[jpereira]

These all seem to be assuming the institution-teacher-student model of education we have today. Even the "New school models" section is assuming a delivered experience, which has an institutional bent.

I think biggest area of disruption in education would be in building fundamentally new architectures for educational systems, based on networks and social communities instead of funnels and institutions. The latter have a pretty huge list of undesirable properties and negative externalities, especially in how they limit diverse experiences and learning.

An eye-opening read on this front for me has been Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich [0]. It's insane how much of what he wrote 40 years ago still holds true.

[0] http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1970_deschooling.html

[sagefy]

The institution-teacher-student model, or the top-down approach, is based on two things: 1) a specific, predetermined set of knowledge each learner must know at each level and 2) tying those requirements with specific ages. This results in one of two problems for the individual learner. Either they are mastering the content faster than their peers, or they need more time than the specifications allow. And, at least here in the US, there isn't much room for the learner to choose their own path. I know I often was frustrated in the classroom as a kid, either repeating information I already had down or jumping ahead without mastering the fundamentals first.

Much of this stems from economic concerns with education. We simply can't afford to have one teacher per student all day long at a systematic level. We know from years of research that 1-on-1 tutoring is almost always going to be the most effective model (combined with some social and problem-based learning).

We live in an exciting time. Technology can help remove some of the economic barriers to individualizing learning. I've been thinking about this problem for several years. If anyone's interested to see what I've come up with... I don't have all the answers, but (shameless plug) https://sagefy.org

The article in the parent looks pretty great! I've scanned it but I've got it down in my TODO list to read through. Always interested in hearing about different thoughts about the problem.

[Pulcinella]

The way to achieve your goals would be through lobbying your local school district, state education agency, and state legislature (if your American). A startup has limited power and no legal authority to change the public education system.

[BadassFractal]

In addition, the VC model isn't particularly well suited for this.

How many generations will it take for parents to accept en masse a radically redesigned approach to schooling? A big part of schooling is babysitting + credentialing, you can't disrupt that over a few years with so much of society relying on those functions.

[jpereira]

I don't think this needs to be directly tied to public education. My concern is more that educational startups tend to assume an institutional model (i.e an institutions defines what is being learned, how it's being learned etc etc). They don't need to change public education but rather create services that embody a different educational paradigm.

For example a matchmaking service for shared learning goals or interests could for sure be within the power of a startup. Something like 42[0] but without a fixed institution. Or community level organized learning environments for various subjects. Or even to go more in the vien of Papert and Turtle, a npm type system but with a strict pedagogical focus.

There's a ton of systems that can be hugely powerful without depending on a classroom model or a school/institution. And there's no reason these can't be as impactful or more as systems and services targeted towards public/institutional education.

[0] https://www.42.us.org/

[germinalphrase]

I am sympathetic, but an obvious hurdle is that our employment system is largely biased toward that traditional pipeline. High school GPA/ACT Scores > Various Tiers of High Education > Standardized Credentials for Employment.

I'm not sure how you would resolve the two (without, of course, cracking the nut on a neutral, true-ability assessment system).

[jpereira]

I think the latter is possible, but even without there are options.

There's a long-tail of credential consumers beyond traditional employers that holds a ton of value. Community level organizations, digital social networks, even open-source communities.

There's also a decent set of skills that can't currently be measured or conveyed by traditional standardized credentials.

Both of these represent an opportunity for a new academic/assessment paradigm to step in and create real value today.

That being said there's definitely going to be huge hurdles in getting to traditional employers, their logic is not necessarily based on best placement or best skill set, but often times on bureaucracy/ass-covering/good-enough mindset. Not to say that isn't valuable at very large scale organizations.

[avip]

Or just collect enough money to send your kids to an alternative school - be it a web, spiral, or funnel one.

[j45]

Enjoying reading your posts in this article.

Institutions are definitely worried about their relevance and scared that they are going to be cut out.

The majority of students today anyways, are not self-directed and self-guided learners.

Instructors in my mind remain essential. How much non-essential stuff instructors teach may change.

I have experienced building and delivering high school curriculum for diploma credit online, and notice something quite different from post-secondaries.

Post-secondary institution seem, at times to act like their gig is up of making students take courses they don't really need. I'm grossly oversimplifying the underlying issues that lead to this.

Instructors who care about providing a better learning experience than a PDF loaded into Moodle destined to add little to no value are my heroes today. If our games and apps are better than the digital learning experiences, the producers of digital education (institutions) are in for a rude awakening.

[philipps]

I always suggest the Learning Web chapter of Deschooling Society to anyone interested in ideas for technology enabled learning ventures. It's brilliant. It also helps to skip some of the more political chapters as they are likely to turn people off from his compelling vision for learning societies.

Edit: spelling

[j45]

Had forgotten about this - thanks for sharing it!

[j45]

Tutoring could be a way to break this model - if suitably equipped tutors can boost the existing systems of student performance beyond what the education system can do with it's resources, some good questions would arise.

The article makes reference to breaking.

Very little has changed in online education in the past 20 years. I feel it's a lot of BS, videos get prettier, devices get a little more powerful, but it's the same stuff being hawked in the mid 90's.