McCain: Education's Disruptor-in-Chief?
The Republican took an early lead over Obama in supporting disruptive innovation in education that can revamp how today's classrooms are run

Clayton M. Christensen and Michael B. Horn:

For a candidate who's been criticized as being out of touch on technology, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has been refreshingly ahead of the curve when it comes to disruptive innovation in education.

While Republican Presidential candidate McCain and the Democratic candidate, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.), both see the benefits of using technology in revamping how classrooms run, McCain's campaign early on embraced the benefits of nontraditional online education in some key ways.

Whichever candidate prevails on Nov. 4,, the most successful educational policies will be those that approach education challenges from an innovation perspective.

CUSTOMIZATION IS KEY

One of the core reasons schools struggle is because their structure compels standardization in the way they teach and test. This standardized, monolithic experience would be fine if all students learned in the same way. But as we know from our own experience, we all learn in different ways. Different things motivate different people, we each have different intelligence strengths and learning styles, and people learn at different paces. Standardization in schools therefore will not do the trick. We need customization.

Much more on Clayton Christensen here.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at October 21, 2008 10:43 AM
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