High Touch High Tech

Global Action for Learning Generation

November 2018

Ju-Ho Lee
Professor of KDI school of Public Policy and Management
Commissioner of the Education Commission
Chair of the Education Workforce Initiative
 From Learning Crisis To Learning Generation

• The Education Commission sounded solemn warning that by 2030, 825 million
young people, roughly half of young generation today, would reach adulthood
without skills they need to thrive in work and society.

• The root cause of the global learning crisis is the system failure of the mass
production model of the classroom, where teachers deliver the uniform and
standardized contents through lectures for the students in the classroom
regardless of their potentials and needs.

• Our next generation should benefit from mass personalized learning in schools,
taking advantage of innovative pedagogies that has been accumulated for
decades and education technologies that has advanced in an amazing speed.
Personalized learning has been tried for decades, but has not
been provided massively for every student.

From Mass Production to Mass Personalization

• Learn to Test Learn to Learn

• Shallow Learning Deep Learning

• Vertical Learning Horizontal Learning

 Fourth Industrial Revolution requires and enables the mass
customization in education.

From Mass Production System Toward Mass Customization System

 South Korea’s achievement of both sustained economic development
and democracy is mainly due to its investment in people.
Korea’s Per Capita GDP increase compared Korea’s enrollment rates increase: good
to other Asian Countries example of progressive universalism
30000
120.0

25000

100.0
20000

80.0
15000

70.1
10000 60.0 65.2 68.4

52.5
5000 elementary
40.0

lower
36
0 scondary
1960 1980 2000 20.0 upper
22.9 23.6 secondary
Korea China Indonesia
tertiary(net)
Malaysia Thailand Philippines 11.4
Vietnam Cambodia Laos 0.0 5.4 6.7
Mongolia India Pakistan 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Bangladesh Nepal Sri Lanka
 Teachers were at the heart of the remarkable performance of
Korean students.
Proportion of top 5 % students aspiring to Korean students’ average scores of reading,
become teachers (PISA 2015) math and science on top in PISA
18.0%

16.0%

14.0%

12.0%

10.0%

8.0%

6.0%

4.0%

2.0%

0.0%
Greece

France
Chile

Ireland
Denmark
Latvia

Australia

Hungary
Estonia

Austria

Korea
Netherlands

Slovak Republic

Japan
Finland

Switzerland
Belgium

United Kingdom
 Education system geared towards mass production system has
dropped students’ happiness and teachers’ self-efficacy in Korea
Korean students are not happy despite Korean teachers are losing self-efficacy
high Math Scores despite high salaries
50 60 70 80 90 100
600 “I feel happy at school”
Percentage of students who report being happy at
school
Shanghai-
China

550
Singapore
Hong Kong
Taipei Switzerland
Korea
Estonia Germany
Poland MacaoJapan
500 Finland Canada
Austria Netherlands
Denmark
Latvia Slovenia AustraliaPortugal
Ireland
Czech New ZealandIceland
Russia UKSweden
Italy France Spain
Slovak CroatiaIsrael
450 GreeceUSA
SerbiaTurkey
Romania
Hungary
Bulgaria
Kazakhstan
UAE
Chile Thailand
Mexico
Uruguay
400 Montenegro
Albania
Brazil Malaysia
Jordan
Argentina
Colombia
Indonesia
Peru
350 Qatar
 Peabody Project in 1956-1962

• Peabody College for Teachers transferred advanced knowledge and practices in

teacher education and training from the US to Korea

• 39 advisors or consultants stayed in Korea about two years to work on

programs to improve teacher education including curriculum and textbook
development
• 82 Korean teachers, school principals, supervisors, and researchers were
sent to Peabody to participate in training or degree courses with scholarships.
• This program nurtured many national and local educational leaders, who
actively transformed and modernized Korea’s educational system.

• As Korea transformed itself from aid recipient to donor in 2009, rather than
repeating the knowledge transfer like Peabody Project, it should work together
with other countries to leapfrog global education.
 Best results with “High Touch High Tech” Learning
Innovative pedagogies (High Touch) can be combined with the
cutting-edge education technology (High Tech) for the massive
personalized learning.

High-Touch Learning
With Teachers

High-Tech Learning
With AI and Mobiles

Bloom’s Taxonomy
Modified from Dale Johnson (2018)
 Over 65,000 students have benefited from adaptive learning
systems with optimized learning paths for every student at ASU.

ASU College Math

August to December 2012
Concepts completed by each student
Median

Dale Johnson (2018)

After ASU switched to ALEKS adaptive learning system in College
Algebra, the completion rate has increased by 20.5% on average,
and by 28.5% for those with math placement below Algebra.

College Algebra – Fall ‘16 switch to ALEKS adaptive math system

* ~ 5000 students per year; Same curriculum and assessments Dale Johnson (2018)
The success of ASU hinges on the combination of AI technologies
with innovative pedagogies of professors (teachers).

OECD (2018)
 Adaptive Learning Prototype for Vietnam

• As even education workforce in an exemplary country like Korea cannot meet

demands by students and the society, international community should take action
in collectively designing and strengthening education workforce.

• EWI (Education Workforce Initiative) of the Education Commission brings fresh

thinking and new approaches to workforce design and implementation.

• Partnered with ASU, DFID and World Bank, EWI collaborates with the Ministry of
Education and Training (MOET) in Vietnam to start the adaptive learning prototype
project on the 7th grade Math course for four schools and two teacher colleges in Hanoi
and HCNC.
 Global Action for Learning Generation

• Rather than inducing low and middle income countries to follow the traditional
learning model, international community should encourage them to work together
to explore the new path for future learning.

• We need global action that connect educators, business, civil society and
policy makers in order to massively provide the personalized learning opportunity
for everyone.

• National governments, international organizations and philanthropic foundations

should work together with innovators for future learning in order to co-design the
prototypes, demonstration cases, and best practices and rigorously
evaluate and take them to scale
Thank you very much
for your attention