Responses to Distrupting Class

Chapter 1: Why Schools Struggle to Teach Differently when each Student Learns Differently
1. Explain the difference between interdependence and modularity.  How is education currently organized?

Products and services all have specific designs in how the different parts that make them up interact with each other. These parts all fit together using something called an interface. Products have interfaces as well as people that work within the same organization. There are two ways these parts or people are interfaced with one another, in an interdependent manner or a modular one.

A product or service is interdependent if the design of each component depends on the designs of the rest of the components in the product or service. In short, they are dependent on each other. When two or more components are being designed for an interdependent product or service they must be designed together. In contrast a product or service is modular if the parts do not depend on or need to be made together. They can be made or designed by separate entities at separate times and will still fit together as they all follow specific design instructions.

Education today is mostly designed interdependently. There are four types of interdependencies in education today: temporal (material instructed in high school is dependent on material instructed in junior high), lateral (changing how Spanish grammar is taught is dependent on the strategies English grammar is taught), physical (certain ways school buildings and classrooms are laid out prevent project-based learning even though this strategy is known to be highly effective), and hierarchical (different educational laws at different levels ranging from local all the way up to federal).


Chapter 2: Making the Shift:  Schools meet Society’s need
2. Explain the disruptive innovation theory.  What does this have to do with schools?

The disruptive innovation theory is the theory that attempts to explain why organizations succeed or struggle with innovation. Sustaining innovations are ones used by organizations that increase their own performance which in turn helps increase the performance of their customers. Disruptive innovations, in contrast, does the opposite and decreases performance both for the organization and the customer. One example discussed in the book is oddly enough, the personal computer. When these were first introduced they weren't nearly as useful or usable as the current and incredibly more expensive market standard, the minicomputer (the cost of these was in the $200K range). It wasn't until about 10 years after they were introduced when their functionality was greatly increased that they became a sustaining innovation. An interesting fact about disruptive innovations is more often than not they take longer to become sustaining innovations as a company would rather throw its resources at its established sustaining innovations.

The way all this relates to schools is that, in general, schools have been increasing performance. However, they have done so under much duress and only with tremendous effort. The best way to explain this is schools have always had a specific way in which performance was measured as well as a specific design intended to increase performance according to that established way of measurement. What society has done is they have imposed a new method of measuring performance while asking schools to use the same design created to increase performance on the old way of measuring performance. What schools need is to be able to redesign themselves and how they function in order to help themselves meet those performance expectations in a more efficient and sustaining manner.

One example of how the way scholastic performance measurement was changed is when American society stopped comparing American schools to themselves and how they performed year over year, and instead began comparing them to other nations and they performed year over year. This was done so in order to keep American schools globally competitive when compared to schools from other nations who started demonstrating greater scholastic achievement. One way in which this changed the educational landscape is students were made to focus more and more on core subject matter that could be measured globally (math, science, language, etc.) instead of being allowed to focus on subject matter that interested them.


Chapter 3: Crammed Classroom Computers
3.  Why doesn’t cramming computers in schools work?  Explain this in terms of the lessons from Rachmaninoff (what does it mean to compete against nonconsumption?)

The reason cramming computers into schools hasn't worked is because educational software has not become an integral part of curriculum and as engaging as video games, and many teachers are still not ready to use and teach technology. These two goals were two of four set forth by President Bill Clinton in a vision he had of integrating the usage of technology in schools. In essence, computers have mostly been disruptive innovations in schools and not enough resources, effort, and thought have been thrown at them to turn them into sustaining innovations.

The original idea behind injecting computers into schools was it was assumed they would increase performance just like they have increased performance in many other business and technological industries. The reason why this increase in performance hasn't happened for schools though is they, unlike these successful businesses and technological firms, haven't altered their design in order to utilize computers to the extent for which they were made. As already stated, curriculum hasn't integrated computers as an essential part and it hasn't gotten very far in designing software specifically to use computers in education. In short, simply putting a computer in a room is not going to automatically make the students in that room more productive.

The other part of this equation is, of course, teachers have not changed their teaching strategies to better employ computers in their classrooms. As the books says, "lecturing, group discussions, small-group assignments and projects, and the occasional video or overhead are still the norms." This in stark contrast to the successful organizations where employees practically use their computers most of the 8.5 hours they are at work. Another way to phrase this is the disruptive product or computer is competing against nonconsumption in the classroom. In other words, the computer being injected into schools is a disruptive innovation, the reason for this is because it is not being utilized as sufficiently or efficiently as the way other organizations use computers (who do so in a sustaining manner).


Chapter 4: Disruptively Deploying Computers
4. Explain the pattern of disruption.
Disruptive almost always share the same pattern. Firstly they compete against nonconsumption. As time goes on the technology improves while the cost lessens. Eventually the disruptive innovation turns into a sustaining innovation as it is integrated and utilized more and more. The shape of this pattern generally follows the shape of an S-curve. When it is first introduced performance increases very slowly. Gradually performance increases more and more until there is a significantly sharp increase in performance. As it nears the top though it flattens out as the innovation reaches its max potential within the organization it was introduced.

5. Explain the trap of monolithic instruction.  How does student-centric learning help this problem?
The "trap" of monolithic instruction is to keep instructing students in batches or groups, in the same way batches of a material are produced from a factory. One example in education where monolithic instruction is used is in assessments. Assessments have always served two purposes: to determine how well students understand a particular subject so they can move on to the next subject and to compare one student with another to analyze the rate at which they are progressing through the material. Assessments using monolithic instruction do not accomplish these two things every effectively, especially when contrasted with a different type of instruction, student-centered learning.

The biggest way these two strategies differentiate themselves from each other is monolithic instruction is focused on groups while student-centric learning is focused more on the individual. For example, student-centered learning would teach to the individual student, determine how fast they are learning the material, assess that particular student's understands the material, and determine whether they are ready to move on. This is very hard for a teacher to do which is why monolithic instruction is used more commonly. A way to circumvent the logistics of teaching to a group is to implement student-centered learning through higher usage of computers that use software to teach and assess the individual.


Chapter 5: The System for Student-Centric Learning
6. Explain public education’s commercial system.  What does it mean to say it is a value-chain business?  How does this affect student-centric learning?

Public education today mostly follows the VAP or value-adding process business model. VAP businesses "bring inputs of materials into one end of their premises, transform them by adding value, and deliver higher-value products to their customers. The basic why this is seen in school is textbooks on specific subject matter are created, the teacher instructs students on this material in group fashion, and then assesses students on how well they have learned the material in order to determine if they are ready to graduate after having "increased in value" from going through the production line. In short, schools follow a value-chain business model where value is added along the chain in order to produce something that is a lot more valuable than the initial "product" introduced at the beginning.

As far as student-centric learning is concerned this is all both positive and negative. The good news is that student-centric learning can be highly effective when computers and educational software are introduced into the equation. Computers and software are designed specifically for companies that use this commercial system. The bad news is that purchasing, integrating, and developing computers and software in order that they sustain the VAP business model as it applies to education can be a very expensive endeavor (which is why introducing computers into education was done but the other steps to the process largely ignored). In order for these tools to really serve students' individual needs and ensure they are coming out at the end of the value-chain with a much greater value placed on them, time and money will have to be spent making sure computers and software are an integral part of curriculum and the educational experience.