Every learner deserves unlimited unbundled opportunities to explore, engage and define experiences that advance their progress along a co-designed educational pathway.
Since the advent of formal education, learning has been bundled. The time for change is now.
In order to shift to a truly unbundled system of learning, we must get some clarity and alignment on some core terms.
Six core principles guide the unbundled system. As each element of the system is built, designers should evaluate and reflect around these core principles.
For an unbundled system to meet all of the core principles, core structural elements must exist. A fully decentralized education system would entail a distributed set of learning experiences to which any education creator might contribute.
Unbundling the learning ecosystem occurs at the policy and systems level. Policy includes laws and rules that allow for unbundled learning. Systems are structures that support unbundled learning.
Most typical education ecosystems require permission. A fully unbundled ecosystem may be permissionless, that is a student can choose whatever pathway they like with whomever they would like and learn whatever they would like.
Unbundled systems need to decrease the grain size to the learning experience level so that learners can build pathways that make sense relative to their future goals by reassembling a set of learning experiences.
Once the ecosystem is unbundled, the opportunities must be curated in an equitable, accessible format. A variety of efforts exist to begin to move this unbundled curation system forward.
Learners in partnership with coaches co-design and bundle learning experience pathways that consist of content access, skill development, instruction, and assessment from a variety of sources.
Each learner must have a Learning and Employment Record (LER). These records, likely built on blockchain technology and stored on a digital wallet, document any learning experiences where a learner has shown proficiency around a set of competencies or earned a credential or certification.
Structures must be built to support the marketplace. This is feasible within the parameters of both Web2 and Web3.
Very few systems have completely unbundled. Some core challenges still remain.
Solutions already exist in the ecosystem and need to be combined and scaled.
We’d love it if you’d leave us a little feedback about this publication!
We benefitted from tons of great research, content and work from others in the field. Check out the links and references mentioned in the publication.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter.
Have additional comments? Say More
