Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns

By: Clayton Christensen   Curtis W. Johnson   Michael B. Horn  

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Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Selected as one of the "Best Books on Innovation, 2008" by BusinessWeek magazine

Named the "Best Human-Capital Book of 2008" by Strategy + Business magazine

A crash course in the business of learning-from the bestselling author of The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution…

"Provocatively titled, Disrupting Class is just what America's K-12 education system needs--a well thought-through proposal for using technology to better serve students and bring our schools into the 21st Century. Unlike so many education 'reforms,' this is not small-bore stuff. For that reason alone, it's likely to be resisted by defenders of the status quo, even though it's necessary and right for our kids.
We owe it to them to make sure this book isn't merely a terrific read; it must become a blueprint for educational transformation."
--Joel Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education

“A brilliant teacher, Christensen brings clarity to a muddled and chaotic world of education.”
--Jim Collins, bestselling author of Good to Great

According to recent studies in neuroscience, the way we learn doesn't always match up with the way we are taught. If we hope to stay competitive-academically, economically, and technologically-we need to rethink our understanding of intelligence, reevaluate our educational system, and reinvigorate our commitment to learning. In other words, we need “disruptive innovation.”

Now, in his long-awaited new book, Clayton M. Christensen and coauthors Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson take one of the most important issues of our time-education-and apply Christensen's now-famous theories of “disruptive” change using a wide range of real-life examples. Whether you're a school administrator, government official, business leader, parent, teacher, or entrepreneur, you'll discover surprising new ideas, outside-the-box strategies, and straight-A success stories.

You'll learn how

• Customized learning will help many more students succeed in school
• Student-centric classrooms will increase the demand for new technology
• Computers must be disruptively deployed to every student
• Disruptive innovation can circumvent roadblocks that have prevented other attempts at school reform
• We can compete in the global classroom-and get ahead in the global market

Filled with fascinating case studies, scientific findings, and unprecedented insights on how innovation must be managed, Disrupting Class will open your eyes to new possibilities, unlock hidden potential, and get you to think differently. Professor Christensen and his coauthors provide a bold new lesson in innovation that will help you make the grade for years to come.

The future is now. Class is in session.

Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Spanning The Chasm in U.S. Public Education - From the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at The Harvard Business School and author of the NYT bestsellers The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution (Clayton Christensen) comes this uniquely important work. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has written that "Creative thoughts evolve in this gap filled with tension - holding on to what is known and accepted while tending toward a still ill defined truth that is barely glimpsed on the other side of the chasm." (1) This book has engineered the architecture to span that chasm.

Along with writer and consultant Curtis Johnson and Executive Director of The Innosight Institute Michael Horn, Christensen and his co-authors demonstrate the sheer beauty of applying the current scholarship we understand about innovation in other domains (business et al) - to a domain that precariously occupies that space in American society that can accurately be characterized as a "gap filled with tension - holding on to what is known and accepted." The latter domain would be the field of U.S. public education. Why? Why is this cross-disciplinary approach so important? Molecular Biologist Kary Mullis nails it when she writes: "Important inventions almost always cross the lines of disciplines. Moving between fields is the way to be creative."(2)

What motivates these authors? In the first half-dozen pages you acquire the distinct impression that these fellows care deeply about improving the U.S. public education system....they've studied it...exhaustively - all the excuses, criticisms, rationalizations, performance data and the like.

After the introductory chapter, the authors use vignettes to set the context for the discussion contained in each respective chapter. The first chapter struggles with the issue of why we are teaching in a standardized approach when we are all "differently-abled" - we learn differently. Chapter two introduces the concept of disruptive innovation, which the authors define as follows: `The disruptive innovation theory explains why organizations struggle with certain kinds of innovation and how organizations can predictably succeed in innovation." (p.45). "Disruptive innovation is not a breakthrough improvement. { Instead of sustaining the traditional improvement trajectory in the established plane of competition, it disrupts that trajectory by bringing to the market a product or service that actually is. Not as good as what companies historically had been selling."(p.47). There's much more to the scholarship that supports the authors thesis regarding disruptive innovation. The charts are also very helpful in conceptualizing the points they are making.


Why haven't we seen disruptive innovation in the U.S. public education system? Listen to these authors: "People did not create new disruptive business models in public education, however. Why not? Almost all disruptions take root among non consumers. In education, there was little opportunity to do that. Public education is set up as a public utility, and state laws mandate attendance for virtually everyone. There was no large, untapped pool of non consumers that new school models could target." p.60. Note that one of the central points the authors make is that the targeting on non-consumers is the arena where disruptive innovation takes place, in other domains. (The way Apple targeted listeners of music with the iPod versus the recording industry creating a similar sort of innovation).

The authors go to great lengths to explain why technology has not transformed how we do what we do in public education (and the results derived therefrom) in the following: "In the language of disruption, here is what this means: Unless top managers actively manage this process, their organization will shape every disruptive innovation into a sustaining innovation -one that fits the processes, values, and economic model of the existing business - because organizations cannot naturally disrupt themselves. This is a core reason why incumbent firms are at a disadvantage relative to entrant companies when disruptive innovations emerge. And it explains why computers haven't changed schools." P.75.

The authors move on to detail how to disruptively deploy computers in the classroom and embrace a vastly more student-centric approach to teaching, learning and assessment. They characterize this as an "opportunity" when they state: "Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian Nobel Laureate in literature once observed, " At every crossway on the road that leads to the future each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past." `Educators, like the rest of us, tend to resist major change. But this shift in the learning platform, if managed correctly - which means disruptively is not a threat. It is an opportunity. Students will be able to work in the way that comes naturally for them. Teachers can be learning leaders with time to pay attention to each student. And school organizations can navigate the impending financial maelstrom without abdicating their mission." P.112.

Chapters five and six delve into the recommendations of these scholars regarding how disruptive innovation evolves within a highly regulated system akin to public education, using examples from the private sector. They address the importance of the knowledge being derived out of the field of neuroscience as it relates to the importance of language dancing during the very early, formative years of infancy. They also advocate for user-generated content, platforms that empower non-technical folks to create powerful learning tools - sharing the same in our connected world. Their treatment of the public education system as a value-chain commercial system is fascinating - a system whose production and distribution of learning materials can and must change, along with disruptive innovations in the current marketing and distribution model.

Chapter 7 legitimately and methodically lampoons the "quality" of social research produced in and around public education - a fact that remains an incredible handicap to the system, teachers, administrators, students, community and country. Chapter 8 is a clarion call for a "common language" in addressing the challenges inherent within the current system. What do the authors mean by "common language?" Consider this excerpt for clarity: "providing a common language is a "mechanism of movement," in that, when done well, it can shift a group's location in the matrix to the point that other tools of cooperation can be effective. With a common language and a common framing of the problem, tools like strategic planning, measurement systems, and salesmanship can be effective. An important reason why we have gone to such lengths to identify the root causes of the problems plaguing public schools is our hope that this book might serve this role for our readers. While we may not have gotten all of our diagnoses and solutions correct, we hope that the understanding we have summarized here might - create a common language and a common way to frame these problems so that there is broader agreement on what is needed and how to achieve it." (pp. 192-193). If that's the impact of this book, we should all be deeply grateful.

Chapter 9 addresses suggestions for structuring schools so they are encouraged to innovate. In the conclusion to this work, the authors, once again, emphasize that their recommendations must not be viewed as threats, but as distinct opportunities to be explored.

This review is not intended to be a substitute for reading and discussing this work. On the contrary - It is my hope that it encourages many to do just that.
It is an incredible body of knowledge that contains the engineering know-how (from both a theoretical and practical standpoint) to Span the Current Chasm in U.S. Public Education.

Devour it. Discuss it with friends and colleagues. Then do something disruptively innovative with that discussion. As the authors use of a quote from Einstein clearly illustrates: "The significant problems we have cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we were using when we created them."(p.156).

NOTES:

(1) Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly Creativity - Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Harper Perrenial, HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, New York Copyright © 1996 by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, p.103.

(2) Barron, Frank Montuori, Alfonso & Barron, Anthea Creators on Creating - Awakening and Cultivating the Imaginative Mind, Penguin Group (USA) Inc. New York, NY Copyright © 1997 by Frank Barron, Alfonso Montuori and Anthea Barron - quote by Kary Mullis - p.70 & 73. Chapter entitled The Screwdriver.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Must Read for Educators - If you are an educator, school board member, teacher, concerned parent, or legislator, then this book is for you. Wade through the occasional academia to get a compelling argument for the future of education in our public school system. I am in adult education, and I was riveted, challenged, and inspired by the concepts. Vendor was on time and as promised.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
revisiting the book - It's been awhile since I read it but needed to update my previous review. This book is a more relevant read today than it was 2 years ago. The use of technology as a "tool" to facilitate better education must be distinguished from using it as a total replacement for old style teaching. Just like you could not readily hand out a power saw or a jack hammer to each person in the US and hope we become a better society, nobody is suggesting that the outright replacement of our old system should be considered. Having raised 8 children and been lucky enough to have my daughter go to HBS and been a student of Clayton, I know first hand what a great teacher can do for us. This book is a strong introduction of what the future will look like, regardless of the pressure from teacher's unions and government politics. Clayton has seen the future, his "flashforward" gives him the unique ability to report what it looks like and helps us prepare for it. READ this book.

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Common Sense Approach to Fixing our Education System - Clayton Christensen offers a believable and intuitive approach to fixing our staggering American educational system. In a nutshell: people learn in different ways (no surprise here; it's a well-documented theory). Teachers too often teach one way (or two or three--the point being, teachers standardize. I understand. I've been a teacher most of my life. One of us and many of them in a classroom). His solution: Use 21st century technology and Web 2.0 to individualize lessons to suit needs.

That's where the problem starts according to Christensen. Schools throw technology at their problems in hopes software, hardware, internet websites, will fix their shrinking test scores. Every technology teacher I know agrees with the author that this approach is flawed and frustrates both students and teachers. Technology is a tool, to be wielded with a skilled hand.

Christensen gives teachers permission to disrupt class--shake it up! See what's going on. Here are some of my favorite ideas:
1) If the addition of computers to classrooms were a cure, there would be evidence of it by now. There is not. Test scores have barely budged. 2) Why haven't schools (with so much emphasis on technology) been able to march down this path (of student-centric learning)? ...because they have crammed the new technologies into their existing structure... 3) The world of education is one in which there is little agreement on what the goals are, let alone the methods that are best-suited to achieve them. 4) Public schools have been improving steadily, since 1900, but society moved the goal posts ...changed the definition of improvement...

I'd recommend this to any teacher intent upon integrating technology into their core curriculum.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
A student centered approach to improving education - If you want to learn how to improve education by focusing on a student centered approach, this book is for you. Just like customers should be the center of the business and the focus of success in business is meeting the customers' needs and wants, the student should be the focus of the school and success should be measured by how well a school meets their needs and wants. Writing this of course, I understand, will generate many nay sayers who will have numerous arguments for why this is incorrect.

However, solutions that focus on the needs of the teachers, the unions, the principals, the parents, etc., have not worked. And, with the proper guidance, students should know what they need to be successful in their school work and ulitmately their lives.

Clayton using his usually strong analytical approach evaluates the educational challenges both inductively and deductively to get to the root cause of the problem. And, in my words, the problem is this: each student learns differently, and the centralized, bureaucratic approaches that have been used to force fit a regimented approach dictated from Washington down to local school boards haven't and won't solve this problem. What we need is a more student centric approach that uses flexible tools developed through information technology to meet the needs of individual students.

This is a very innovative approach to solving this problem, and in my opinion, Clayton is the most innovative thinker out there today. After all, as he quotes Einstein (and I used some liberty to paraphrase), you can't solve the problem by using the solutions that caused it.

Then, Clayton lays out how the change is happening (in some instances) and can happen (in others where it is not) based upon innovation concepts like disruptive innovation and heavyweight teams.

I highly recommend this book for any individual interested in innovation and/or education.

Clayton has written another excellent book to build upon his disruptive innovation philosophy. Thank you, Clayton, for your continued excellent work!

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