Education’s Big Shift: Institutions of Learning to Learning Institutions

In their new book The Power of Pull, authors John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison describe what they call the "Big Shift."

The Big Shift for Education

“Our educational institutions are grappling with the need to move from being institutions of learning to learning institutions that rapidly evolve in response to the quickly changing learning needs of students and the find ways to extend the learning process well beyond the walls and semesters that define courses today.”

Personal Implications of the Big Shift

“We discover, to our dismay, that the significant investments we made in education in the early part of our lives was just the beginning. In order to stay successful in a world of accelerating change, we need to find ways to learn faster, often in areas that we once viewed as quite peripheral to our professions.”

“What we knew yesterday—either as employees or in terms of what our institutions as a whole knows about its business—is proving to be less and less helpful with the challenges and opportunities we confront today.” 

When I reflect back on my teacher preparation program and the skills I learned there, and then compare them with the skills I rely heavily on today, there is quite a gap. Take just two examples, data and technology.

Data- I have had to learn how to collect data, organize data, and use it to make instructional decisions. I have had to learn how to create effective assessments to collect data and how to analyze the effectiveness of my data collection tools, but the validity of the results.

More districts are exploring taking classes out of the classroom and moving them online. Are you ready for that? Do you understand the instructional principles at work in a virtual learning environment?

Technology- At one point I was teaching an Apple 1to1 laptop classroom. I had to quickly learn a new set of skills to meet the instructional needs of my students. I have had to learn how to develop a Personal Learning Network and how to use Web2.0 technologies.

While I could go on, I think you see the point. What we learn is quickly becoming perishable. Static knowledge has a role, but things are changing so fast, and we as educators are being called upon to do more and more, we need to develop a stream or flow of tacit knowledge.

Most of the new things we will need to learn are best learned while working with others, not from a textbook. You need a network and people to collaborate with, to co-create new knowledge and learn from. You need the explicit knowledge that comes from collaborating and learning from others. Just as someone can’t tell you how to ride a bike, no one call tell you how to create effective instructional routines based on hearing a student’s percentage score.

You need…a Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. It's the difference between a search engine and a network.

Search Engine	The Network
The Lesson Plan	The Lesson Designer
Book	Author
Photo	Photographer
Data	Researcher
Idea	Innovator
Music	Musician
Invention	Inventor
Program	Programmer
Historical Event	Participant who experienced it
What to do	Voice of experience that tells you how to do it and why
Public information	Behind the scenes
We have to know what we are looking for	Anticipates what we need and directs or provides it for us
Created	Co-create new knowledge
Find it	Attract it
Algorithm	Thinking
Static information that is locked on-line	Dynamic knowledge that can cross over into touch space (face-to-face)
Explicit Knowledge and Information	Tacit Knowledge and Know-how

It's the Professional Network Learning Collaborative that can take a school from a institution of learning and transform it into a learning institution--from a search engine into a network. That's the "Big Shift"

That's Education Innovation.