Designing the Future: Cultivating the Learning Ecosystem

Katherine Prince • Jason Swanson July 25, 2015

An Expanding Learning Ecosystem

Cultivating Ecosystem Interconnections

•  What kinds of learning ecosystem interconnections might help participants create vibrant learning ecosystems?

•  What might learning ecosystems look like in different high-need geographies?

Defining Learning Ecosystems

A learning ecosystem is a network of relationships among learning agents, learners, resources and assets in a specific social, economic, and geographic context.

Vibrant Learning Ecosystems Are…

•  Learner Centered •  Equitable •  Modular and Interoperable •  Resilient

Three Structural Roles

•  Concentration

•  Fragmentation

•  Catalyzation

Concentration

•  Providers of core infrastructure, aggregation, and brokering services create process efficiencies through scale.

Fragmentation

•  Providers of core infrastructure, aggregation, and brokering services create process efficiencies through scale.

Catalyzation

•  Connectors mobilize cross-boundary initiatives, bridge ecosystem gaps, and forge shared goals.

Exploring High-Need Geographies

Disrupted Suburbs: Needs Isolation: •  Linking and sharing resources with

nearby communities Instability: •  Economic and social disruption Cultural Barriers: •  Often first generation in area to deal

with poverty •  Changing narrative about community •  Parents need to understand that old

education system might not be sufficient

Disrupted Suburbs: Story from 2025

An education-employment consortium expands job mobility in struggling suburbs by creating flexible and intersecting education and career pathways.

Disrupted Suburbs: Structural Roles

•  Concentration: –  Teacher Intern Exchange Platform

–  Cross-Agency Data Warehouse

•  Fragmentation: –  Career-Diploma Dashboard

–  Local Career Gap Year Service

•  Catalyzation: –  FlexCareerWeb Consortium

Designing Vibrant Learning Ecosystems •  The goal of this activity is to prototype a design for a vibrant learning ecosystem based on

the needs and constraints of a specific geography and its learners. •  Your group has 1 geography card, 2 learner profile cards, and 6 roles and services cards. •  Begin by reviewing your area’s unique needs based on the needs of the geography and the

needs, interests, and goals of your learners. •  After exploring those needs, use the roles and services cards you were dealt to prototype

one or more learning ecosystems that promise to serve the needs of the learners who are represented on your learner profile cards. You may use all or some of the roles and services cards but need to find a way to address all of the learners’ needs, whether through a single or multiple learning ecosystems.

•  As you consider possibilities, some guiding questions to consider include: –  How might the roles and services interact to meet learner’s needs? –  Do the roles and services have to interact in different ways depending on the learner? –  What roles or services might be missing? –  Did you have to design more than one ecosystem to meet the needs of all the learner

profiles? •  Depict your prototype(s) through a written description or drawing on your flip chart sheet,

making sure to highlight the interconnections across the ecosystem(s).

Exploring Implications

•  What do your prototypes suggest for how education might shift its focus from school systems to community-level learning ecosystems over the next ten years?

•  How might fostering interconnections across value webs help districts, communities, or state policymakers and agencies address current challenges?

Tweet: #FutureEd @katprince

@jasonswanson

Download: knowledgeworks.org/future-learning

Concentration

Fragmentation

Catalyzation