Incremental vs Conceptual Change

I recently heard Mary Cullinane give a keynote address at the Learning Forward Summer Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. One of her key points that stuck with me was regarding change in the education system. She used the example of ATMs to illustrate the difference between incremental and conceptual innovation. The implementation of ATMs was a conceptual change from tellers, whereas the change to deposit a cheque without having to input information into the ATM is an incremental change. It is different, but it is more of a slight process change, it doesn’t require a whole different mindset. If you understand the solution, it is incremental. If you understand the problem, it is conceptual.

Most of the change that has occurred in education in the past few decades has been incremental, where there has been tweaking and other changes, but it more or less is the same as it was fifty years ago (at least as a generalization). Students are in desks, usually in rows and most of the learning is teacher directed, especially for upper elementary and higher. Although most of these changes have been good, they haven't really been enough, based on how different the students that we see in our classrooms today are. What we need to happen is conceptual change. For this, we need a better understanding of the problems in education. This is not an easy task, it is a huge undertaking, but if we want to make a real difference, that is what needs to be done.

Some of the necessary conditions that Cullinane outlined are:

·        People maintain a tight connection between new technology and education value.

·        People aren’t bound by the traditional constraints of their industry or market, encourage innovation.

·        People don’t face career destruction if an idea fails; it cannot be a punitive environment.

·        People should have clear and direct incentives for success.

What resonated with me the most was the idea that people should feel safe to make educated mistakes.  If we don’t allow this, people will not take responsible risks, which is how we can get further down the road to conceptual change in education.

Based on the keynote presentation at Learning Forward 2011, by Mary Cullinane - July 19, 2011 - Indianapolis, Indiana