The recent McKinsey report Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works reveals that despite a world wide shortage of skilled workers less than half of students think their education prepares them for employment. Unfortunately almost three quarters of the institutions surveyed believe that they are doing a good job of preparing their students for entry level positions in their field of studies. My recent experience as the Vice President Academic of a small liberal arts University confirms that most faculty, administrators and staff believe their institution is doing a wonderful job at preparing students when in reality they are not. How can so many seemingly intelligent people be so wrong and not fully grasp the changes that society is facing and the need for our educational system to adapt?
I have been considering this question for over 30 years and unfortunately, I haven’t seem any significant systemic changes in the educational system since my time as student in grade school–but this may be about to change. Yes, we are using technology like whiteboards instead of blackboards and some institutions are even dabbling with digital content but for the most part any advances in technology are used to make the delivery of information more efficient. We even give our Learning Management Systems names like “Blackboard” to help preserve the notion of information delivery in the traditional sense.
I think a significant part of the problem is that those who are really good at doing school as students come back as instructors and administrators–it is a self perpetuating system. In the extremely popular TED Talk Do schools kill creativity? Sir Ken Robinson makes the argument that if aliens were to visit our school system they would simply see it as system established to produce University Professors. This perhaps explains the disconnect between what the business world and students expect and what the educational system provides. Most instructors are convinced that the system is doing a great job because they are delivering the content in the same way that they had it delivered to them. They did very well in the system so they are living proof that the system works well. They do unto their students what was done onto them and so on. As we see from the data most of these people in the system do not see any problems. Fortunately, those outside the education system see the need for reform and the power of disruptive innovation is about to change the education system in ways that will be beyond the system’s control.
In the recent Forbes article One Man, One Computer, 10 Million Students: How Khan Academy Is Reinventing Education author Michael Noer argues:
No field operates more inefficiently than Education. A new breed of disruptors is finally going to fix it.
The article highlights Salman Khan’s Khan Academy which is a collection of over 3000 short video clips that can be used in a just in time basis to help understand and learn many mathematical, scientific or other technical concepts. The videos themselves are really not that high in aesthetic quality so many traditional instructors are quick to dismiss them on this basis. But this is a classic example of a disruptive innovation. The disruptor often from outside the industry (Sal Kahn is not even a teacher) comes in and fills a need that the incumbent market leader ignores. Kahn upstages the educational establishment with his instructional videos that can be accessed for free that enable the learner to learn at their own pace and master concepts before they move on. Kahn has not discovered anything new and his presuppositions have been well researched by educational theorists. Self paced differentiated instruction and the promotion of mastery based learning work well. We see small pockets of these methodologies all over the world–the ideas are nothing new. It simply took an outsider to the educational establishment to make it work in a way that the educational system couldn’t.
Perhaps this is the secret–perhaps it will take those outside of the educational system to help the educational system to change. The Forbes article points 15 Classroom Revolutionaries who are exploring disruptive technologies that may change the way we teach and learn.
Perhaps the best place for out of the box ideas is from outside of the box.
Guy Kawasaki was the original Apple fanboy who was most responsible for starting the “cult of mac” so one could be surprised to hear him state:
“I fell in love with Android on the smartphone, and then I got a Nexus 7 and started using Android on the tablet as well. To me the great irony is that Apple’s slogan was `Think Different,’ but today if you think different you’re looking at Android.”
Thinking different is really just a matter of expecting a smartphone to support LTE (which is up to 20 times faster and 4G), Near Field Communication (NFC), true multitasking, the ability to sort apps alphabetically and something as simple as a standard micro-USB cable that can be used on any device. To be fair to Apple, Kawasaki switched to Android prior to the iPhone 5 which now supports LTE but he isn’t willing to switch back. The iPhone 5 just doesn’t offer any advantages. Similarly Kawasaki isn’t willing to switch back from his Google Nexus 7 tablet to the iPad Mini because there are no advantages.
When you take into account that Android now has 75% of the smartphone market share compared to Apple’s 15% it is clear that many people are also moving in this direction. I have held off on upgrading to the iPhone 5 and am currently trying to decide between the Samsung Galaxy SIII and the Google Nexus 4. If the Nexus 4 supported LTE I would not even be considering the SIII because of it slow operating system upgrade cycles. BUT… LTE coverage in Canada is not the greatest and the Nexus does support HSPA+ 42Mbps speeds which much better supported in Canada. The remaining challenge with the Nexus 4 is getting one. Google has been sold out perpetually and without the ability to pre-order it is difficult to order a phone without constantly monitoring the Google Nexus site.
I have repeatedly stated that I really don’t care who makes the device, I prefer to use the most powerful, fully featured and effective phone or tablet that I can purchase. Right now Android is taking the lead from Apple. As soon as I can order a Google Nexus 4 I will be making the switch. Since my oldest son has assumed control over my iPad 2 and left me with only an aging iPad 1 I will be joining Kawasaki and will be moving to the Google Nexus 7 as well.
“There’s a saying which says, ‘If you don’t build your dreams, someone else will hire you to help build theirs.’ Redefine how you view education. Understand its true meaning. Education is not just about regurgitating facts from a book or someone else’s opinion on a subject to pass an exam.” [4:13]
