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If we are truly designing a student-centric learning environment and putting the students in the position to make meaningful decisions about their education, how can we justify deciding which device they are required to learn on?

Third, vocational and academic high schools were required to design and provide instruction that enabled students more flexibility and choice.

One scenario is that schools will race after technology and align core instructional operations to rely on digital and other technological solutions.

A second scenario views schools merely as places for facilitation of study and checking of achievement.

A third scenario would be to elevate schools as places for social learning and developmental skills. Cooperative learning, problem solving and cultivating the habits of mind would be at the heart of school life.

First, I am not saying that Finland has the best education system in the world and that others should imitate what we have done.

Second, I make it very clear that the Finnish school system cannot be transferred anywhere else in the world.

There are some concrete lessons that American educators and policymakers could learn from Finland.

First, a universal standard for financing schools, so that resources are channeled to schools according to real needs

Second, a universal standard for time allocation in schools, allowing pupils to have a proper recess between classes and a balanced curriculum among academic learning, the arts and physical education.

Third, a universal standard for teacher preparation that follows standards in other top professions.

“Writing exams isn’t a measure of intelligence or knowledge, it’s about getting inside your prof’s head to figure out what’ll be on the exam.”

Information is propelled into students without teaching them how to practically utilize it. This is senseless. Regurgitating facts, memorizing figures and formulas, compressing course material in our short-term memory for the sake of doing well on an exam; they are all detrimental to the learning experience. But students still do it because they don’t want to fail. Instead, we should be fostering a culture where, to paraphrase Arianna Huffington, “Failure isn’t considered the opposite of success, but an integral part of it.”

We can’t allow learning to become passive. We need to teach students to learn how to learn – to become independent, innovative thinkers capable of changing the world.

the computers have not transformed the classroom, nor has their use boosted learning as measured by test scores

How can we start down the path to transform the classroom?

The classroom of today doesn't even look that much different from the classroom of thirty years ago

An organization's natural instinct is to cram the innovation into its existing operating model to sustain what it already does

target those who are not being served -- people we call nonconsumers. That way, all the new approach has to do is be better than the alternative -- which is nothing at all.

disrupts that trajectory by offering a product or service that actually is not as good as that which companies are already selling.

the disruptive innovation extends its benefits to people who, for one reason or another, are unable to consume the original product

Instead, we must find areas of nonconsumption to deploy computer-based learning where it will be unencumbered by existing education processes.

For computer-based learning to bring about a disruptive transformation, it must be implemented where the alternative is no class at all.

online learning is gaining hold in the advanced courses that many schools are unable to offer