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| education and american economy: a
dynamic relationship the first strand: a changing workplace the second strand: a new understanding of effective education what does the convergence of these two strands mean for policy makers? what
do our recommendations imply for the current reform debate? |
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (IEE Document No. Bk-2)
EDUCATION AND AMERICAN ECONOMY: A DYNAMIC RELATIONSHIP How the United States organizes its education -- what we teach, to whom, when, and especially how -- approximately matches how the country has organized economic activity for decades. The workplace, however, is gradually changing, and our traditional way of organizing education no longer meets the needs of our students. At the same time, a powerful research base, cognitive science, has revealed that traditional schooling, especially its pedagogy, is poorly organized for learning, whatever the economic environment students find themselves in. That same research base has also shown that the skill requirements of restructured workplaces and optimal ways of organizing learning fit one another. The Double Helix of Education and the Economy illuminates the complementarity between the changed workplace and what is now known about effective learning -- two separate strands. THE FIRST STRAND: A CHANGING WORKPLACE The workplace is changing, and these changes are gradually rendering education as traditionally delivered more and more unconnected to what its graduates need to know and how they need to perform at work. U.S. business rose to power on the basis of a mass production system designed to drive down the unit costs of long runs of standardized products. The emphasis was on narrowly defined jobs that could be filled by interchangeable, low-skilled workers, large inventories to make up for errors or poor quality, sophisticated quality control systems to catch defects at the end of production, and technologies designed to control or limit worker discretion. To make this system work, firms needed many layers of managers, supervisors, and technical personnel to control workers, handle non-routine events, and mop up mistakes at the end. But external forces -- intensified international competition, a proliferation of products, accelerating product cycles, a fast pace of change in production technologies, and a growing consumer interest in quality -- are undermining industry's reliance on this traditional production system. Today, in an economic environment characterized by change, variety, and uncertainty, the keys to effective competition are flexibility, fast response to market shifts, and continuous innovation. The old way of organizing production is so clogged with layers of management and supervision that companies can only respond to competitive threats clumsily and slowly. To reduce the time it takes to develop, produce, and distribute products, firms are (1) reducing the managerial/supervisory and technical support staff, (2) delegating these functions downward to previously regimented workers and broadening their job responsibilities, and (3) reducing the number of separate job categories. Flexible production multiplies the number of decisions, and the need to respond quickly means that decisions can no longer be bucked up supervisory lines but must be made on the shop floor. These changes are transforming the workplace
For example, in banking, increasing computerization has eliminated much of the repetitive, routine, manual processing of work that has long been the basis of many jobs. At the same time, the proliferation of services has brought about a shift toward better-educated workers who can understand the bank's services and its customers' needs. In the textile market, customers are demanding faster delivery and more frequent style changes. To meet the competition, companies have had to integrate machine maintenance, inventory control, and record-keeping into the jobs of operators. Loom operators must now make judgments about the causes of machine problems, and machine maintenance workers now need a mathematics background. The result: Firms are forced to find higher-skilled, better-educated workers. In the apparel industry, new production techniques are changing what workers do. In 1985, only one percent of production workers were involved in processes designed to reduce in-process inventory and speed throughput times. In the 1990s, 20 percent are involved in such processes. These processes put a premium on teamwork and an ability to cope, on the spot, with a growing number of unpredictable problems. Evidence of these changing skill requirements can be seen in the following changes in relative wages and shifting occupational patterns.
In sum, industries find fewer opportunities for routinization and experience a greater need for the integration of traditionally separate functions (design, engineering, marketing), flatter organizational hierarchies, decentralization of responsibility, and greater employee involvement at all levels. These changes in the economy carry significant implications for our educational system since they fundamentally alter what workers at all skill levels need to know, how they need to use what they know, and when they need to learn it. THE SECOND STRAND: Our schools routinely and profoundly violate what we know about how people learn most effectively and the conditions under which they apply their knowledge appropriately to new situations. These practices permeate all levels and sectors of American education and training, from K-12 to corporate training. What makes many learning situations so ineffective is that they reflect mistaken assumptions about how people learn. Most education and training is structured around the assumptions that
These assumptions lead to an organization of learning that is characterized by: (1) a lecture mode of teaching, instead of active engagement with learning; (2) control over learning in the hands of the teacher, (3) a curriculum of disconnected items, tasks, and subtasks taught independently of the contexts in which the knowledge or skills will be used, and (4) a focus on "correct" responses rather than on the processes by which responses are generated. This kind of education and training creates learners
This kind of education and training misses the point that human beings are inquisitive, sense-making animals who learn best when they are fully and actively engaged in solving problems that mean something to them. Because it violates the way that people learn most effectively, our current approach to education and training simply does not work. Extensive research demonstrates that students are very poor at transferring and applying what they learn from school to everyday situations -- which should not surprise us. Knowledge and skills poorly learned or understood will not transfer effectively to new situations. Fortunately, a century of thought, research, and actual trials blaze a path toward more effective learning. Based on how people learn most naturally and effectively, these ideas promise to (1) make markedly more efficient use of students' learning time and (2) involve the less-motivated more deeply and productively in learning. The spectacular learning of very young children offers a clue to a more effective approach to learning. Children learn in context -- in the midst of ongoing activities that give them immediate feedback on the success of their efforts. And their learning is guided by parents and peers, who serve as models and help them see the meaningful connections between different experiences. Traditional apprenticeship learning offers further clues. Traditional apprenticeship is a way of life; there is almost no separation between the activities of daily living and the learning of work skills. The apprentice masters tasks in order to get the work done. Standards of performance are embedded in the work environment. Judgments about the learner's competence emerge naturally and continuously in the course of work. Whatever instruction the apprentice receives comes not from a teacher teaching, but from a worker doing work which the apprentice observes. In short, apprentices are inducted into a community of expert practice in which the master's (teacher's) performance constitutes the standard for the apprentice. Drawing on what they have learned from observing young children and from studying traditional apprenticeships, cognitive scientists have developed principles of effective learning. These principles are modified for modern activities where the components and processes are not always visually observable (e.g., mathematics and computer-based inventory management). One application of these modified principles, called cognitive apprenticeship, is particularly promising. They result in very different classrooms and dramatically change the roles of teachers and students. The learning environment takes on the technological, social, and motivational characteristics of real-world situations. With the context for learning changed, students actively engage in solving real-world problems, use their own ideas and experiences, and test them against their peers and teachers. Teachers serve as role models, guides, and coaches. Strengthening the educational system so that it conforms to the ways that people learn best will also directly enhance its ability to prepare students for the transformed workplace. The two strands -- the broad skill requirements of the reorganized workplace and our knowledge of how people learn most effectively -- are intertwined. They are the double helix. They both imply similar strategies for educational reform. The research and analysis of the past five years show that the changes that should be made for purposes of learning turn out to be consistent with and supportive of how individuals are expected to function in the restructured workplace. In traditional workplaces, tasks are narrowly defined, and workers are not expected to be versatile. Educational practices that keep control over learning in the hands of teachers, who "pour knowledge" into their passive students, closely matches the hierarchical organization of the traditional workplace. Higher-level employees are expected to receive and pass on orders; lower-level workers to follow orders. Neither group is expected to bring their own ideas to work. This approach, which causes behavior problems in the classroom, produces turnover and absenteeism on the job. Just as traditional learning emphasizes strengthening the bond between stimuli and correct responses, workers in the traditional workplace are expected to handle well-defined, nonambiguous situations. Workers are trained to have a limited number of responses to a limited number of possible circumstances; specialized support personnel and supervisors are expected to handle unusual events. In the context of the traditional workplace, increasing skill means simply increasing the number of stimuli for which an individual knows the correct responses. Schools emphasize getting the right answer, with correspondingly less attention to learning from mistakes and developing alternative ways to solve problems. Similarly, the traditional workplace focuses on completing the task rather than understanding it and improving its subsequent performance. The traditional view of quality control matches the educational neglect of learning from mistakes. Since errors are repaired at the end of the production line, quality control does not get built into the way the work is done. As a result, workers do not learn from their mistakes, and the products and processes do not get improved. Finally, traditional pedagogy assumes that knowledge should be learned independently of the context in which it will be used. Similarly, in the traditional workplace, workers are not expected to understand much about the broader context in which they work. Context is not important when tasks are well-defined and routinized. Today, however, firms find it increasingly costly to hang on to production approaches that depend on low-cost, low-skilled workers who are waiting to be told what to do. Today's workers need a broad understanding of the systems in which they operate. Even more importantly, they need a conceptual understanding of what they are doing. Only that kind of understanding will allow them to carry out tasks or solve problems that they have not previously encountered. Cognitive apprenticeship works with rather than against the natural learning system of human beings. It therefore offers a learning strategy that is consistent with how people need to function in restructured workplaces. Cognitive apprenticeships are designed so that students see the usefulness of what they are learning, actively solve real problems, test solutions, learn from their errors, and work together. Students learn the subject matter better and develop a broader understanding of how that subject matter connects to other things in the student's world. More importantly, they learn how to explore new fields, how to get more knowledge in a field they already know, and how to organize and reinterpret knowledge they already have -- in short, they are equipped to continue learning. WHAT DOES THE CONVERGENCE OF THESE TWO STRANDS MEAN FOR POLICY MAKERS? As these marketplace and learning realities converge, we are challenged to rethink what we teach, to whom, how, and when. Our analysis of the research on schools and the economy leads us to three fundamental recommendations. 1. Change the mission of K-12 schools to take educational responsibility for the economic futures of all students. For many years, the teaching methods, curriculum, and structure of K-12 schools were geared towards college preparation. Non-college-bound students were simply carried along, often in poor quality vocational programs or, worse, in the wasteland of general tracks. The costs of this way of organizing schools were less obvious when lower-skill jobs were more prevalent and when some share of these jobs paid middle-level wages. Today's economy, however, is increasingly dominated by middle-skill and higher-skill jobs. Equally important, only these jobs pay wages that allow family formation and maintenance. Slowly but steadily, the economy is eliminating or restructuring lower-skill work. The educational implications of these economic realities are stark, fundamental, and unavoidable. All students, not just some, now need the knowledge and skills required for middle- and higher-skill jobs. Since most of these jobs will require post-K-12 training, K-12 should equip all students with the knowledge and skills needed to complete additional training and education. 2. Dissolve the dualism that perpetuates the deep division between academic and vocational education. The mismatch between the current focus of K-12 schools and the needs of our students is deeply rooted in a dualism that distinguishes between
This dualism manifests itself in both the curricular structure of schools and the way curricula are taught: academics taught out of context and academically debased vocational education. The dualism locks an increasing group of individuals out of the economic mainstream, either precluding their entry into it or making them marginal to the labor market. At the heart of cognitive research is the observation that intelligence and expertise are built out of interaction with the environment, not in isolation from it. This research thus challenges these traditional distinctions and shows that effective learning engages both head and hand and requires both knowing and doing. 3. Organize learning around the principles of cognitive apprenticeship. What cognitive science tells us about learning amounts to a slash across the canvas and requires a radical departure in how we organize learning. Cognitive apprenticeship works with, rather than against, the natural learning impulses of human beings -- the desire to make sense out of our experiences, to solve problems, to interact with, explore, and gain mastery over our environment. It is thus an effective learning strategy for all students. For those more committed to school and learning, cognitive apprenticeships promise deeper and more disciplined learning that is better remembered and more appropriately used. For the less academically inclined, cognitive apprenticeships promise a motivating engagement with the learning process. Cognitive apprenticeships stress subject-specific content and the learning strategies and skills required to operate effectively in, on, and with the content. Thus they emphasize the learning skills that employers in restructured workplaces need in all employees. Cognitive apprenticeships integrate the dual principles of mind and matter, the theoretical and the applied, therefore systematically preserving and integrating the best of what today we call academic and vocational education into an approach that can be used to teach any subject, whether mathematics or interior design. In cognitive apprenticeships, the primary difference between academic and vocational education is the specific content that is taught. Cognitive apprenticeship retains the option of postsecondary education for all students. It is education designed to create a well-prepared mind at ease with the demands of real-world tasks and equipped to continue learning. Thus, it eliminates the historic K-12 conflict between workplace preparation and preparation for postsecondary education. Cognitive apprenticeship is generalizable to many learning situations. Its principles are appropriate for learners of different ages with different learning objectives -- initial preparation, "second chance" learning, or retraining as experienced workers. WHAT DO OUR RECOMMENDATIONS IMPLY FOR THE CURRENT REFORM DEBATE?
The learning situation needs to
Using these criteria, which are based on research completed thus far, work-based apprenticeships and school-based cognitive apprenticeships have both pluses and minuses. Work-based apprenticeships are by no means clear winners. One fundamental impetus for the idea of work-based apprenticeships is the realization that schools have done a poor job of preparing the non-college-bound. If the workplace turns out to be the best place for this group to learn, well and good. But we must be careful not to resort to work-based programs simply as a way to finesse problems with the schools. We are already paying for second-chance programs and remedial college programs to do what the K-12 system should have accomplished in the first place. Any powerful educational reform should start from and build on 1. what people need to know and know how to do in non-school settings 2. how they learn most naturally and effectively This aim of school reform is frequently lost, even key players sometimes forgetting the central objective. The core issue is learning: what do people need to learn and how do they best learn it. All reforms -- the "new basics", choice, teacher retraining, assessment redesign, or whatever -- matter only as they produce significant improvements in learning. We believe that our economic and educational institutions face virtually the same challenge. That challenge is to organize their activities, whether learning or production, to capture the power of the fact that human beings are naturally sense-making, problem-solving, and environmentally interactive. This means that our educators and employers have to reconceptualize human potential, thought, and action. To order copies, send check to: Institute on Education and the Economy The price is $12.00 for each copy.
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