Disrupting Class = Chapters 1-3

I thought I would start posting a couple of comments from each chapter of Disrupting Class to give conference attendees a sense of what will be discussed in the Education Track.

Chapter 1: Why Schools Struggle to Teach Differently When Each Student Learns Differently

Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner defines intelligence:

-The ability to solve problems that one encounters in real life.
-The ability to generate new problems to solve.
-The ability to make something or offer a service that is valued in one's culture.

(That is not exactly the definition of an IQ score that most people use.)

Further, he came up with eight distinct intelligencies:

-Linguistic-ability to think in words
-Logical-Mathematical-ability to calculate, quantify,
-Spatial-ability to think in 3-dimensions
-Bodily-Kinesthetic-ability to manipulate objects, physical skills
-Musical-ability to create rhythm,tone,pitch and melody
-Interpersonal-ability to understand and interact with others
-Intrapersonal-ability to construct an actual self-perception
-Naturalist-ability to observe patterns in nature, understand systems

Most people have some capacity in each of the eight, most people excel in only two or three of them. Within each type of intelligences there are different learning styles. Nested within each learning style, people learn at different paces.

Here is the dilema: because students have different types of intelligence, learning styles, varying paces and starting points, ALL students have special learning needs.

Chapter 2: Making the Shift: Schools Meet Society's Needs

"Schools actually have been improving...In a manner analagous to disruption in the private sector, society has moved the goal posts on schools and imposed upon them new measures of performance. What is unique about public schools is that laws and regulations make them a virtual monopoly, which makes it difficult and sometimes impossible for new business models to compete on the new measures. Society has asked schools to pursue the new metric of improvement from within the existing organization, which was designed to improve along the old performance metric. In essence, the public schools have been required to do the equivalent of rebuilding an airplane in mid-flight-something almost no private enterprise has been able to do."

Chapter 3: Crammed Computer Classrooms

"In 1996, President Clinton announced a transformative vision for computing in schools. He called for: 1) modern computers and learning devices available to all students, 2)classrooms connected to one another and the outside world, 3) making educational software an inegral part of the curriculum and as engaging as the best video game, and 4)having teachers ready to use and teach with technology.

(S)chools have crammed them into classroooms to sustain and marginally improve the way they already teach and run their schools, just as most organizations do when they attempt to implement innovations...If school administrators will change course, however, and first implement computer-based learning in places and for courses where there are no teachers to teach, then computer-based learning will, step by step, disrupt the instructional job that teachers are doing in a positive way, by helping students learn in ways that their brains are wired to learn and by allowing teachers to give students much more individual attention...(S)chools use computers as a tool and a topic, not as a primary instructional mechanism that helps students learn in ways that are customized to their type of intelligence..Computers have not increased student-centered learning and project-based teaching practices. The implementation of computers has not caused any measurable improvements in achievement scores...computers have made almost no dent in the most important challenge that they have the potential to crack: allowing students to learn in ways that correspond with how their brains are wired to learn, thereby migrating to a student-centric classroom."