Reflection on Systemic Change (Dr. Watson)

I am sorry for the delayed post. I did not have a chance to read Reigeluth's article until this weekend. I tried to review Dr. Watson's powerpoint and post last night, but the Blackboard was down. It is now up but I could not find his poweroint there. So I reflect on Systemic Change based on my memory of Dr. Watson's presentation and Reigeluth's article.

Systemic Change (which I think is mainly advocated by Dr. Reigeluth at Indiana University that Dr. Watson has been working with) is the entire change in education that involves large educational systems (at times the system could be at the school district level and at times it could be at the ecological level) and that has to occur due to this historical, societal paradign shifts from Industrial Age to Information Age. This educational change involves individualized, cooperative, attainment-based (p. 7), and meaningful learing, and teachers as facilitators (among other features).

I was very excited about an abundant of possible opportunities (that I could not even imagine) for instructional technologists to be needed in such changes.

But I was not so sure about what specific plan of actions the proponents of Systemic Change have in mind to make it happen. Du ringthe presentation, it really sound like they are looking at the top-down type of educational change. Not only it does not seem realistic to me, but also in Reigeluth says "it is simply not logistically possible to change the current system everywhere at once" (p. 5). When Dr. Watson mentioned "school district" (? I forgot the exact wording), I thought it could be a good geographical range in which some experimental studies on systemic change can be carried out. But I still cannot imagine or visualize any entire change that could happen. I can only imagine a large scale of "piecemeal changes" because there are some type of national standards that I assume cannot be disregarded and because there are conservative cultural norms of people (teachers, students, parents) that I assume are pretty persistent. I can only imagine such because I personally really don't think that the tools that the advanced technology offers are "powerful" enough to shift education from "teacher-based" to "resource-based" (p. 8).

But those tools are becoming more and more powerful continuously. It is possible that they will allow a new system happen in which all those persistant factors will accordingly change some day. And it is important to conduct research and discuss pros and cons on systemic change and get ready for any possible changes.

(It is wonderful that actually in Indiana an experiment of systemic change is actually conducted for several years now. Such experiment would be very diffucult in my home country, Japan.)

Shigetake