Disruptive innovation has the potential to change the face of education. As a result of this change in educational paradigms, the state of the whole world could be affected. A change in education, results in a change in culture and economy.
Here are some ideas for innovation in education (some my own and some belonging to others):
- Reverse content: Today, textbook, top-down learning dominates the classroom. Instead, we can consider having students engage in research at home. Now that we have the internet, this is quite easy for students to do. We can bring activities like project work into the classroom. Facilitation and teaching are better suited for these kinds of activities.
- No grades: Some European countries have seen a lot of success from removing grading systems. When you adopt this type of approach, more self-directed learning occurs. Students don’t feel pressured to fit within a curriculum and focus on exploration instead of memorization.
- Experiential learning: Schools are beginning to adopt experiential learning. When you show students the application of their learning, they are much more motivated.
- Smaller class sizes: Not really innovative. But for some reason I think 40 kids to 1 teacher seems like a bad idea.
- Dedicated 1 on 1 time: Most students only get one on one time with a teacher if they are motivated enough to ask for it. Vicious cycle. Unmotivated students don’t get the attention they need and therefore become even more unmotivated.
People have proposed all these ideas in the past. The problem isn’t a lack of ideas, it’s a lack of adoption. Now we need to innovate on adopting ideas.