Community was always central to learning; now it's central to education

Learnings on this Thesis

• Playgrounds > Squares: successful learning communities transform "squares" into "playgrounds"

  • A square is a place that gathers crowds who are passing by and staying in that space. There are no clear ways to interact with one another.
  • A playground is a space that allow people to interact with each other around a sandbox, where they can play and meet others through that play.
    • There is space in a playground for leaders that can bring people together and set guidelines – but sustainable communities allow for bottoms-up creation and connection.
    • Mistakes are allowed and celebrated in sustainable learning communities
      • "Physical" environment that ensures safety, similar to sandbox in the playground
      • Emotional safety — having people who are around to clap when you make mistakes, e.g., sharing half-baked thought

• Purpose + Levers: Online communities have two key elements to juggle with as they grow, purpose (what they stand for), and levers (how they get together).

  • Effective communities are transparent about that purpose and levers so members can join and participate.
  • Communicating values often happens through modeling behavior, rather than explicitly stating them
  • Communities can be reduced to bringing people together with a purpose, but transformational learning communities include an opportunity to upskill through that experience

• Communities emphasize connection > content

  • Community and social connection has always been a "glue" for learning experiences, but it is now coming to the forefront as something educators can design intentionally
  • Communities are inclusive of all types of learners – often serving teachers, professionals and individuals that are not usually at the center of learning experiences.

• Creating "public artifacts" and learning in the open

  • Learning in community involves the creation of public artifacts that will be shared with the others in the community and iterated upon. We believe this is a major driver of innovation, and that is why we are publishing our theses in this way.

    Learning in the Open

• Not all learning happens through communities, but all communities are fundamentally about learning

  • Online communities are on the rise (learning and not), due to the shifts in online-offline presence, technological growth and changing business models.

    The Growth of Online Communities

• Main questions for the future learning communities

Market sizing

Hard to estimate the size of this emerging market – especially since it cuts across different sectors and industries. But it can be a central theme in the wave of education and work unicorns, so here are some relevant market size estimates.

• Direct to Consumer (Learner/Parent) Education Global market: $100B (HolonIQ – Sizing the Global Edtech Market)
• Lifelong learning could represent 8% of the total education market by 2030 – HolonIQ estimates it will be a $10T market, so this would represent a $800B opportunity

Future Opportunities

• Community Learning Product stack: most existing solutions are either focused on community interactions, communication or learning, but don't really work for learning communities specifically.
  • reimagining messaging platforms (Slack, Facebook) for learning purposes within communities, potentially a "peer learning API tool"
• Simplifying the community-course creation process: too many creators don't have a background that will help them create full courses and learning outcomes – there's a massive opportunities to unlock their content and audience.
• Monetization of content: content layers that can be forked as a decentralized source of income for communities (if you make great content from your users, you should be able to monetize it).
• Peer learning communities: helping creators and learning communities match students to one another in interesting, enriching ways for their learning and connection

Fellows in this Thesis

Untitled Database

Resources