Re-Engineering Education -

Chapter 21 - Implementation and Transition
 

The right software will be required for outcomes based education to actually succeed in practice. We have not found any efforts to date in this direction, including MIT’s laudable and ambitious Open Courseware project, that challenge the existing model. They are adjuncts to the old model, not a change in the model itself, which will remain inputs based. There will be benefits at the margins, but no significant impact on the failings of the system as a whole. Ultimately, we predict that the OCW initiative will fail to reach its potential. It is not a solution to the overall problem.

The software (and the promise of lower or at least contained costs to administrators and politicians) will be what sells the idea. Outcomes based education as a concept needs to be embedded in the software so that it is implemented implicitly, even by stealth if need be.  In order to succeed, the existing model upon which the educational ecosystem operates must be disrupted (in the positive sense of enabling new opportunities for all), and a new, stable model must take its place. 

Let us hasten to add that in no way are we advocating tearing down what we have.  It is definitely neither desirable nor necessary to undo any existing program that works.  This is expected to be a program that works better, but it is intended to be implemented in an evolutionary style, not a revolution.  Only the ideas are revolutionary.

The system must be implemented gradually so that there is no operational disruption for students already in the system, nor for teachers already in the system.  It is our expectation, indeed, it is a fundamental design principle, that this will be a demand/pull system. Given the option, both students and teachers will gravitate to it, so that the transition can be as long as necessary to ensure that institutions are able to cope handily.  Everybody must like it for it to succeed.

Nevertheless, we must always keep in mind that all previous educational initiatives have failed, and why: if you don't change the inputs based model, then any operational change will eventually dissipate. The model itself must change to outcomes based, which is implemented via the mastery principle in the software.

This is a point upon which there can be no compromise, because compromise on this single point is the difference between success and failure. Gradual implementation is our recommendation: math first, then science, then English & reading & history.  Junior/senior level high school courses, or even college courses first, then transition to all of high school, then (as applicable) to middle school. We expect it to be of marginal use in elementary school where the primary issue is socialization and learning how to learn.  It may be of some limited value in math and reading, but it will be an adjunct.

Instead, we recommend implementing the mastery principle in elementary school according to the original Montessori model.  The elementary grades will continue to require more heavy staffing and more direct teaching.  However, as bright children are ready to move right along into higher level material, they can proceed at their own pace online while continuing within their age group and appropriate levels of social maturity.  Special needs children can use the system in a similar way, for the extra help that they need, accessing different courseware adapted for their learning styles.  Even when they can't keep up academically, they can stay within a social group of similar maturity levels without the artificial grouping by age alone.