Is #HigherEd Leading the #EdReform Movement?

No. But some institutions like Stanford's d.school are trying. Last month, they released an article detailing some of their new programs called "Exploring provocative ideas for undergraduate education at Stanford." I was excited to see such progressive proposals (see below). However, until Stanford starts accepting undergraduates who exhibit these skills, high schools will continue to push AP-heavy schedules and SAT scores.

Though I didn't use the same language, I designed my elective called Passion-Based Learning thru Social Media to fulfill all of these educational trends. Embedded below is an explanation of that course and how I got there.

It predicted and embraced all of Stanford's "provocative ideas about learning" by asking students to holistically investigate a topic of their choosing. 1) "open loop" - the course helps students create personalized learning networks and digital portfolios. Naturally, their learning expands beyond the confines of the classroom and the semester. 2) Paced education - the course is entirely personalized since students choose their own content. 3) The "axis flip" - I run the entire course based off of a skill progression that I designed (see image at 14:55 in the video above). 4) Purpose learning - Students carefully construct their own brand. They write a mission in their "about me" page on their digital portfolio.

It took me several years to convince my school to offer an elective that encompasses the pedagogy that Stanford wrote to "[reimagine] the undergraduate experience of the future." Interestingly, one of the hardest groups to get on board was college counseling, because they didn't know how this course would look on a transcript. Now that the course exists, ironically, the top students at my school don't take the elective because it doesn't say AP in front of it; if they want to get in to Stanford--to experience the innovative program described above--they need to show rigor on their transcript.

I hope Stanford (beyond just d.school) leans in to some of these progressive pedagogical trends, but I also hope they will start to select students who have experience succeeding in this type of learning environment. Nevertheless, there's a long way to go before high schools and colleges close that gap. One way Stanford can help high schools prepare students for the future of learning they describe is to be more deliberate about how they plan to model this learning so that other schools can emulate their work. They should also begin to establish partnerships with high schools, colleges, and grad schools that are implementing these new trends.

When I tweeted this article out to encourage more schools to embrace this style of learning, I heard from a fellow high school teacher (@gedwards30) wondering the same thing: how will this look at Stanford in practice? So here are our lingering questions from that thread and an ensuing email exchange. I trust Stanford's d.school answering these questions will help push these educational reforms to other schools and classrooms.

• How does this learning fit in with Stanford's overarching institutional mission & how do staffing/cohort size/personal attention play into the program’s ability to scaffold and evaluate student progress?
• How will instructors evaluate this style of continuous learning focused on skill competencies?
• Is the final a digital portfolio? A capstone project? A thesis? A culminating experiment?
• How will instructors provide guidance in student inquiry and structured evaluation of student progress to empower this style of learning? 
• How do administrators allow teachers the freedom to impart their wisdom while also adhering to pedagogical best practices?
• How do teachers allow students the freedom to refine or change their "mission" or stated objective(s)?
• Might Stanford's initiative (and others like it) lead to an educational experience that functions more like a membership/subscription model rather than traditional schooling?

Educators, please add additional questions in comments or on the Twitter thread!