Big ideas from TED 2011: Letting students drive their education
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The implications of Khan’s work are nothing short of a total reevaluation of education. In a world in which the only constant is the increase in the pace of change, we simply can’t afford to give our kids anything less than an education system that actually gives them what they need to be successful.
@GOOD Asks: How can we lower high school drop out rates?
We’ve covered the drop out epidemic before. In the United States, a kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. Over the course of a year, that adds up to 1.2 million students. How can we lower this number?
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From DSC:
This is unbelievable! Again, I’m reminded of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion — spilling out valuable resources that are going untapped. What a waste of God-given gifts!
Addendum 4/5/11:
From DSC:
The first portions of Kelly Tenkely’s solid blog posting — 17 ways to meet individual learning needs in the math classroom — stirred up some thoughts from a training-related session I was in earlier today. Kelly writes:
Differentiating instruction can be challenging. Student’s educational strengths and weaknesses can be widely varied, making it a difficult task to meet each student’s needs in any given lesson. Math is one such subject area where student skill levels can be very different.
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For most students, math takes a lot of practice. Unfortunately, the students who need the most practice are the most reluctant to do so because they haven’t been successful in the past. Many of these students have convinced themselves, through negative self-talk, that “I’m just not good at math.” What is a teacher to do with such a mix of skill and comfort levels in the math classroom?
Though there could be several lines of thought that I could pursue here — such as the good and bad sides of self-efficacy, personalized/customized learning, 1:1 initiatives, other — my thought process was most influenced from a training session I had attended earlier today. That session featured a video from Marcus Buckingham’s short-film series entitled Trombone Player Wanted.
Marcus asserts that there are several myths that many of us grow up with (such as our personalities change as we grow; we grow most in the areas of our weaknesses; our teams don’t need us to show up with our strengths, instead they need us to do ____). Marcus asserts that we should identify and develop our strengths (and manage around our weaknesses) — as we seek to create Win/Win situations. This perspective is consistent with my economics training that states that everyone benefits when each one of us does what we do best.
This made me reflect on the massive, systemic pressure most of our current educational environments/policies/curriculums put on students to get everyone to be at the same place. It seems like our systems stress conformity — in the goal of “level-setting” everyone.
This made me wonder:
I realize that there are basic skills that are very helpful for all adults — balancing a checkbook, being able to read and write, and many other skills. However, the question I started pondering today was…”At what point should we call it quits on a subject area — say that’s good enough — and then allow the students to pursue their individual strengths (rather than try to hammer out performance increases in an area they will rarely use)?”
Examples:
From TeachMoore blog by Renee Moore
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Addendum (2/12/11) — also see:
London: Videos from the Learning Without Frontiers Festival now online
Learning Without Frontiers is a global platform for disruptive thinkers and practitioners from the education, digital media, technology and entertainment sectors who come together to explore how new disruptive technologies can drive radical efficiencies and improvements in learning whilst providing equality of access.
If you were unable to attend the recent LWF Festival of Learning & Technology in London we’re pleased to let you know that videos from the conference are now online for your personal or group viewing pleasure. There are a number of ways to view these videos so just choose the one you prefer.
To view, comment & join the discussions you can visit the video pages on the LWF site here
Amongst the alternatives, they are available on the following platforms:
iTunes (download to your PC, iPad or iPhone)*
And for users of Apple TV simply search for the Learning Without Frontiers channel under podcasts.
*You can also search for Learning Without Frontiers in the iTunes store – they are FREE!
Curiosity-Driven Education — from Futurist Thomas Frey
Wilhelm Konrad von Roentgen became famous for “accidentally” discovering x-rays. Roentgen found something in nature that seemed useless, but fascinated him. He devoted countless hours to studying how electrons move from one point to another within a gas. He did this because he had an amazing sense of curiosity that was driven by a need to understand nature.
X-rays weren’t discovered by chance. Chance is when something comes from nothing. Yes, his discovery was serendipitous, but it was followed by a lot of hard work. Today, a scientist in a similar situation would be confronted with the challenges of finding the funding to proceed with this type of research.
Roentgen’s story is a classic example of a scientist who didn’t begin with a well-defined question. So, how do we remove the constraints and incentivize people to build on a hunch, with the remote possibility that their hunch may lead to an enormous breakthrough in society?
We do it by creating systems that empower our curiosity.
Survey points to radical makeover of traditional education — from free press release center
Online education is booming according to longtime online higher education pioneer, Dr. Fred DiUlus.
Excerpt:
January 23, 2011 (FPRC) — Online education is booming according to longtime online higher education pioneer, Dr. Fred DiUlus. As the founder and CEO of online university builder, Global Academy Online, he has witnessed first-hand the exponential growth of the online education industry. Traditional educators are just now beginning to seriously pull back the layers of opportunity that exist within the virtual world for today’s technologically savvy students.
Many traditionalists have complained over the years about what they perceive as the inadequacy of virtual education. They believe that somehow online education would destroy rigor and academic accomplishment if universities even dared to adopt online protocols in a major way. The father of modern management, the late Peter Drucker, predicted that schools as we know them will cease to exist in a generation replaced by their virtual counterparts.
Skeptics in higher education have long questioned Drucker’s ominous prediction. Global Academy Online’s own statistical research over the past eight years appears to bear out Drucker’s forecast contrary to what others in the field think and perhaps sooner than even Drucker expected. In 2002, the Academy began collecting statistical data from students attending traditional colleges and universities. The results of the eight-year survey are so startling that it now appears proof positive of the inevitability of Drucker’s prophecy.
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From DSC:
It shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows my work when I say that I think Sajan George is right on the mark! 🙂
For example, below are the main points of what I heard him say (with some graphics of my own that back up what I have been saying):
Sajan George: The Future of Education
January Series at Calvin College (January 24, 2011)
We are living in a new age, the Conceptual Age — primary skill sets that we now need are for creators and empathizers. Why? Because those two skillsets aren’t easily automated or outsourced (Sajan referenced Dan Pink’s work).
We built our education system in between the agricultural and industrial ages; mass production model was built during a much different time with different needs.
Speed and acceleration of change has greatly increased. At a phenomenal pace!
From DSC:
You may have seen me post this graphic a few times:
Sajan gave an example that focused on an older model of a coffee maker vs. a newer model: Coffee Maker 1.0 vs. Coffee Maker 2.0. Point was that we still need skills, but design, esthetic, and emotion have become more important.
Also, we live in a society that demands Coffee Maker 2.0 — but our educational systems are still offering Education 1.0. We are still batching kids by age, using a 1-to-many model, etc.
We still are offering “Education 1.0” where
…but we are living in a “Society 2.0” world
Also, our current methods of educating students is not scalable, not sustainable!
Previous attempts at changing our educational systems have failed because they’ve been trying to fix the status quo of education! It’s a design problem.
From DSC:
You may have seen me post this graphic a few times:
Current educational system needs to be completely blown up and redesigned! We live in a digital world, yet kids sitting in analog world.
Technology that customizes learning – recommendation engines, adaptive learning; personalized/customized learning.
Online learning is scalable, sustainable – while offering instantaneous feedback. Per Sajan, “But it’s happening on the fringes; home school kids; supplemental, etc.”
Hybrid environment – hoping to nationally launch this year
Use data to differentiate instruction.
Design problem in education.
Hybrid learning <– Sajan’s current work promoting this model; brings power of human interaction with the customization that technology can bring.
From DSC:
You may have seen this graphic I’ve posted a few times — that aims to capture the best of both worlds:
When trying to change things, you need a compelling vision of what you are trying to build/achieve.
From DSC:
You may have seen the vision I was trying to relay here.
From Q&A session…with a hybrid mode:
From DSC:
The other day, I created/posted the top graphic below. Take the concepts below — hook them up to engines that use cloud-based learner profiles — and you have some serious potential for powerful, global, ubiquitous learning! A touch-sensitive panel might be interesting here as well.
Come to think of it, add social networking, videoconferencing, and web-based collaboration tools — the power to learn would be quite impressive. Multimedia to the nth degree.
Then add to that online marketplaces for teaching and learning — where you can be both a teacher and a learner at the same time — hmmm…
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From DSC:
Then today, I saw Cisco’s piece on their Videoscape product line! Check it out!
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