This document discusses designing vibrant learning ecosystems. It defines a learning ecosystem as a network of relationships among learning agents, learners, resources and assets in a specific context. Vibrant ecosystems are learner-centered, equitable, modular and interoperable, and resilient. Ecosystems involve three structural roles: concentration provides core services at scale, fragmentation provides customized services, and catalyzation bridges gaps and forges shared goals. The document explores needs in disrupted suburbs and provides an example story and structural roles to address those needs. It outlines an activity to prototype learning ecosystems to meet needs of specific geographies and learners.

1. Designing the Future:
Cultivating the
Learning Ecosystem
Katherine Prince • Jason Swanson
July 25, 2015

2. An Expanding Learning Ecosystem

3. 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?

4. 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.

5. Vibrant Learning Ecosystems Are…
• Learner Centered
• Equitable
• Modular and Interoperable
• Resilient

6. Three Structural Roles
• Concentration
• Fragmentation
• Catalyzation

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

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

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

10. Exploring High-Need Geographies

11. 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

12. Disrupted Suburbs: Story from 2025
An education-
employment
consortium expands
job mobility in
struggling suburbs
by creating flexible
and intersecting
education and career
pathways.

13. 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

14. 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).

15. 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?

16. Tweet:
#FutureEd
@katprince
@jasonswanson
Download:
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17. Concentration

18. Fragmentation

19. Catalyzation