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Today, Assistant Professor Justin Reich published his new and timely book, Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education with Harvard University Press. (We can’t help but think how timely. It arrives in the middle of a massive social and pedagogical experiment as schools turn to online tools for remote and hybrid education during the COVID-19 pandemic.)
From the publisher:
In Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education, Justin Reich delivers a sobering report card on the latest supposedly transformative educational technologies. Reich takes readers on a tour of MOOCs, autograders, computerized “intelligent tutors,” and other educational technologies whose problems and paradoxes have bedeviled educators. Learning technologies—even those that are free to access—often provide the greatest benefit to affluent students and do little to combat growing inequality in education. And institutions and investors often favor programs that scale up quickly, but at the expense of true innovation. It turns out that technology cannot by itself disrupt education or provide shortcuts past the hard road of institutional change.
Just as educators are experimenting, so are authors and publicists. You can join Reich for a weekly “virtual book club” throughout the fall. Over ten weeks, he and guests will discuss chapters from Failure to Disrupt, with all sessions open to the public and starting at 3pm eastern time. (Registration required.) Of the guests, you’ll hear from Reich’s MIT colleagues Mitch Resnick and Scot Osterweil on peer-guided learning and learning games, respectively.
For a useful rundown of Failure to Disrupt, take a look at Science’s review as well as The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Ed-Tech Mania Is Back”; subscription required). Reich will also be joining us for our weekly Colloquium on Thursday, September 24.
