Clayton Christensen gave us The Innovator's Dilemma and several other works including those for K-12, and the health care field. He described "disruptive innovations," about having major change in large systems. He talks about the reluctance and inability for large systems to change until a disruptive innovation comes from outside the system to change it drastically.
In his book on the university system he talks about how our model of higher ed. has created its "DNA", as he calls it, by using Harvard as a role model. Some of the legacies from Harvard are: the idea of bigger and better, having all courses on a campus, using a grading curve, having long summer vacations, having tenured professors who receive tenure from publishing their discovery research, having undergrads taught by graduate students and teaching assistents rather than professors, to name a few.Plus, Harvard even set the criteria that is still being delivered by American high schools.
He gives some recommendations for universities in order to change. Plus, he reinforces the idea that there is a need for university systems that promote knowledge and scholarship.
He describes the disruptive innovation of online learning and how universities should offer blended courses.
However, I wonder if he has gone far enough. With the access to the Internet being global, some scholars/inventors put their ideas online and others contribute to them, making an even better product. Does this qualify as publication? Also, as online courses are more outcome-driven, how does this change the meaning of a degree? Or does it? Also, he says we need scholarship and the pursuit of knowledge--and I think we would all agree--but with increasing unemployment among college graduates worldwide, do we need to change some of our thinking about creating and getting jobs? Is the purpose of a degree to be an entre into the world of work? Or is it knowledge for knowledge sake with the idea of pursuing an advanced degree?
What is happening is that our world is changing. Who creates knowledge? What is knowledge? How is knowledge shared? What is the role of schools in this environment? is knowledge only about the "stuff" that we can google, as Sugata Mitra would say? Or is knowledge applied? And then the big question, What is the purpose of schools, from pre-K through university?
Reading this book after reading the one on K-12 was very interesting! Excellent sources of conversation as we look at what education is for and what it means to be an educated person.
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