1. The Future of Education: the student-centric learning environment
By Travis Willard, Chief Information Officer, Georgia Department of Education
Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein
We must start a new conversation when it comes to the education of our children. This
conversation is uncomfortable to most, but the small incremental changes that are being made in
education represent the apex of an outdated paradigm that is not meeting the needs of our global
environment. Current signs pointing to a need for innovation include growth in home schooling,
online learning, charter schools, private schools, and credit recovery. A new paradigm is required
in order to make significant strides forward.
Student achievement can be said to be made up of three important variables: a student’s
achievement level before they enter the classroom, the instruction they receive in the classroom
and the amount of time in which the instruction is delivered. We will represent that paradigm
with a formula: SA = PA + (I X T).
In the current paradigm, prior achievement (PA) is variable, even though proficiency should
have been reached in all prerequisites; we know this is not often the case. If every student that
does not reach proficiency remains in the same environment, our class sizes are bound to grow.
Students will continue to become disengaged and the ability to develop life-long learners will be
jeopardized. The U.S. graduation rate will remain abysmal and our ability to produce U.S.
business and educational leaders will be even further decreased.
Instruction (I) is also variable; teachers lack engaging resources to facilitate a standards-based
curriculum that, in Georgia, has been recognized as the 5th best in the country by the Thomas B.
Fordham Institute. The textbook we provide is not written for the standards and often quickly
contains content that is out of date for today’s information society. Georgia must choose from
textbooks that are written for California, Texas or New York. Some of our standards are not
addressed in those texts. When we spend on average $180M as a state each year on these
resources, they should be better aligned to our standards and be more engaging to our learners
and our nation’s future work force.
The one known quantity in our equation is time (T). In most cases, the instructional day is
limited to the 50 minutes of class time in which the instruction can be delivered.
In our vision for a new education paradigm, prior achievement (PA) level becomes constant
through a mastery based curriculum in which students do not proceed to the next instructional
unit until they demonstrate proficiency/mastery of the current curricular unit. Instruction (I)
becomes constant through a standardized sequence of curricula that is delivered through an
adaptive content delivery system. Finally, time (T) becomes variable, as students require
additional/ remedial work to obtain mastery before moving along through the standardized
sequence of curricula.
This paradigm can only be enabled by having the right technology platform to be able to deliver
a student-centric learning environment that customizes teaching and learning, and enables the

2. ability to scale standards-based quality of education. Teaching and learning would (will) move
away from a one size fits all whole group instruction to a modular, student-centric approach
using the right technology platform as the delivery vehicle.
In Example 1, a student is able to track the pace of their progress in relation to other students in
their class and the overall pace set for the course. In the case of Biology, the student is
performing ahead of pace and is on track to reach proficiency well ahead of the class. Once
proficiency is reached the student may then drill down into mastery, go on to the next biology
requirement or have more time to remediate other subjects that are more challenging for the
student, in this case, US History.
It is through a modular system that actively uses digital content, learning objects, and ongoing
formative assessment that will allow students to reach proficiency when they are ready.
Example 1
In Example 2, a teacher is now able to see the pace of each student in her class. Students in green
are performing on pace, students in the blue and grey are ahead of pace and students in the
orange and yellow are behind pace. The sash of each student shows the short-term trend. A blue
sash indicates an increasing pace, green indicates a steady pace and a red sash would indicate
that the student is falling off pace. This view would show a teacher the students that were in
greatest need of help and allow for greater focus to be placed on those individualsthat allows for
personalization/customization of both teaching and learning. At the same time, the students
progressing at there own pace would be allowed to continue to achieve.

3. Example 2
“In an era of customization, multi-media and multi-tasking, the nature of schooling remains, one way, one medium,
one time and all too often one chance to learn.”Tomlinson & Strickland, 2005.
We see this as both a cost neutral and revenue generating proposition. We expect to still pay
close to $180M a year, but we feel that $50-60 per student will be spent on the delivery of
content, technology tools and infrastructure to deliver a modular customized learning solution
aligned to state standards. Our vision will create the justification for 1 to 1 laptop initiatives and
further the need for network infrastructure. In Georgia alone, that would project revenue of
$96M a year.
If we, as educational and business/economic leaders, acknowledge the demonstrated need for a
commitment to a new paradigm what are we willing to personally commit to that actually results
in a true paradigm shift? If we are willing to embark on an adaptive and customized path used by
business community with their customers today there is a great opportunity to realize the
potential of educated work force.
We must either find a way or make one. – Hannibal