If Google ran my classroom?

Hmmm... interesting = )

There are five companies I passionately follow, in no particular order other than it being random: Toyota, Apple, Dell, Amazon and Google.

I immediately bought the recent Businessweek magazine simply because of its cover story - Could Google fix Detroit? (What the search giant could teach automakers about reconnecting with their customers?) and made my mind played around (still is playing around) with this question - If Google ran my classroom, how will it do it?

For proper context, I also embrace the fact that one should obselete oneself and not let others do it for me = )

Google always involves its customer in product design.

If I transpose that idea to how my classroom is being ran, I will have to answer the basic question of what is my product?

In my analysis, the school's current product is really learning experience.

Curriculum is like the engine of a car. Where car's real value is transportation and that's the learning experience I am talking about. I mean, you do not buy a car because it has an engine. You buy a car because it will bring you somewhere. Also true for a student, one does not go to school because it has a curriculum. It goes to school to learn, to get educated = )

The tests scores are customer feedback if the learning experience was actually a good one. If tests scores are bad against standards, then the actual experience of learning was bad. If test scores are good against standards, then the actual experience of learning was good.

If we expand this to a longer view, if students performs well in the industry, one factor could be that it knew how to learn given varying and changing circumstances.

Schools has prided itself with accreditation because it shows and proves that they have the resources for the best possible learning experience. But what is being measured is simply capacity. Never the outcome of that capacity. And this is where ABET is such a game changer. A pure uncut and unadulterated paradigm shifter for it talks about outcomes! Not inputs!

If Google ran my classroom, it will know how students actually learn by receiving design improvements on how to enhance the learning experience. If that is the case, then I have to totally open and ready to learn how my students learn = )

My mind is in such a state of rush.

Lord, thank you for the blessing. Enable me...