Leapfrog means to jump ahead of the competition, to meet or exceed the needs of 21st Century citizens and workers, and to take a prominent leadership role in educational improvement. The Leapfrog approach focuses on preparing youth for both immediate and life-long participation in value-adding life, learning, work performances, and global-oriented competence.

During October 17-19 this year Anqing Teachers College will sponsor a conference on Leapfrog-inspired changes in the near futures of Chinese and U.S. education. Six members of the University of Minnesota CEHD community are involved with coordination, presentations, and papers for the conference which will be held in Anqing, China.

The University of Minnesota, Anqing Teachers College, and the World Future Society are collaborators in this exciting development.

The official title of the conference is Interdisciplinary Education in Teacher Training Programs via Leapfrog Principles. We will release more information about the conference in the near future.

All eight draft papers for the ATC conference are linked here. Please make any comments that you feel will improve the papers. The deadline for suggesting changes to the papers is April 4, 2008. After that, the papers will be edited by Dr. Tim Mack, President of the World Future Society, for a special issue of the journal Futures Research Quarterly.

We look forward to reading your ideas!

Arthur Harkins and Sam Song, co-editors

Paper drafts for ATC Leapfrog conference

1. Arthur HARKINS: Leapfrog Principles and Practices: Core Components of Education 3.0 and 4.0
   This paper describes the paradigm and practices of educational “Leapfrogging.” Leapfrog Principles and Practices are introduced and explained as components of “Education 3.0,” or knowledge-producing education, and “Education 4.0,” or innovation-producing education. Examples are provided of human capital enhancements relevant to knowledge production and innovation applications of knowledge. The author contends that the first nations to Leapfrog into local expressions of Education 3.0 and 4.0, support them with advanced technologies, and apply them in early childhood through tertiary and adult education, will become bellwether human capital development leaders among 21st creative economies of the 21st Century.
2. Changde CAO: The Significance of Leapfrog Education Development in China
   Leapfrog development in education can be classified as 1) Leapfrog development in macro education, which involves Leapfrogging in space, time and quality; and 2) Leapfrog development in micro education, which involves Leapfrogging in the era of curriculum programming, the starting point of teaching, and the growth level of individual students. Implementation of Leapfrog education development strategies is of special significance to developing countries like China. First, it can rapidly narrow the education gap between China and developed countries. Second, it can promote the balanced development of education among regions within China, achieving distributed educational equality and the sharing of best educational resources. Third, it can promote large-scale improvement in the quality of teaching. And fourth, it can explore students’ potentials to the utmost extent, enabling them to reach international horizons on the “highland” of the future.
3. George KUBIK: The Role of Leapfrogging in the Future of Youth Work and Workforce Preparation
   Coping with unprecedented rates of change and complexity requires the ability to Leapfrog existing assumptions and practices regarding the roles of youth, enterprises, and societies in work and workforce preparation. Legacy systems must be continuously rethought, and routinely discarded, in order to persistently spring-board youth into rapidly evolving personal development roles and work situations involving partnerships with enterprises and governments. This paper examines the nature of the emerging new economy and the future of work and workforce preparation in the context of a youth-oriented Leapfrog paradigm.
4. Hongzhuan SONG: Teacher Training and Upgrading via Leapfrog: Four Scenarios of Teacher Training Curriculum in China
   For the past over two decades, and especially the last five years, the People’s Republic of China has taken the rest of the world by surprise with its astonishing economic growth. To sustain its rapid development, however, the Chinese government and other key stakeholders realize the urgency of reform of the national educational system. In China, it is widely recognized that ICTs make it almost impossible for learning to take place without using emerging new technologies to meet the demand from the ever quickening change in the external world. Based on findings from a recent research the author of this paper conducted, there is a good reason to believe that China will turn its education system upside down by introducing what we call Leapfrog principles and practices. This paper focuses its discussion on the reforms of teacher education in China by exploring the future(s) of curriculum reform for teacher education in the light of Leapfrog principles.
5. John MORAVEC: Technological Applications of Leapfrog
   Relating recent social developments in mobile learning (m-learning) technologies in China, this article explores technological manifestations of Leapfrog as it relates to educational transformation. The author asks readers to consider a break in didactic educational settings where students “download” knowledge from their teachers to a new paradigm where m-learning devices replace the teacher for banking-style pedagogy and free classrooms from rote memorization exercises. New technologies therefore must be purposively employed to support the construction of new ideas and support the coconstruction of new pedagogies. This purposive refocusing allows for the application of innovative modes of knowledge production and distribution that identify, create and utilize new and futureoriented formats for sharing knowledge in schools. In this reframing to support knowledge-based learning for an innovation society, Leapfrog schools must design and build institutional flexibility to rapidly adopt/incorporate/evolve these technologies into transformative practices rather than using them to support old practices.
6. MA Jun: Utilizing Digital Technology to Achieve Leapfrog Learning
   With the increasing explosion of human knowledge, it is necessary for people to undertake cross-space learning, cross-time learning, and eventually achieve education Leapfrog capabilities. The emergence of digital educational media has made these capabilities both desirable and highly likely.
7. Xian-rong WANG: The Leapfrog Principle and Paradigm Shifts in Education
   This paper introduces the Leapfrog Principle and discusses its implications for education in the globalized, knowledge-based society. Facing the challenges in the new millennium, a paradigm shift in education is urged to support the formation of globally-competent, knowledge producing learners who will thrive in an era of accelerating change and uncertainty. Based on the theory put forth by Cheng (1999, 2000, and 2001), a new triplization paradigm is introduced and explained. This new paradigm emphasizes the development of students‟ contextualized multiple intelligences (including technological, economic, social, political, cultural, and learning intelligences), and the processes of triplization (including globalization, localization, and individualization) in education.
8. Yi CAO: Leapfrog Education: An Alternative Present and Future for Chinese Tertiary Education
   This paper discusses the application of Leapfrog University principles within the context of Chinese distance education. The paper argues that the proposal of Leapfrog is a viable alternative to the present and future development of Chinese tertiary education, in particular, online teaching and learning based on modern technology. Leapfrog education and its underlying themes are well contextualized for Chinese tertiary education during the transition period from elite to mass education. The co-constructivism of social and contextual meaning suggested by Leapfrog Education 3.0 and 4.0 is particularly pertinent to what is missing in Chinese education. In addition, the Leapfrog Education points out a new direction for research and action-to address the gap between socioeconomic advancement and a slower pace of change in traditional education. Within the traditional education, there is also a call to tackle the startling discrepancy between student and faculty rates of adoption of web-based learning initiatives. Finally, Chinese postsecondary education has the emerging capacity to build up a host of liberal skills for PreK- 17 learners who are the primary population the Leafrog Education attempt to serve. In spite of these advantages, the Leapfrog Education has to address more conceptual and practical concerns, such as Leapfrog implementation and cost-effectiveness and cost utility. Some implementation suggestions are also provided.