Clay Christensen on Disrupting Class

I just finished Disrupting Class by Clay Christensen, Michael Horn and Curtis Johnson. As a big fan of Christensen’s work on disruptive innovation, I was excited to read this book and was not disappointed. Here are the high points from my perspective:

The current system of education was designed to provide an education to large numbers of people. As our society industrialized, education went from being an individualized activity (think one-room schoolhouse) to standardized mass production (think of the average high school in your town or city). But just as our economy is moving away from mass production, so too will our education system evolve.

The disruption in education will come from individualized learning via the computer. This ultimately will disrupt the whole system but, for now (as is the pattern with disruptive technologies), it is competing against non-consumption. One example is rural schools that cannot offer specialized or advanced (even AP) classes are allowing students to take classes over the internet. Another is remedial training for poorer districts or kids outside the established system.

This type of individualized learning has the potential of allowing each student to move at their own pace and, equally importantly, use a program that is designed to their learning style. The pace of adoption of this kind of course is still low relative to overall school consumption but is growing so fast that the authors predict that by 2019, 50% of high school courses will be delivered online.

The implications of this trend are far-reaching. It will change the role of the teacher from communicator to coach or tutor. It will increase the level of learning because everyone is going at their own pace. It may eliminate the need for testing since you cannot advance in a program unless you have dominated the material. Because fewer teachers will be able to have greater impact, the authors project, the cost of education may go down while improving the quality.

The authors also foresee a greater use of networks and user-generated content–where teachers, parents and students themselves share curricula or lessons that have worked well for them.

It’s a lot to digest but it is a set of predictions that no one should ignore. It has implications for our eductional system but also for our corporations. As learning becomes a lifelong affair, these disruptive learning technologies will be important throughout our society.