Looking for successful vocational education? Edtech solutions that work in the real world? Look at cosmetology school.
Beauty education done right can be a model for elevating vocational education overall, and in doing so possibly provide some insights for higher education as well. The most obvious lesson any college graduate entering the workforce could learn from a successful hairstylist is how to evaluate and meet a client’s needs.
Education technology will never replace teachers. To the contrary, education technology, done right, has the promise of making teachers even more powerful and more essential in the learning process.
Any new learning tool that neglects the teacher’s role by focusing exclusively on the student experience risks failure. If you don’t pay attention to this, teachers can and will break your wonderful new tools. Not intentionally, not maliciously – it will be more subtle than that.
How do you keep customers coming back, month after month, year after year? Your hair stylist knows. Customer retention is a key part of a great haircut. But too often, it’s overlooked.
I should know. Five regional managers of the world’s largest salon brand, Great Clips, sat in a conference room in Minneapolis talking with me about vocational education. I was conducting the R&D work that would eventually lead to the invention of two Filmbook® learning apps.
Every great teacher does them, and your learning app should too
Education technology will never replace great human teachers. But a great learning app can and should model the methodology of a great teacher.
What does a great teacher do? Well, a lot of things—depending on the subject and the teaching environment. But regardless of what’s being taught—or where—if you observe great teachers in action, you’ll see them consistently do three things: