Disrupting Class: Christensen on Innovation and Education

I've been fortunate to work with Harvard Business School professors Clayton Christensen and Willy Shih on a forthcoming simulation on strategic innovation as part of our Harvard Business Publishing simulation series.  Having read The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution, I had some idea of Christensen's theories on innovation but working on the simulation helped me understand them at a deeper level.  We were also fortunate that Scott Anthony, President of Innosight and author or co-author of many Harvard Business Publishing products, contributed to the project as well.  I'll detail the simulation in a future entry but I'm writing here to give a sneak peek into Christensen's latest work, where he turns his lens to apply his theories of innovation and disruption on the education sector.

Christensen, colleague Michael Horn of the Innosight Institute, and Curtis Johnson of the Citistates Group have just released Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (McGraw-Hill).  I'm writing this very inadequate tribute based on their book, on an article that Christensen and Horn published in the May/June issue of BizEd, and on a presentation Christensen and Horn gave at the Innovations in Education seminar hosted this past February 2008 by the Yale School of Management.  I hope it inspires you to buy the book.

The short version of the theory put forth in The Innovator's Dilemma is this: the logical decisions that managment makes in order to sustain success ultimately are the same reasons they lose their positions of leadership (thus the dilemma).  That's because once established, most technologies over time foster improved performance -- these are sustaining technologies.  But occasionally these sustaining technologies are up-ended by disruptive technologies.  In many cases the disruptive technologies actually had worse performance in the near-term and generally underperformed the sustaining technologies in the mainstream market, so these are not 'break-throughs' in the performance sense.  But they are generally cheaper, quicker, smaller, and simpler than the existing competition -- they concentrate on a few features that new fringe customers heavily desire and they ultimately disrupt the status quo marketplace.  To quote Christensen and Horn from the BizEd article:

In every market, there are two trajectories -- the pace at which products and services improve and the pace at which customers can utilize the improvements.  Customers' needs tend to be relatively stable over time, while the offerings improve at a much faster rate.  Therefore, over time, product and services that once were not good enough for the typical customer ultimately pack in more features and functions than the customer can use.

In the new work, the authors turn the focus to education.  They start by outlining the obvious: we all learn differently.  They cite Gardner's multiple intelligences, different learning styles, varied paces of learning, etc. The logical conclusion is that we need multiplicity in our teaching styles to match and map to these varied learning styles.  But this isn't possible.  Interdependencies in the teaching infrastructure (temporal, lateral, physical, hierarchical) lead to standardization in the teaching process -- standardization that is in direct conflict to the customization needed by the learners. 

So how do they relate this to the systemic issues that can plague technology innovators?  They start by looking at the business model and then relate that to education.  A business model is a value proposition (help people do something cheaper, faster, easier) whereby resources are applied (people, technology, products) are applied to processes that result in greater achievement/profits.  The danger here is that over time, people become fixated and can only introduce things that make sense to the business model. An example cited is that of most legislation -- it is modified so heavily on the "way in" to the chain (to please legislators, contributors, lobbyists) that what comes out is of little value.  The same is true in companies with product development as they try to please the profit formula.  What comes out is very different than what goes in due to shaping/morphing to make it attractive to key constituents.  Ultimately this process (which is inherent to the ability to win funding) makes things fit the business model of the company rather than the needs of the market.

The authors note that computers have failed to make a difference in education because they have been crammed to fit into this existing standardized model. Individualized, computer-based instruction requires a disruptive distribution model.  This will require a new value chain -- changing inputs to gain higher-level outputs in the "business model" of creating good education. School board funding is based on standardized test scores (the equivalent of the Board of Directors), so courses that are not money-makers are dropped (language, stats, psychology).  Instead of lopping off lowest-enrollment courses, schools could introduce computer-based training -- use technology to introduce disruption into the system. CBT then takes root against non-consumption.  Technology is thus not the enemy of teachers -- it's the enemy of non-consumption (the antidote to getting rid of the courses).

Tackling the issue will be difficult.  The authors note that the level of change will be commensurate with the level and sophistication of the solutions team.  At a lower level, functional teams work great for component products -- improving individual steps in the process to improve the performance of each component.  At the next level you need change the specifications for how the components must fit together -- for this you need lightweight teams. Next is product architecture. What are the components, and which ones interface with others?  What are the process steps and in what sequence?  For this you need a heavyweight team.  The issues facing education are an architectural problem, and you cannot take on an architectural problem with a functional team.  Lacking this approach, we have imposed disruption on our schools three times in recent history by moving the goalposts -- the metrics of improvement.

So the basic business model has to change.  In education problems are addressed by functional and lightweight teams because of how schools are organized.  But we need heavyweight and autonomous teams.  Chartered schools are heavyweight teams but are not disruptive competitors because they are trying to do same thing, only better.  But they do have the flexibility to rethink the architecture.  Pilot schools can do this, though -- they might represent the best hope.

The book goes much further than this.  The authors provide insights into how technology in the classroom can foster innovation among students, how educational research can be improved, and how consensus for change can be enacted. 

In the meantime, disruption is starting to occur. The BizEd article makes the case that even the prestigious business schools who  teach the very art of management are themselves in danger of being disrupted by corporate universities.  These on-site training programs fit the classic disruptive model -- they do not pretend to come close to delivering the scope or features of a full-fledged MBA degree and its subsequent powerful alumni network; but they offer something in most cases more valuable for a fraction of the cost: targeted, just-in-time training tailored to the needs of the workforce. They are growing in number and popularity and will only grow in quality over time, and their impact is already being felt via declining admissions in MBA and executive education programs.

The advice of the authors?  MBA programs should commoditize that part of their value proposition that is still viable and be prepared to shift it to a new stage.  Specifically, they should commoditize the professor.  They describe the scenario whereby the corporate university has a need for a challenging program that they cannot themselves easily create.  Ideally they would log onto the MBA school's website and define their need, after which they are presented with modules of content tailored to their need.

This kind of change will be difficult.  Christensen has noted in the past how difficult it is for organizations to "disrupt themselves".  But it's refreshing to get a perspective from outside the educational sphere that is grounded in theory and gives hope for improving the way learning can best occur in this changing environment.
               

Comments

[Erin Murphy]

Hi Denis, I found this post very informative and it reminded me of a book that just came out over here at Wharton Publishing too called "Turning Learning Right Side Up". Instead of calling it the business model, they call it the industrial revolution model of education - treating schools like factories and students like end products that can be created using a very structured formula. Here is a link to a manifesto on the book. http://www.changethis.com/47.02.TurningLearning

It was written by Russell Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg.

Feel free to contact me at ermurphy6@gmail.com if you'd ever like to discuss technology, simulations, and ideas about changing the state of education. I love all of it and I'm open to new ideas. (I'm somewhat new to the industry).

[Denis]

Here's a link to a good conversation with the authors, "How Disruptive Innovation Changes Education": http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5978.html

[Cindy]

I think it is important that we look outside the education sector as we search for solutions. Disrupting Class (the title itself is a great language play) takes us on that journey.
The journey will not be without challenges in K-12 as I described in my post at http://blog.tech4learning.ca. But it's exciting to be in this sector today with an opportunity to effect significant change.

[Denis]

Here's a great (edited) synopsis of the book from the review in the Sept/Oct 2008 issue of BizEd. I like the way the reviewer sums it up.
===
...Christensen and his co-authors believe that, within the next ten years, student-centric online elearning methods will revolutionize the way education is delivered, allowing all students to progress at their own speeds and absorb information in ways that make sense to them. They predict that student-centered computer-enabled learning will only take off -- as all disruptive technologies do -- when it primarily competes against the alternative of no learning at all [what the authors describe as "non-consumption"]. For instance, schools that don't offer live classes in AP Calculus or Mandarin Chinese wills et up learning labs for the small number of students who want those classes and have no other access to them. From there, they argue, rapid improvements in technology will turn computer-enabled learning into the educational delivery method of choice.

[Denis]

Another interview: Why Public Schools Need Disruptive Innovation

http://blogs.bnet.com/mba/?p=315

[Denis]

March 2009 free public discussion with Professor Christensen on the book:

Askwith Education Forum - Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns

(http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/events/askwith.html?trumbaEmbed=view%3devent%26eventid%3d82984092)

DATE Tuesday, March 17, 2009
TIME 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm EDT
EVENT TYPE Harvard GSE
TYPE OF EVENT Forum
BUILDING/ROOM Gutman Conference Center A3
CONTACT NAME Stephanie Bielagus
CONTACT EMAIL stephanie_bielagus@gse.harvard.edu

REGISTRATION REQUIRED No
RSVP REQUIRED No

NOTES Join us for a special discussion with Clayton Christensen, Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, on his new book, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. Based on Christensen’s theory of “disruptive” change, the book examines how the way we learn doesn't always match up with the way we are taught and explains that 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.” Kathleen McCartney, Dean and Gerald S. Lesser Professor in Early Childhood Development, will provide an introduction.

All Askwith Education Forums are free and open to the general public. Tickets are not necessary, unless otherwise noted. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.