implementation of "student-centric" classrooms. However, Christensen would argue that through the use of instructional technology, the two objectives can co-exist. As I will summarize later in Post III of this discussion, Christensen believes that the use of instructional technology (i.e. online learning) will allow public schools to personalize instruction while still meeting State and Federal learning standards. In short, he doesn't believe in the "either, or" philosophy.
ReplyDeleteI was also very interested in your discussion of assessment in the era of NCLB. I believe you are absolutely correct that the system is flawed in that it does not reward improvement. Because their students score better on standardized testing, the system causes us to believe that better instruction is happening in New Trier than in East St. Louis. However, such conclusions are faulty without taking into account the skill level of the students when they entered the system. It is possible that the students in East St. Louis improved more than the students in New Trier over the same time period, but schools (nor students) are rewarded for this improvement. The failure of NCLB to use a "value added" model is a fundamental flaw in the assessment process that results in considerable misperception as to what is really happening in our public schools.