ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Justin Reich is a learning scientist interested in learning at scale, practice-based teacher education, and the future of learning in a networked world. His professional work is motivated by a desire to transform the architecture of education away from centralized, hierarchical models of teaching and towards distributed, networked models of learning. He studies, designs, and advocates for learning systems that shift education from something done to learners to something done with learners, from channels of dissemination to webs of sharing.

His writings have appeared in Science, The Atlantic, Educational Researcher, the Washington Post, Inside Higher Ed, the Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. Justin started his career teaching wilderness medicine, and later taught high school world history and history electives, and coached wrestling and outdoor activities.

Justin is a co-author of two books: Best Ideas for Teaching with Technology: A Practical Guide for Teachers by Teachers and The iPad Classroom: From Consumption to Curation and Creation. His academic work has been published in Science, Educational Researcher, the Journal of Learning Analytics, Social Education, Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, and other venues. His opinion writings have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harvard Education Letter, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Providence Journal, and other publications.For several years, he wrote the EdTechResearcher blog at Education Week.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Proponents of large-scale learning have boldly promised that technology can disrupt traditional approaches to schooling, radically accelerating learning and democratizing education. Much-publicized experiments, often underwritten by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, have been launched at elite universities and in elementary schools in the poorest neighborhoods. Such was the excitement that, in 2012, the New York Times declared the “year of the MOOC.” Less than a decade later, that pronouncement seems premature.

In Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education, Justin Reich delivers a sobering report card on the latest supposedly transformative educational technologies. Reich takes readers on a tour of MOOCs, autograders, computerized “intelligent tutors,” and other educational technologies whose problems and paradoxes have bedeviled educators. Learning technologies—even those that are free to access—often provide the greatest benefit to affluent students and do little to combat growing inequality in education. And institutions and investors often favor programs that scale up quickly, but at the expense of true innovation. It turns out that technology cannot by itself disrupt education or provide shortcuts past the hard road of institutional change.

Technology does have a crucial role to play in the future of education, Reich concludes. We still need new teaching tools, and classroom experimentation should be encouraged. But successful reform efforts will focus on incremental improvements, not the next killer app.

THE BOOK STUDY SCHEDULE

Week 1- April 12- ONLINE Session 4/14 4:30-5:30

Week 2- April 19 (Google Classroom Assignment)

Week 3- April 26- ONLINE Session 4/28 4:30-5:30

Week 4- May 3 (Google Classroom Assignment)

Week 5- May 10- ONLINE Session 5/12 4:30-5:30

COST $99 - INCLUDES BOOK