Future of Learning Top Reads for week of Mar 26 2018
"EdX Quietly Developing MicroBachelors Program," by Jeffrey Young / @jryoung, in EdSurge News
"How would a MicroBachelors be different than, say, a two-year associate's degree, which is arguably already half a bachelor’s degree? Sarma said that the idea behind both MicroMasters and MicroBachelors is that they are 'about putting stuff that can be done online, online.' In other words, the big idea is offering a low-cost, low-risk way for students to start an undergraduate education even if they can't get to a campus."
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
In Kevin Carey's must-read The End of College (2015), he says that college, like cable TV, is an expensive, bundled experience. By contrast, online platforms like EdX, Coursera, Udacity, and others unbundle that service by delivering smaller units of high quality learning, at a fraction of the cost, at massive scale.
The Basecamp team agrees with Carey’s prediction about an unbundling in education. Platforms like Global Online Academy and One Schoolhouse are already making in-roads among independent schools. Meanwhile, Lakeside’s microschool experiment The Downtown School offers a physical presence version of unbundling (eg, no extracurricular or sports).
If you are an independent school, you and your Board of Trustees should already be talking about the threat / opportunity of unbundling.
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"Organizing for the age of urgency," by Aaron De Smet and Chris Gagnon, in McKinsey Quarterly
"Companies are beginning to experiment with increasingly radical approaches. We're struck by a commonality among those who get it right: they create adaptive, fast-moving organizations that can respond quickly and flexibly to new opportunities and challenges as they arise. In doing so, they're moving intelligent decision making to the front lines. That's in sharp contrast to the standard, 'safer' modus operandi of capturing data, sending it up a hierarchal chain, centrally analyzing it, and sending guidance back. [...] The process functions more like a network and less like a chain of command."
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
Imagine an independent agency were to audit your curriculum.
What percentage would they say is designed to form your learners as creative, collaborative problem solvers on the front lines where "intelligent decision making will find them? And what percentage would they say forms students to follow directions and “chain of command”?
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"Why it is important to create and foster entrepreneurial mindset in India’s high school students," by Dr. Ayesha Chaudhary, in Your Story
Source: "Can We Leapfrog?" (2016), Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institute
"More than 2,400 Atal Tinkering Labs are being established in Indian high schools to nurture the scientific temperament and creative mindset of school children. A huge emphasis is laid on connecting the schools with both home-grown and global academic and private organisations to share the best practices of technology innovation."
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
Did you know that after the United States, India has the second most learning innovations taking place in the world?
India’s education system may not be highly visible to typical American, but it is a key player in the global system into which all of our learners are graduating.
Note how Atal Tinkering Labs goes beyond teaching curriculum--their deeper innovation is the creation a network among high school learners, higher ed, and professional mentors.
Does your school leverage its place in a similarly diverse network?
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Question of the week: How is your school preparing for the unbundling of education?
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