Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, and Michael B. Horn
Posted January 12, 2009 · by kchurch · in Book Club
The selection for the next staff book club is Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, and Michael B. Horn. The review from Publishers Weekly is listed below. Click on the link to see more reviews and reader comments.
From Publishers Weekly
It’s no secret that people learn in different ways, so why, the authors of this book ask, “can’t schools customize their teaching?” The current system, “designed for standardization,” must by its nature ignore the individual needs of each student. The answer to this problem, the authors argue, is “disruptive innovation,” a principle introduced (and initially applied to business) by Harvard Business School professor Christensen in The Innovator’s Dilemma. The idea is that an audience in need will benefit from even a faulty opportunity to fulfill that need; in education, the demand for individual instruction could be met through infinitely customizable online computer-based instruction. The authors, all professionals in education, present a solution to the ills of standardized education that’s visionary but far-fetched; even they admit that their recommendations would be extremely difficult to implement in current school systems. Still, the authors’ unusual case, though occasionally bogged down in tangents, is worthy reading for school administrators, teachers, parents and, perhaps most of all, software developers. Charts.
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Check out the interview with two of the book’s authors: http://www.edweek.org/chat/2009/02/25/transcript_02_25_09.html
The questions asked take the discussion into questions of equity which may be of interest for those of you who also read the last book we studied, “Shame of the Nation.”
Thanks Bobby for bringing the Education Week interview to our attention!