Why Schools
Can't Improve: The Upper Limit Hypothesis".
A
Paper by: Robert K Branson Florida State University
http://www.icte.org/T01_Library/T01_257.PDF
Life
Cycles for maturing technologies and systems can be represented by a
sigmoid curve. The introduction of any technology is
characterised by a slow start with limited levels of efficiency. The
slow beginning gives way to a rapidly improvement in efficiency until
increases in efficiency begin to taper off and the system approaches
the upper limit for the technology. For any system or enterprise there
is an efficiency upper limit 100% which is never quite reached.
The
first modern education paradigm was based on the technology of the book
for both recording of information and for the transmission of information.
But the book was expensive and rare but in general it was a reliable
source of information.
The
book paradigm started out reasonably ineffective and eventually reached
an upper limit of performance in the early 1960's
Teachers wanting
to ask clever, open, fertile or high order thinking questions beyond
topics such as space, dinosaurs and volcanoes needed more resource that
the library could provide and ended up creating their own resources
which took large amounts of time. The overall effect of this was that
the general level of questioning was low and as a consequence the level
of understanding was often low. The emphasis of the first education
paradigm was on knowing. Those that knew a lot were considered clever,
and assessment focussed on remembering.
However,
Branson insists that we have reached the upper limit of this book-based
education paradigm. But as a paradigm reaches its upper limits of efficiency
there is usually another paradigm waiting in the wings to replace the
previous one. The Internet-based second education paradigm had arrived.
The
year 2004 saw the possibility for schools to enter into this new paradigm
and fundamentally change what schools are and do . . . forever.
2004
heralds the year when the Internet paradigm became a practical reality
in terms of cost and access. In the second [modern] education paradigm
information and communication systems are
1.Each
of these transitions is possible due to the fundamental transition from
information being rare, expensive but reliable to information being
overwhelming, cheap and unreliable.
2.This
enabled teachers to ask clever, rich and open questions and be able
to resource these questions with appropriate, rich multimedia resources
that match each individual students learning needs.
3.Through
the setting of rich/clever/open questions that have students interrogate
the information resources, students are able to build understanding
rather than just know about concepts.
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