I have attended all the ASU+GSV Summits since the first in 2010. The earliest conferences were held on the Arizona State University (ASU) Skysong campus. Within three years, the number of attendees grew so much that the conference was moved to the Phoenician in Scottsdale. For at least the past five years, the conference has been held in San Diego at the Manchester Grand Hyatt.
It’s rumored that there are 6,000 attendees at the conference this year. It’s possible that there are a few more since some attendees are here to network with investors, entrepreneurs, and educators and may not have registered for the conference which has been sold out for some time.
I was among a small group of educators, entrepreneurs, and ed tech leaders who were invited to a session this week to discuss how to transform a school of education. The message was clear. This is an open forum. We’d like to hear your opinions.
I thought the conversation was useful in many ways. The dean of the school of education (unnamed by me so that none of the ideas discussed are assigned to him or the handful of faculty members present) allowed all of those present to speak their minds and, in some cases, agreed with their assessments.
I offered several observations to the group. My first was that schools of education operate in silos related to the research areas of interest of their faculty. There are no schools of education that I am aware of that offer degree programs that prepare their graduates for each of the education sectors required for a lifetime of learning. I compared the theoretically perfect school of education to a beehive, with many cells required to feed and nurture our citizens from Early Childhood/Pre-K, K-12, Higher Ed (ugrad and grad), to Professional Development/Workforce Development/Upskilling/Reskilling for the 60-year career of the future. There are also other degree areas not mentioned where some education schools partner with other schools in their university (engineering, math, nursing, etc.).
Adding courses and degree programs to cover education areas not offered by the school requires funding sources. For the purposes of this discussion, I’ll assume that funding is available. At the same time, recruiting knowledgeable faculty to develop curriculum will take time as well. During the period that the school of education is transforming itself and beyond, I suggested that it serve as a center of communication; a place where students, faculty, practitioners, tech experts, policymakers and others could share their problems, experiences, and solutions.
Communications are the vital part of the transformation. I remember the early years of the ASU/GSV Summit when most of its attendees were ed tech entrepreneurs. The year that I brought my provost to the conference, a reporter from a higher education publication noted her attendance and asked me why more academics were not present. I replied that I was hoping to start a trend.
There are many academics that now attend ASU/GSV. Not all are from the U.S. During the formal and informal conference sessions, ideas are shared by researchers with ed tech entrepreneurs and with foundations and government funders and policymakers. It’s not perfect, but it’s a better way to gain insights than hanging out in an insular academic environment pursuing your narrow area of research interest.
One of the participants in the conversation stated that it was his opinion that 80 percent of the schools of education should be “blown up.” His point was that the curriculum taught in most schools of education is not current, does not meet the needs of today’s students, and does not meet the needs of employers. Another participant noted that his institution has data from more than 100 million (yes, million) course takers and no one from a school of education has inquired about utilizing that dataset in some way to improve learning.
The more I think about the conversation and suggestions, I think that the quickest way (maybe not the easiest) to transform a school of education is to actively create a communications center that offers a forum for school of education faculty, faculty outside of the college and school, K-20 faculty and teachers, employers, policymakers, ed tech entrepreneurs, foundations, etc. to collaborate and share their problems, experiences, and solutions. Adding and adjusting or fixing the curriculum will take longer but will likely experience fewer hiccups if all these participants are communicating and interacting with each other.
Coincidentally, author and New York Times reporter Thomas Friedman was the keynote speaker at lunch the same day as our convening. He discussed some observations that he includes in his latest book which is not yet published. He set the stage by mentioning some of the historical periods of change in the world that happened due to advances in science and technology. He said that it took the world about 100 years to figure out how to get the best out of the Industrial Revolution. The solution was to settle on the welfare state where political parties organized to provide support to either the workers or the business owners.
According to Mr. Friedman, for 75 years, the welfare state and political environment was relatively stable. Over the past decade and a half, it blew up. The current political parties in the democratized countries are not fit for the purpose of the current era. Their positions are polarized, and they do not collaborate or communicate with each other. Our current era is highlighted by two cycles occurring at the same time. The first cycle is the technology cycle. Sense, process, learn, and share are the four stages of this cycle. Each time technology adapters and creators roll through a cycle, the speed of the next cycle increases. The technology cycle is a virtuous cycle.
The second cycle is the climate change cycle. Emissions, warming, depletion of resources, and severe weather disruptions are the stages of the climate change cycle which is a vicious cycle. It is unusual to have two cycles occurring at the same time, but we must deal with both.
Mr. Friedman stated that there are four new challenges created by these cycles. These challenges are:
- The world got fast. How do we solve for fast?
- How do you get just-in-time learning and not just-in-case learning?
- What happens when the world gets fused?
- The world got deep, and we don’t know how much deeper it will get because of technology.
Mr. Friedman stated that the solution to dealing with the fast challenge is the solution for all four challenges. We need to create complex, adaptive coalitions to provide solutions.
IBM’s in-house university is an example that he provided of a university that provides just-in-time learning. Each worker has a profile with their education and experience as well as a predictor as to what additional education they will need to keep their skills relevant for IBM’s needs.
Fast requires academics to partner with business; there’s no other way to build and enhance the knowledge needed to make a worker valuable to his/her employer. Healthy interdependencies are built in a coalition community.
I believe that Mr. Friedman’s observations about the current disruptions occurring in the world are spot on. Critics of the pace and quality of education have increased. The criticism is coming from both sides of the political spectrum. No one is happy with the pace of change in education. The job market is changing much faster than our educational institutions are providing content to reskill or upskill workers. As a result, some large companies like IBM are taking matters into their own hands.
Schools of education can be the organizing entity to create complex, adaptive coalitions to transform our learning. They need to transform themselves to form and lead these coalitions. Will they do so before they become obsolete? Is your school of education talking about changes like these?
