Chapter 4

Colleagues: I am so annoyed with the blogging tool, that I am going to try posting to my "Disrupting Class" blog on VCU's website for the ensuing chapters. I don't regret trying this site out, but it takes me hours (literally) to post to this site and insert the graphics. This would have to be the poorest implementation "ever." (I hope!) I have to conclude it's just not up to incorporating graphics.

I will keep you updated on progress. In the meantime, I apologize for the font size going crazy at the end of this post. I've spent the past hour working on it, and it's better than when I started but I begrudge the time it takes to fix every little thing--which then comes unstuck the next graphic I import. I don't like to admit defeat, but I'm afraid it is time to move on to other software.

Competing Against Nonconsumption

This rather obtuse phrase is illustrated at the outset of this chapter as "Maria" happily enrolls in an online class in Arabic. She is prepared to accept the online class in Arabic rather than not have access to the language at all. By portraying online education as the option of last resort, there seems to be an implicit assumption that face-to-face teaching is preferable. At the very least, I think this muddies the water of Christensen's proposition that computers are at the heart of student-centric teaching. If student-centric teaching is the ideal, but online teaching is less desirable than face-to-face teaching, it seems to me that there is an issue here. ( How do you view this point? )

Christensen makes the point that, on the face of it, there aren't many nonconsumers of schooling in the U.S. However, on looking further, there are many niches within schools where there are nonconsumers. He lists a number of instances (like AP courses) where some students are turned by circumstances into nonconsumers of the educational opportunities that are best suited to them. He even suggests that PreK is such a niche. Online classes have made significant impact in these niches, Christensen suggest, with a rise from 45,000 public school enrollees in 2000 to roughly 1,000,000 in 2008. ( Does Christensen's designation of educational nonconsumers conform with the way in which he has used nonconsumption in the preceeding chapters? )

Two stages of software-delivered learning

1. Computer-based learning is characterized by proprietary software with high development costs, and monolithic architecture (code for not taking into account different intelligences and learning styles). However, the monolithic architecture of computer-based software is still less inflexible than the teacher-delivered learning modality, because at least the computer-based approach allows for different paces and different paths through the material. ( What are your views on this? )

2. Student-centric technology will allow students to learn "in a manner that is consistent with their type of intelligence and learning style" (p. 92). Christensen proposes an analogy: computer-based learning is disruptive to teacher-delivered learning just as student-centric technology is disruptive to personal tutors. I presume this is an oblique reference to research findings that support personal tutors as the most effective way to learn. ( So, what does research have to say about the most effective teaching-learning environment? )

Advanced Placement

Nonconsumption in terms of AP is evidenced by the unavailability of AP classes at 33% of schools nationwide. Even those schools that do offer AP, offer "only a fraction of the 34 courses for which AP exams are available" (p. 92). Small demand and restricted resources constrain the offering of AP courses. The same applies to courses for gifted students and for students with special needs.

Another constraint on the offering of AP course is the availability of qualified faculty--particularly in small schools and in urban school districts. As Christensen declares, "computer-based learning is a welcome solution when the alternative is to forgo learning the subject altogether" (p. 93). It is important to see where Christensen is going here. He is drawing a parallel with, for example, Sony' s early transistor radios. When the alternative is "nothing," even a poor substitute for the "real thing" (RCA's mantel radios) is attractive. So he is implicitly accepting that having a qualified AP teacher in a class is better than the computer-based alternative. Because the computer-based model is not as good as having a qualified AP teacher, well-resourced schools have no incentive to "buy" the computer-based model and take a step down in quality.

Home-bound and home-schooled students provide another natural fit for computer-based learning. While Christensen's logic is clear, I am not so sure of its empirical support. Two home-schooling families that I know well are each members of quite large consortia of families who pool the intellectual resources of various parents within the consortia to offer courses like physics. Christensen offers little support for the role he gives to computer-based learning in "fueling" the recent spurt in home schooling. ( What does the research have to offer on this front? )

The ice gets thinner when Christensen skates on to recruit Pre-K nonconsumers into the niche for computer-based learning. It is not clear why the parents of the 43% of 3- to 5-year-old children who do not attend Pre-K would want their children involved in a computer-based environment, when the major learning in Pre-K relates to learning (human) social interaction skills in an academic context. ( What is your view on this? What does the research have to offer on this? )

A Booming Market
Christensen points out that there has been a staggering growth rate in the number of students taking on-line courses. While the overall numbers may be small, it is hard to dismiss Apex Learning's annual 50% growth rate since 2003-4. Virtual Virgina's enrollments have quadrupled in the last two years. The course offerings from Virtual Virginia certainly validate the niche that Christensen suggests for on-line education. ( Have you any personal experience of Virtual Virginia? )

The Disruptive Pattern

All disruptions initially compete against nonconsumption in a different plane from that occupied by the established technology. Eventually and gradually, applications (clients) migrate from the established technology to the disruptive technology in an S-curve pattern--starting slowly, then becoming a landslide before finally tapering off at the time when the disruptive technology becomes the established technology. The S-curve in Figure 4.1 certainly is not asymptotically approaching 100% as the text declares it should. It is approaching slightly less than 90%, so you need to mentally re-scale the y-axis. (In non-technical language, a curve asymptotically approaches a straight line when it gets closer and closer to it but never actually touches it. The graph to the left shows a curve which is asymptotic to the line y=3.)

At the time when the disruptive technology is competing against nonconsumption, those entrenched in the established technology extrapolate linearly from the early part of the S-curve and conclude that "It'll take ages for this this to catch on..." They expect to have lots of time to work out how to deal with the disruptive technology. When the landslide of applications and clients happens (the steep part of the S-curve; "Everybody'll be using it tomorrow..."), the established technology folk are unable to rapidly adjust to the new reality. The trick is to determine exactly how soon the steep part of the curve will arrive.

One way to approach this is to plot the ratio of the market shares held by the disruptive and established technologies respectively (disruptive market share/established market share), and plot this on a logarithmic y-axis. This transformation of the typical S-curve data produces a straight line. If the transformed early data points in a situation where a disruptive technology is arriving in a market do not lie on a straight line, "there is no compelling driver for the substitution" (p. 98). The slope (steepness) of the "substitution curve" (actually a straight line) gives a "read" on how soon the disruptive technology will account for any given proportion of the market. This projection can be made accurately even when the disruptive technology accounts for only about 3% of the market.

Christensen then plots his "best sense" (p. 98) of the substitution curve fitting the susbstitution of "online delivered learning for live-teacher instruction" (p. 98). The growth figures are impressive from 2000 through 2007, but online courses, at about 1%, are below the 3% threshold Christensen mentioned above for the effective accuracy of projections. Nonetheless, he is happy to "suggest that by 2019, about 50% of high school courses will be delivered online. ( Is this a bottle of snake oil? )

Key Declaration

"This substitution is happening because of the technological and economic advantages of computer-based learning, compared to the monolithic school mode" (p. 99). ( How much of this are you buying? )

Accelerating Factors

1. Like all successful disruptions, online learning will get better. ( Sure it will get better. However, will it get better because online learning is a successful disruption, or because smart people will use improved computers and better learning paradigms? ) Christensen suggests that the big change in the substitution curve will begin in 2012. Then, he suggests, market share for online learning (he says "technology") will grow by 45% (from 5% to 50%) over the subsequent six years.

2. Christensen expects a second driver of the switch to online learning will be the ability for learners to take different paths through material to be learned--what he regards as the hallmark of student-centric technology.

3. The transition to online learning will be fueled by the "looming teacher shortage" (p. 100). Darling-Hammond (2003) has focused attention on the attrition rate among beginning teachers. The high rate of attrition severly depletes the more-than-adequate number of graduating teachers to the stage where some school districts are forever playing catch-up in the teacher quality stakes. Christensen follows a train of thought that compounds the attrition rate with the retiring of the baby-boomer teachers--who would be expected to retire "soon."

4. The final factor in accelerating the substitution curve is the fall in price that will occur as the demand ramps up. Christensen says that in the semiconductor industry, costs drop by 30% for each doubling of the quantity produced. He factors in the expected significant cost of the transition to student-centric technology, the cost of scaling up itself, and the fact that teachers will still be required even after the substitution, and comes up with the conclusion that in another 10 years, "the cost will be one-third of today's costs, and the courses will be much better" (p. 101). And, he suggests, just as well, because factoring in the cost of unfunded liabilities will wreak havoc on public education budgets.

So, in case you missed it, by 2018, "computer-based, student-centric learning will account for 50% of the 'seat miles' in U.S. secondary schools" (p. 102).

But wait...

Teachers unions may not allow such a change. Or maybe not.

Organizations allocate limited resources in areas that are critical to sustaining their continuance: they "focus up-market" (p. 103). At present, the overriding concern for school leaders is to improve test scores, and this means they are "disinvesting in those 'nice-to-have' courses" (p. 103).

This disinvestment will get worse--which is good news from the substitution point of view because is enhances the "vacuum of nonconsumption" (p. 103). The disruptive innovation of student-centric technology will have a much bigger market of courses that school leaders do not want to have taught in the traditional way. And (the presumption is) the teacher unions will remain focused on its traditional role in the traditional teaching niche.

In this scenario, there will be a growing market niche for online providers as they provide instruction in the courses that have been dropped from schools. ( What happens if NCLB is re-authorized in a way that lessens its current focus? ) The potentially rosy scenario for the online providers would also be changed if funding formulas penalized the use of their courses by students. Christensen becomes a little enigmatic at this stage and talks about consumers being prepared to pay for innovations that provide them with something worthwhile (e.g. iTunes music store--which has single-handedly re-defined the music market). The implication seems to be that if the online providers are providing a worthwhile service, school districts will pay for it. I take his point, but this section adds an air of uncertainty that was notably missing in the foregoing.

The Future...Classroom

Virtual ChemLab is amazing. It took quite a while for the tour to begin playing over my DSL connection, but when it did I was most impressed. And BYU also has Virtual Physical Science, Virtual Physice, Virtual Earth Science, and Virtual Biology too. And there a heap of othe "virtual" labs the came up in the Google search screen too. BYU's is an award winner.

Christensen's point is that while these may not be as good as actually being in a lab, they may be way better than the alternative--especially if that alternative is nothing. He indulges in a flight of fancy about where this all may lead. Chiefly, it will lead to a re-definition of the role the teacher in the future "blended" classroom. ("Blending" is the term used to describe mixing the online and face-to-face modalities. Many times it seems to be what Christensen is actually describing--as it does here.)

...Assessment

In the midst of these changes, the concept of assessment will need a makeover. A lesson is taken from the difference between Toyota and Chrysler's approaches to training workers. A student-centric approach will alleviate the situation where "a profession whose work primarily was in tutoring students one on one was hijacked into one where some of the teacher's most important skills became keeping order and commanding attention" (p. 111). ( Where do you stand on this? )

Comparing students can be done in a different way in a student-centric system. At present, the need to compare is being driven by the requirements of the college admission systems. If students are able to learn in a way the "correspond(s) to how their minds are wired to learn" (p. 112), "learning will no longer be as variable (and) we can compare students not by what percentage of the material they have mastered, but by comparing how far they have moved through a body of material" (pp. 111-112). ( Is this a realistic distinction? )

Chapter 3

Christenson is decidedly unimpressed by the outcome of Clinton's (1996) "technology in education" initiatives. He refers back to his Introduction, and points out (again) that "the billions that schools have spent on computers have had little effect on how teachers teach and students learn" (p. 72). ( So how do teachers teach and students learn...and why should computers make a difference in the basic paradigm of teaching and learning? )

Christensen returns to his motivation theme, suggesting that "building students' intrinsic motivtion through student-centered learning" should be a role assumed by "computers in schools." This builds on his earlier assertion that extrinsic motivation vanishes with affluence. In the face of little extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation is what will motivate students to learn. All of which brings us to the central question: "What is the purpose of using computers in school?"

If your subject is Architectural Drafting, then the answer probably goes something like: "To enable students to learn to use tools of industry-standard procedures for producing architectural drawings." If your subject is Statistical Analysis, you need computers and software to go beyond the simplest (and most useless) examples. If you are a geographer, then the fascination of GIS is a major lure. Are computers contributing to intrinsic or extrinsic motivation in these examples? ( What is the purpose of computers in your field of expertise? Could a professional survive in practice without using computers in the way your field uses them? is this extrinsic or intrinsic motivation? Does it matter? )

Christensen declares that the main reason for the unimpressive outcome of using computers in schools is attributable to the fact that schools have "crammed" computers into classrooms. This doesn't mean a lot of computers in a small space--as in the image I have added here.

"Cramming" is Christensen's term to describe what happens when an innovation is (mis)used to do an existing task, instead of the advent of the innovation spurring a re-thinking of the task. For example, writing of RCA, he comments that "their instinct was to utilize their existing business infrastructure and sell the disruptive products to their existing customers" (p. 79). The consequence of RCA's following its instinct was dire: "a few decades later, all the vacuum tube companies, including RCA, vaporized" (p. 80).

Starting on p. 74, Christensen declares (and then goes on to support) that "in every organization there are forces that shape and morph every new innovative proposal so that it fits the existing organization's own business model" (p. 74). This suggests that every innovation is initially used to do an existing job, or make something the way it was made before the innovation came along.

Starting the chainsaw

All of which reminds me of the story about the backwoods timber-cutter who bought "one of them new-fangled chainsaws" on one of his monthly visits to a wilderness outpost. He asked the salesman if he would be able to cut more timber with this thing than he could with his trusty axe and cross-cut saw. He was assured that if he wasn't totally pleased, he could return his purchase. The next month, he staggered into the wilderness outpost, threw the chain saw on the floor, and loudly declared that the *&%## thing was useless. The salesman apologized that it didn't work and asked if he could try it out to see what was wrong. "Of course," grunted the timber-cutter. The salesman primed the engine, pulled on the starting cord, and "gunned" the chain saw through a 20" diameter test log in no time. When he turned off the engine, the timber-cutter was standing in wide-eyed awe, whispering "what on earth was that 'broooomm' noise?"

Christensen suggests that by employing computers to "sustain and marginally improve the way they already teach" (p. 73), educators have effectively refrained from starting the chain saw. (How do you respond to this critique? )

Is it safe for children?

Christensen suggests that the appropriate niche for computers is "in places and for courses where there are no teachers to teach" (p. 73). ( How could this ensure that computers "will...disrupt the instructional job that teachers are doing" (p. 73)? )

Apple introduced the Apple IIe as a tool for children. I remember it well (though, sadly, I was not a child at the time). It was the first computer I used (mainly to run a wordprocessing program called "Zardax"--which was written by an acquaintance of mine). It truly was better than the alternative--which was no computer at all. (I couldn't afford to buy a DEC.) So, Apple did not try to "cram" the Apple IIe into the "sustaining innovation" back plane of the competition, where it was hopelessly underpowered and totally unusable. This leads to a...

KEY DECLARATION

"To succeed, disruptive technologies must be applied in applications where the alternative is nothing. Indeed, selecting these applications is far more important for the successful implementation of the technology than is the technology itself" (p. 74). ( Now, what applications could these be, given the curriculum and organizational structure of schools? )

The "Sustaining" of Every Innovation

Christensen makes a crucial point in illustrating that "companies shape every innovative idea to fit the interests of groups in the company that must support the proposal in order for it to receive funding" (p. 74-75). This way of working is entirely logical. Financial support is crucial because "innovative ideas never pop out of the innovators' heads as full-fledged business plans" (p. 75). They need to be refined, and, for this, they need to be "sold" to those who control the purse-strings. But....

Case Studies

Christensen gives three quite thought provoking examples of companies which failed to take advantage of innovations. These failures support the existence of conservative forces in organizations that tend to overpower innovations.

Nypro
The key point here is that the new, flexible Novoplast machine was not in the traditional "mold" (don't clap, just throw money) of Nypro's products, so it was rejected by all plants EXCEPT the two plants that could use it as sustaining technology. Low volume production was the antithesis of Nypro's then-current production values.

Merrill Lynch

(Reading this outside the revisionist perspective provided by the events of recent months is difficult.) The key point is that Merrill Lynch used the advent of on-line brokerage as sustaining technology which complemented their existing business. Charles Schwab implemented on-line brokerage as a disruptive technology and it replaced their existing business with a system that was vastly better (i.e. more profitable).

RCA
There are a number of key points in the discussion of RCA.

Established companies need to sell to their existing customers. A good example of this comes from the advertising world in which it is understood that car advertisements are aimed at those who already own that particular make of car. Car ads are designed to reinforce in the viewer's mind the wisdom of his/her decision to buy the car he/she presently owns. If a couple of viewers are impressed enough to change from a different make of car, that is a bonus. The prime targets of car ads are current owners.

Thus, when a disruptive technology comes along, established companies will do a poor job of selling the (by definition) poorer-performing disruptive product to their established customer base. The niche in which the poorer-performing disruptive product thrives is among those who have no alternative.

For example, when the transistor was invented, it could not compete with the vacuum tube in the applications in which the vacuum tube was already used. The transistor was an inferior product in the established applications, and established companies were not interested in it. However, the transistor made a hearing aid possible--an application for which the vacuum tube was entirely inferior (unless one wanted to carry around a very long extension cord).

Having established credibility in one market, the next application was in a little tinny radio--which was far inferior to the RCA table radio, except that it was portable. With the establishment of this "beachhead" application, the writing was on the wall for RCA.

What does all this have to do with education?

Educators have "crammed" computers into classrooms, using them in a very logical way "to supplement and reinforce the existing teaching model" (p. 82). ( How do you respond to this characterization? )

Consequently, and expectedly, computers, despite their enormous disruptive potential, have had little impact on teaching and learning. ( Is it possible that another explanation for the lack of impact of computers is that teaching and learning is not an appropriate niche for computers to occupy? )

"So how could schools implement computer-based learning in ways that transform teaching and learning" (p. 84)? Basically, by competing against nonconsumption, and transforming the classroom into a student-centric environment "where all students can learn in the ways their individual minds are wired to learn" (p. 86). ( Interesting use of the word "minds" here. What is the difference between "brain" and "mind?" )

Chapter 2

Changing Roles for Education

Christensen suggests that education has been coping with two significant disruptions over the last 25 years--disruptions that were formalized in one report (A Nation at Risk, 1983) and one legislative act (The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, 2002).

(If you old enough to remember...what was the phrase in A Nation at Risk that struck you most strongly? If you are too young to remember, go online and read the document (the authors deliberately kept if brief so it could be easily read). What struck you most strongly?)

(Given what you know now, compare the effect of the two disruptions.)

A disruption is "a specific type of innovation" (p. 44) that renders previously valued improvments less relevant, and elevates previously unimportant dimensions of a product to prominence. At this stage, it isn't totally clear what a disruption is, but Christensen proceeds to explain further.

Disruptive Innovation Theory

In this section, I am going to unpack Christensen's Figure 2.1 (p. 46) to focus on his key idea of disruption.

The figure on the left re-creates what Christensen describes as the "back plane" in his Figure 2.1. The green dotted lines represent the performance improvement in a product that customers can actually use.

Some of the improvements that car manufacturers (for example) pack into their models are beyond the reasonable use requirements of buyers. I watched a recent PBS Nova special in which the "Car Talk guys" set out in search of the "car of the future." Along the way, they visited a car show where a "household" truck with a 500-HP engine was on display. Ray did a good impression of going ballistic about how no-one at this level could possibly have a need for a 500-HP engine in a truck.

The green dotted lines represent the performance improvement that customers can actually use. There are three of them to indicate that different types of customers could be "power" users (the top green dotted line) with higher performance demands than others, and so forth.

But car companies will continue to make improvements to increase our incentive to buy new cars. These are what Christensen calls sustaining innovations (chairs in vans that swivel so little tables can pop up, more cup holders...). The incremental improvements sustain our interest in buying a new car, but, more importantly, by "selling" new cars, these improvements sustain the economic viability of the car company. And some sustaining improvements are useful (for example, folding seats in vans). (Discuss an example of a sustaining innovation in a service industry.)

Christensen suggests that the companies the win the battles of sustaining innovation are already the industry leaders. (How does Apple currently fit in with this idea? Or do you have a better example?)

The technologies in the original back plane are typically complicated and expensive: they are appropriate for users with a lot of money and a lot of skill. Remember, very few could afford/drive/use the very first cars/computers/cameras. But what potentially happens is along comes a disruptive innovation.

A disruptive innovation is NOT a sustaining innovation. The product that is a harbinger of a disruptive innovation is actually is not as good as what is already available. So existing customers don't want it. But because it is cheaper, or easier to use, or..., it appeals to a new group of "nonconsumers." Christensen signifies this by drawing a "front plane of performance" in Fig 2.1.

And because this new disruptive innovation product is a step down in what an existing manufacturer views as "quality," existing manufacturers have a hard time engaging with it.

Now we are into new territory in which the "entrants" nearly always win. Christensen gives the figures on p. 48 to illustrate why a "bottom line" financial approach would support an existing "back plane" manufacturer's not getting involved in the disruptive innovation.

Disruption rarely involves an instantaneous change. It took many years for the personal computer market to impact the business market. But slowly the disruptive innovation improves (by means of sustaining innovations) to the stage where consumers in the back plane start to move to the front plane. At this stage, it is "shut the gate."

Why don't back plane companies see the approaching train?

Asymmetric motivation

It is not that the back plane companies fail to see the disruption coming. It is that they lack the financial motivation to dedicate sufficient resources to deal with the disruption. Investment dollars will always go to tomorrow's sustaining innovation rather than a potential disruptive innovation.

I have often wondered about the Sarich orbital engine, which was invented in 1972 in Australia. It held the promise of being more efficient, with fewer parts, requiring less lubrication, etc. The patent for it was bought by Ford, and the development of the engine has never dealt with the technical cooling problems that apparently plagued it. What might "go to the moon" motivation have done with this idea? (This sounds like "conspiracy theory." Haven't there been occasions when accepted practice and knowledge have "trumped" some potential disruption?)

Of course, Ford's best customers wouldn't have been attracted to this new-fangled engine, whereas a 500-HP... Christensen calls this "asymmetric motivation." It's a very logical, commonsense way of dealing with the "return on investment" approach that makes good financial sense.

And asymmetric motivation is precisely why Kodak "missed" the digital camera revolution, despite the fact that a Kodak scientist did the early work on CCDs (charge-coupled devices; the heart of digital photography).

The vertical "performance" axis on the above graphs represent improvements that consumers will pay more for. Disruptive innovations ask consumers to (initially) pay for less.

Public Schools

In the public sector, the vertical "performance" axis in the above graphs is replaced by "importance to society," or "political priority." (Hopefully, these two axis label are synonomous!)

The traditional school is in the "back plane," but society/politicians has/have evolved its/their view of what it's important for schools to do. Society has moved the goal posts, so now there is a "front plane," but the same organizational structure is being asked to deal with it--a situation where asymmetric motivation is going to come into play.

Changing the goal posts

Christensen proposes the following "big picture" of the changing goal posts for the public education monopoly.

Job 1 (Founders): Preserve the democracy: basic education universal; elite group to lead from elected emminence.

Job 2 (20th century): Prepare everyone for work--in addition to Job 1. Typically, in the private sector, a new company would be created to deal with this situation. Because of the monopoly protection, there was no alternative supplier, and schools changed gradually to accommodate the new job. As numbers in high school increased, diversity in course offerings kept pace with greater diversity in academic ability among students. In other words, schools made sustaining innovations.

Two shocks in the 1950s promoted change (Brown and Sputnik), but neither was disruptive. Schools just moved further up the sustaining trajectory: languages, AP art, AP music, more sports, and even for girls.... "Schools became complex and expensive as they offered a(n) historically unmatched array of offerings" (p. 57).

Job 3 (A Nation at Risk): Keep America competitive. Japanese companies disrputed U.S. counterparts (Canon/Xerox, Sony/RCA, Tokyo/Detroit), and international comparisons of educational systems were unflattering. The political response was to measure what is coming out of the schools. "Virtually everyone had to focus on the core academic classes and take the same tests" (p. 60).

With the shift to a new performance measure, in the private sector, a rash of new providers would emerge---but in this case, there were no nonconsumers (the monopoly thing again). But is had made it hard for the existing organizational structures to adapt: "tantamount to giving them a demonstrably impossible task" (p. 61).

Yet, the schools have succeeded! Christensen suggests that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores have trended upward between the 1980s and 2004. (What do you think of his rationale on p. 62?)

Job 4 (NCLB): Eliminate poverty--by making sure that every child in every demographic attains proficiency. This job is not far removed from what schools were intended to do, but it's emphasis on outcomes represents a disruption.

(Contrast the genesis of different demands from the political/societal fields with the way challenges in education have arisen from the advent of new technologies.)

(Is there another way to move to a student-centric classroom, other than "through the adoption of computer-based learning" (p. 64)?)