Towards a Higher Paradigm of Learning

      Hopefully soon the days of kids moving in organized groups from class to class will be over.  Sounds like an overstatement but in terms of geologic time* our current school model may soon seem like a very backwards way of educating.  One of the keys to education is keeping students at their 'zone of proximal development'*.  That is impossible in large groups.  Usually what happens is teachers teach to about the top of the bottom third.  This deprives both the slow and gifted learners. 

     A new paradigm of internet learning allows students to proceed at their own pace and challenges them in the areas where they are most interested, allowing them to optimize learning in a way that is impossible using the traditional school classroom model.  Even teachers using differentiation and other techniques will soon be hard pressed to compete with this new paradigm of learning.    Internet learning is most suited for students pursuing individualized study paths and guided by coaches and mentors.  The new paradigm presents students with material that they find interesting and is at their zone of proximal development.  The internet offers new options for learning that open the possibility for faster learning that actualizes a given learners potential.  Schools very often trap students in a system that is either too difficult or too easy.  Internet learning allows students to progress at their own rate.  It also allows for greater customization to individual interest. 

     There is plenty of room to make this into an extensive paper.  But that is unnecessary.  The purpose here is to outline the basics of the Paradigm and then the ultimate benefits will be obvious to all except perhaps some of the educational elite that have special interests in preserving the system they have created.  The main advantage of internet learning is the flexibility and expansiveness of curriculum development.  An internet curriculum can exist online and be updated and modified by anyone.  It can have multiple lessons at each objective each tailored to a given learning style and ability.  It can have additional links to projects, activities, and resources such as graphics or online texts.

     At the current time there are a variety of resources to select from, but improvement is needed.  I see a period of rapid advancement in this area.  Soon their will be online lessons and courses suited to each individual learning style.  I imagine say a Wiki of lessons each with links to a variety of resources at each objective or concept.  For example, in mathematics when the student arrives at systems of equations there would be a page of links each pointing to a different resource for that lesson.  There may be anything from recorded lessons varied by difficulty level to interesting visualizations or say java applets.  When the entire mathematics curriculum is properly mapped in this fashion it would be easy for any student to follow.  Parents and their students along with their mentors should be able to select their own curriculum.  Internet learning makes that possible.

     Next students require mentors to guide them through the process and measure their progress.  There should be a mentor assigned to the student in each subject area.  This means that mentors would interact one on one with students.  This makes a far more powerful methodology than in the current classroom model.  The essential tasks of the mentor are to guide and motivate the student while assessing progress.  Note I did not mention tutor the student.  This may also be a task of last resort when the curriculum falls short or the student for one reason or another needs the individualized attention.  Tutoring may also simply be used as a way of assessing a students progress and reinforcing the learning that has already occured. 

     This new paradigm, (I would claim to have invented it if my name was Al Gore), is ideal as either a home school model or as a supplement to what happens in schools.  As online resources improve and better curriculum resources come available this new paradigm will clearly become superior to todays model of moving students like cattle from one class to the next.

*Geologic Time - I use geologic time as a comparison to how we normally think in terms of time.  Hopefully it will be very soon indeed on a geologic time scale.

*Zone of proximal developemnt - Imagine an onion each shell represents the level of a student in a given area.   As we advance we proceed outwards to shells of greater surface extent. 

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