All around the world, government officials, educators, and businesses have identified innovation and entrepreneurship as high priorities for economic growth. They are asking: “How are we going to train large numbers of young people to be innovators?” Before we can address that question, there’s a broader one: “How well is our educational system working, even for traditional academic disciplines?”
The dramatic examples of exceptionally successful start-ups – like Google, Facebook, now Uber, driven by the venture capital business model, coupled with the uncertainty in global economics, have led to a belief that a good idea becomes great when it can be validated by massively rapid expansion. Finding a way to scale is touted as the magic formula for success.
But – is this a correct assumption?
If the objective of education, as was articulated 50 years ago, is to train large numbers of workers to have the skills needed by industry at the time, that has been successfully achieved. The delivery of education can be scaled the same way as volume manufacturing. For decades, we have had lecture halls that hold several hundred seats and TV monitors reach the students sitting in the back. Today, MOOCs (massively open, online courses) can reach tens, even hundreds of thousands of students as each student uses his/her own computer to access the material at his/her own convenience.
How do we know what the students learn? Teaching can be scaled. Can learning?
This is a fundamental challenge: If the focus in education shifts toward learning, what does a student need to learn to become more innovative (and entrepreneurial)?
There are many kinds of innovation and many ways to be an innovator. Some people believe that the necessary creative energy is more akin to artistic temperament than disciplined engineering skills. Who has ever asked about scaling-up the education of artists? Isn’t the essence of innovation the creation of something new and different? Doesn’t this require the expression of a unique perspective, maybe a particular personality?
If there were standard formulas, systematic processes for innovation that we could teach to hundreds of students in a class, virtual or physical, wouldn’t that mean that a significant percentage of the students would all come up with similar conclusions about “what is innovative”? If all the students are exposed to the same teaching material, what will stimulate and encourage divergent thinking? What other kinds of input can help the students?
Individual feedback and guidance is the obvious answer – but that is what doesn’t scale.
For a teacher to provide just 30 minutes per week of undivided attention to each student, that would mean a theoretical maximum of 80 students could be served in a 40-hour week. Such a schedule would not allow for any other activity, such as classroom teaching or administrative responsibilities.
So – what is the logic underlying the question of scaling-up innovation education?
Maybe we have to accept the premise that, to develop innovative capabilities and talents, we must build on unique characteristics of each individual – personalized learning.
In our current education system, there is a shortage of teachers. How many have the interest and ability to provide the kind of guidance discussed here? How can someone who has never had the experience of being an innovator give useful feedback to a young person learning what innovation can be? Perhaps being an apprentice would be a more effective way to learn to be an innovator?
Maybe someday, artificial intelligence software (AI) can be developed so that each of us can have a virtual “AI shell” that can understand who we are and how we think even more deeply than we know ourselves. This AI shell would be our “user interface”, providing the contextual information we need to develop our talents. What if it could be an “AI Mentor”, able to challenge our beliefs, our assumptions, our perspectives? Could it understand when our minds need jogging and provoke us into divergent thinking? Would the benefit of such an AI be as valuable as direct human interaction?
For now, at least, we will need experienced, dedicated teacher-mentors who can guide relatively small numbers of eager innovators – on a personal level.
