Disrupting Class: Deploying Computers
In the previous chapters of Clayton Christensen’s Disrupting Class we’ve discussed why education, according to the author, is in the need of disruption. According to his theory, America’s classroom is not necessarily the problem, nor is the teacher. Teachers have the unenviable task of using the limited tools and confined circumstances they have been given to teach kids in an effective way. Christensen, it should be noted, by no means faults teachers because of the outcome of poor test results by students. Although there are many teachers who have not met the challenge, far and beyond, the vast majority are doing their jobs the best they can. What Christensen argues for, however, is a reexamining of the setting that students and teachers have inherited, and a full scale rearranging of that setting with technology and computers.
In this chapter, Christensen gives an idea of how he would like to use computers in a disruptive way.
Online classes are proliferating at a rapid rate. Christensen makes a persuasive argument that this rapid explosion cannot be denied and while important for recognizing online curriculum’s broad appeal, it also goes to show that online curriculum can be broadly implemented as well.
Public education enrollments in online classes like the one for which Maria signed up are exhibiting the classic signs of disruption as they ahve skyrocketed from 45,000 in 2000 to roughly 1 million today…some of the opportunities where the alternative is nothing at all include: Advanced Placement (AP) and other specialized courses; small, rural, and urban schools that are unable to offer breadth; “credit recovery” for students who must retake courses in order to graduate…
This is important, at least to Christensen, and to this author as well, because it shows the broad applicability technology and computers can have in a classroom and the multitude of avenues that it opens up as a result. Not surprisingly, that also broadens the application of uses in and outside of the classroom. Christensen examples numerous options including advanced placement, homebound, alternative education and summer school classes where online curriculum can be used. All because of:
Online technology provides accessibility for those who previously would not have been able to take the course. It provides convenience for a student to fit the course into his or her schedule at the time and place that is most desirable.
Amen. As followers of this blog will recognize, this is an argument we have been making for some time and believe it will truly resonate with teachers who have difficulties making lesson plans for the broad swath of students whose learning styles vary as much as their individual personalities vary.