Disrupting Class
Just before Christmas I finished a book study with some of my colleagues at other ESDs here in Washington state. We read Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen, Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson. Christensen wrote a very influential book entitled The Innovator’s Dilemma, and in it he discussed the impact of “disruptive innovations.” These are new technologies or processes that creates changes so deep that they completely overturn existing companies and entire industries. Examples would include the micro computer and digital photography; they completely obliterated the minicomputer and film camera businesses.
He brings this wider experience and narrows his focus to just education. What does he see? The emergence of a powerful disruptive innovation in increasingly sophisticated computer-based learning (both online learning and computerized instruction) programs, coupled with increasing financial pressures and the increasing desire of students, teachers, and parents to personalize education to make it more effective for the individual child. In studying previous disruptive innovations, Christensen found that they follow a relatively predictable path of development and adoption. Using these models, he predicts that 10% of all high school classes will be computer based (or online) by 2014, 50% by 2019, and 80% by 2024.
That seems like a pretty bold prediction, but he makes a strong case for it. The sobering aspect of his work is that in almost every case, the existing businesses in an industry experiencing a disruptive innovation are unable to make the transition, even when an existing company invents the innovation. The cultures of the incumbent institutions are so difficult to change that they are unable to take advantage of the new technology or process. Rather than be fatalistic, however, Christensen spends the last three chapters on what he thinks needs to happen for the current public school system to be able to implement these innovations and reap the benefits of greater individualization and personalization of our students’ learning experience. I find that much more motivating than being told that we’re doomed to irrelevancy!
January 5th, 2010 at 8:38 am
Thanks for your post. Indeed, we wrote the book from the perspective that the public school system CAN make the transition! So far there is some evidence to back that up but we shall see.