How 'Disruptive Innovation' Will Change the Way We Learn

By Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn, & Curtis W. Johnson

All students learn differently. Most of us know this intuitively. We learn best through different methods, with different styles, and at different paces. We remember being in school and struggling to master a concept while a friend of ours grasped it immediately. When a parent or a teacher would explain the same concept in a different way, however, we understood. We had friends who excelled in certain classes, but struggled in others.

Academic research increasingly supports this notion. But although there is considerable certainty that people learn differently, considerable uncertainty persists about what those differences are. Some research suggests that people have multiple intelligences, whereas other research talks about people having different aptitudes.

In addition, within each type of intelligence or aptitude, people have different learning styles. Some learn better through visual means; others need to talk it through, write it down, play it out, and so on. Finally, people also learn at different paces—fast, medium, slow,...