Disruption in the Classroom

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TeachThought – Terry Heick

This post is actually intended to supplement the “Cycle of Learning Innovation” we recently published, which means this is less about analysis and context and more about the examples. First, some quick clarification so that we have a common language.

In short, by “disruption,” we are referring to something that causes the kind of impact that leads to change. To push it further, one definition of disruption might be a bottom-up cause that substantially affects the ecology it is a part of (e.g., perception, market advantages, resource needs, usage patterns, etc.), forcing redistribution (e.g., market, demographic spread, revenue, credibility, knowledge) of something else we collectively value.

Or put even more simply, “a bottom-up cause that substantially affects the ecology it is a part of, forcing reconfiguration of that system, and recreation and redistribution of currencies within that system.”

The Innovator’s Dilemma

This leads to the “innovator’s dilemma,” described recently in The Economist as “the difficult choice an established company faces when it has to choose between holding onto an existing market by doing the same thing a bit better, or capturing new markets by embracing new technologies and adopting new business models.” The article goes on to point out some examples of this kind of dilemma, and how certain businesses responded.

“IBM dealt with this dilemma by launching a new business unit to make PCs, while continuing to make mainframe computers. Netflix took a more radical move, switching away from its old business model (sending out rental DVDs by post) to a new one (streaming on-demand video to its customers). Disruptive innovations usually find their first customers at the bottom of the market: as unproved, often unpolished, products, they cannot command a high price. Incumbents are often complacent, slow to recognize the threat that their inferior competitors pose. But as successive refinements improve them to the point that they start to steal customers, they may end up reshaping entire industries: classified ads (Craigslist), long distance calls (Skype), record stores (iTunes), research libraries (Google), local stores (eBay), taxis (Uber) and newspapers (Twitter).”

What are some examples of disruptions in the classroom, then? Not necessarily initially innovations, but factors (value neutral–neither good nor bad in and of themselves) that can lead to innovation? I’ve listed some examples of disruption in education below, and ranked them (though obviously the ranking is entirely subjective and only useful as a crude reference point to start your own thinking). For the #1 disruption in education, I’ve actually summarized the disruptor and its effect as an example, though for the rest, I only include the disruption itself for most of the rest.

30 Examples Of Disruption In The Classroom 

1. The ubiquity of Google search and its impact on curriculum knowledge demands
2. Common Core standards (this one’s not sexy, but few factors impact public education in the United States in 2015 more than this index of academic content)
3. Planned obsolescence of mobile technology
4. 1:1 as a standard rather than a luxury
5. Rising cost of universities
6. Change in cultural perception of identity–gender, technology, science, faith, sexuality, etc.
7. Change in credibility of a high school diploma or college degree
8. Increasingly formal use of social media by education institutions
9. Maker Movement
10. General insecurity or misunderstanding about how to meaningfully integrate technology in the classroom
11. Relative “normalizing” of computer coding
12. Falling cost of mobile devices, which impacts what’s affordable, who shows up to school with what on their own, school budgets, etc.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog