(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
Clayton Christensen and company have a new report out on higher education and virtual learning for the Center for American Progress. Hat tip: Dave Saba’s Virtual Learning Blog.
Disruption Goes to College
February 10, 2011
1 Comment | 
online learning | Tagged: Center for American Progress, clayton christensen, Dave Saba | 
Permalink
Posted by matthewladner
The Way of the Future Sighting in Yuma
August 13, 2009
(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
The Arizona Charter School Association has calculated student learning gains in grades 3-8 for every district and charter school in the state and posted the results online. Interestingly the same school came top in both math and reading- Carpe Diem E-Learning in Yuma Arizona. They not only came in first, it was by a pretty wide margin.
So, what’s the secret sauce? They let you know right on the school webpage:
Our academic program is a “hybrid” program consisting of on-site teacher-facilitators (coaches) and computer-assisted instruction (CAI) utilizing a computer-based learning and management system. Our program offers an extensive online library of interactive instructional courseware, providing learners and teachers with access to thousands of hours of self-paced, mastery-based instruction.
Our program considers individual differences in ability, knowledge, interests, goals, contexts and learning styles. Our instructional resources and strategies give our “coaches” the power to effectively tailor their instructional practices, accommodating the individual needs of the learner with the goal of achieving student mastery.
In the Carpe Diem Collegiate High School and Middle School (CDCHS), we believe that all students should have a high quality experience and technology-based education designed to help them be successful today, tomorrow and in the future. What is “success?” At Carpe Diem, success means the student must demonstrate appropriate character and content proficiency (learning mastery), not just course completion.
Hybrid model mixing classroom instruction and technology delivered content. Teacher really serving as a guide on the side rather than a sage on a stage, only in a context where is finally makes sense. Sound familar?
Clayton Christensen has predicted that as a disruptive technology the day would come, after of years of occupying niches here and there, steadily growing like the mice at the feet of the dinosaurs, when people would realize that online learning represents a superior technology to Jurassic schools. After reaching this tipping point, Christensen sees a rapid rise in online learning.
Terry Moe and John Chubb also see a bright future for e-learning, albeit one a bit more constrained by politics. Moe and Chubb see a chance to substitute technology for labor, providing the opportunity to provide better education for less money. Needless to say, this leads to opposition from the education unions, but Moe and Chubb see technology subtly but surely eroding the power of the unions.
Two of the most obvious possible advantages of online learning: self-paced schooling and required mastery of content to advance, both of which are featured at Carpe Diem. I’ll be keeping a close eye on Carpe Diem’s progress, but producing the state’s largest gains in a relatively low-income area certainly has my attention.
5 Comments | instructional reform | Tagged: Carpe Diem E-learning, clayton christensen, john chubb, Liberating Learning, Terry Moe | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner
Liberating Learning
June 1, 2009
Two decades after writing Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools, Terry Moe and John Chubb have done it again. With Liberating Learning they’ve written a a compelling account of what is blocking significant improvement in public education and provided strategies for overcoming those obstacles.
The main obstacle has remained the same across the two books: teachers unions. Organized special interests in education as in other sectors of public policy shape the policies that are made. In the case of education the special interests are so large, well-organized, and well-funded that their influence has distorted policy significantly to the benefit of the adults working in schools and against the interests of students and their families.
In their earlier book the solution to union dominance was choice and competition. Interest groups can control policy but they can’t easily control markets. But in the new book Moe and Chubb (they flipped the order of the names) acknowledge that unions have been generally successful at using politics to block the creation of effective markets. Something has to loosen the union stranglehold to allow the markets to develop and prosper.
In Liberating Learning they’ve found what they think will break that logjam: technology. The increasing use of technology in education will transform the operation of schools and the role of teachers in education. In general, it will reduce the need for teachers by replacing (at least to some extent) labor with capital. It will generate tons of data, improving the transparency of schools to the public and policymakers. And it will decentralize the education workplace, making it harder for unions to organize and control the workforce.
There are clear echoes of Clayton Christensen’s work on disruptive technologies in this new book. But unlike Christensen, Moe and Chubb focus on the politics of public organizations rather than technology per se. In fact, if you are looking for detailed descriptions of how technology should be used in education or hard proof of its effectiveness, you won’t find it in Moe and Chubb’s new book. They are not trying to prove that these technologies are educationally effective or describe best practices, although it is clear that they have some ideas on these topics. They are trying to describe the political logic of the current stagnation in education and how it might be altered.
The clear writing and tight argument will make Liberating Learning a pleasure to read for education reformers. We might still wonder whether unions will be able to use politics to block the transformative effect of technology, but the book is sure to provoke a lot of productive discussion and thinking.
(edited for typos)
15 Comments | politics, teacher union, vouchers | Tagged: clayton christensen, john chubb, Terry Moe | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene
