21st Century Scholar

Clayton M. Christensen is the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and is regarded as one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth. Professor Christensen holds a B.A. with highest honors in economics from Brigham Young University (1975) and an M.Phil. in applied econometrics from Oxford University [...]

by David Dwyer If you have followed the blog this week, you’ll know that I’ve described the Millennial end-users who fill our schools today; confronted their context of global uncertainty; and projected learning goals for them that commission after commission have stated will stand them in good stead in the decades ahead. How must schools [...]

by David Dwyer For the past three days, I’ve shared views and data about the Millennials. They are the end users of our schools; they, not the institution of schooling should be our primary concern. While ambitious, I noted that only a small percentage of Millennials seem to have amassed the skills and knowledge that [...]

by David Dwyer I’ve shared two views of the millennial students who fill our classrooms: one portrayed them as optimistic, ambitious, and civil minded; the other showed a more somber side, an academic record that shows them floundering in and dropping out of our high schools. Why the discrepancy? First, a growing number of our [...]

by David Dwyer Yesterday, I shared a portrait of the Millennial generation, a group that has high expectations for themselves and for whom we might hold high expectations as well. The issue today is that there is a troubling discrepancy between that “next great generation” image and the Millennial’s track record in education thus far. [...]

by David Dwyer, Ph.D. Research Professor & Katzman-Ernst Chair in Educational Entrepreneurship, Technology, and Innovation Dr. Tierney asked that I do a guest spot for CHEPA’s blog and I jumped at the chance to share some ideas – passions, really – and hopefully hear back from CHEPA’s community. I’ve entitled my blog series: End-User Design, [...]

Last week, the President and Secretary of Education announced a plan to accelerate reform and innovation. President Obama stated that “[t]his competition will not be based on politics or ideology or the preferences of a particular interest group. Instead, it will be based on a simple principle: whether a state is ready to do what [...]

Public school systems are notoriously lame and unimaginative. Think of the connotations that arise in most when considering NCLB. The law supports a focus on academic achievement and high-stakes testing. It does not prescribe a lot. Yet, states and districts have, in general, focused on prefabricated, uniform curriculums and high-stakes testing, while sweeping over the [...]

Any child of the 80′s knows the Smurfs, small, blue mythical creatures with an outlandish male to female ratio. Episodes followed similar plot arcs: Gargamel, an evil, often bungling wizard, tried to capture and destroy the Smurfs. The Smurfs inevitably thwarted the plot, either purposefully or accidentally, and prevailed. Exchange Gargamel with every reform maker [...]

Timing may not be everything, but it sure makes a difference.  Carl Schramm wrote this book in 2006.  I suspect – hope – that he would write a more reasoned book given the problems the economy currently faces. This is less a book than a cheerleading manual for entrepreneurialism.  He starts right off claiming that [...]