Disruptive+Innovation

Disruptive Innovations In life, it is often the big changes, or major disruptions, which bring the most growth. However, it is through embracing change that we grow and are often better than we could have ever considered before. This is true not only on a personal level, but on a business level as well. In the book __Disrupting Class__, this disruption is defined as “a positive force. It is the process by which an innovation transforms a market whose services or products are complicated and expensive into one where simplicity, convenience, accessibility, and affordability characterize the industry” (Christensen, l. 370). This type of innovation occurs when a business develops a product or service that is less expensive or easier to use and hurts the original market. Disruptive innovation disrupts the trajectory by introducing a product that might not have been as good as what historically had been sold. Though possibly not as good, it can be more affordable providing more consumers a viable alternative. This disruptive innovation encourages the back market to change and to compete in this new market (Christensen, l. 958). Scott Anthony in //__The Innovator’s Guide to Growth__// says, “disruptive innovation is a particular type of innovation that occurs when an innovator brings to a market an innovation that is simple, that is convenient, that’s accessible, that’s affordable” (Harvard Business, 2008).

Although disruptive innovation and sustaining innovation both bring about change, they are different in their effects on the market. A disruption produces a product that changes the face of a market; sustaining innovation simply improves what is already available. Daniel Gottron explains sustaining innovation as when companies get into the game of “leap frog” (Grotton, 2012). This “leap frog” competition in the market sustains a resource that is already available, but continues to make it better and better. However, since it does not change the way the market was doing business, it is not disruptive.

In times past, knowledge was shared via the written word or spoken word. In the mid 1990s, the internet started to become available to the common user and disrupted the flow of information. Knowledge could then be attained in a way that had once only been available as a source of communication from one main frame to another. Even though the internet was a disruptive innovation two decades ago, it continues to be a disruption today as it is slowly bringing an end to the printed newspaper, magazine and book. It is changing industry after industry.

While the internet was a disruptive innovation in and of itself, it is now the facilitating mechanism for disruptive change in education. The use of internet is not new to education. It has been used within the classroom as a sustaining innovation for years. Although many believed that it would be the answer for improved education, it has failed in many regards because many teachers used it simply to sustain what they were already doing. However, for it to be a true disruption to education, it must be used as tool to help education change what it has always been doing and strive for something different. I have seen the internet be both a disrupting and sustaining innovation even within the same campus. This year, our district piloted thirty digital classrooms. This roll out was directed by curriculum and instruction and supported by technology. Curriculum and instruction spent a great deal of time focusing on the change necessary in instructional strategies; the teacher should change their focus to being a guide to students as they begin to drive their own learning. I was selected to be one of these pilot classrooms. To say learning has changed would be an understatement. Daily, I set back and wonder where our learning will lead us. Technology and the internet are allowing us to connect with students around the world, professionals in our community and those within our room to work and solve real world problems as we let project based learning guide our instruction. As a teacher, I am learning alongside my students as we collaborate. Technology has disrupted how we were learning previously. We now have a classroom dialogue that continues online until late in the evening and on weekends. Students act as teachers as they help answer the questions of their classmates. Through the use of technology, our learning has changed. However, down the hall in a different digital classroom, students use their iPads about once a week to search the internet for information or to watch a video. In this room, technology is simply serving as a sustaining innovation to the instructional strategies that have been in place for years. Although technology has been able to help us introduce a disruptive innovation to my classroom, I still feel limited by the artifacts of the past. Many parent’s still want to see daily homework sheets and summative tests. They feel that if the teacher is not in front of the room lecturing, then they aren’t teaching. Standardized testing also serves as challenge. Learning for my students is ideal when they are using their skills to apply to real world problems. However, the state expects them to show mastery of content by a multiple choice test oftentimes designed to mislead and confuse. In order for my classroom to see a true disruption to our learning, the education system in and of itself, must first be willing to change how it defines learning success and change the norms that have been present for decades.

References Abilene Christian University: Login to the site. (n.d.). //Abilene Christian University//. Retrieved March 19, 2012, from []

Christensen, C. M., Horn, M. B., & Johnson, C. W. (2008). //Disrupting class: how disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns//. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Harvard Business. (Producer). (2008). //How to spot disruptive innovation opportunities.// [Web Video]. Retrieved from []