A colleague from Portugal contacted me a couple days ago with this very interesting infographic which talks about how the traditional classroom is being flipped. The biggest thing that popped out to me was the driving force behind flipping our classrooms: poor learning outcomes. WHY ARE WE STILL OPERATING UNDER THE SYSTEM OF OLD? For centuries, organizations, especially our schools have made changes based on poor learning outcomes. We have been waiting until a student fails (or drops out, in this case) before someone speaks up and says, “Oh, we should probably do something”.
I understand the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. But let me tell you… if we are not constantly looking to grow, then we will continue to fall behind. The world does not stand still just because one educational infrastructure seems to be working at the moment. Let’s look at some organizations that have been able to sustain due to making changes prior to failing first. The New York Times continues to be on the cutting edge of everything! Between blogging, online newspaper, and now data journalism, The New York Times continues to lead the news industry. It has been on the “shelf” since 1851, and still receives over 30 million unique visitors per month on the website. JP Morgan Chase Bank has been going strong since 1799 and even in today’s economy, it has total assets of over $2 trillion and is the biggest bank in the nited States. And finally, Google. Enough said.
We need to keep pushing toward better schools and getting away from the attitude of “this is working fine”. Let’s develop the future rather than catch up with the past! Needless to say, this infographic spoke volumes to me and I hope it does the same for you.
Created by Knewton and Column Five Media
