Why K-12 online learning isn’t really revolutionizing teaching
(By Shamus Ian Fatzinger/ Fairfax County Times)
Online learning is our present and our future, or so many school reformers and entrepreneurs say. Here in the first of a few pieces on the subject is Larry Cuban,a high school social studies teacher for 14 years, a district superintendent (seven years in Arlington, VA), and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for more than 20 years. His new book is “Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice: Change without Reform in American Education.” This post appeared on his blog.
By Larry Cuban
For those familiar with past efforts to install new technologies in schools, the many claims for online instruction transforming traditional teaching and learning in K-12 public schools either cause snickers for their hyperbole or strike a flat note in their credibility.
Consider the following answer that Clayton Christensen, author of “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Transform the Way the World Learns,” gave to this question posed to him by an interviewer: “Do you think that education is finally ready for the Internet?”
I absolutely do. I think that not only are we ready but adoption is occurring at a
The problem with rote learning in one sentence
From Page 101 of “Cognition: From Memory to Creativity,” by Robert S. Weisberg and Lauretta M. Reeves: Rote repetition can result in some information being retained, although it is not a particularly effective method of encoding information into memory. Why, … Continue reading →