What It Will Take to Unlock the Future of Education: Part One

A few weeks back, I was delighted to share the news that 2U and edX plan to combine to create the world’s most comprehensive free-to-degree online learning platform and education marketplace. The deal weaves together edX's mission with the future of 2U, where combined we will reach over 50 million learners and serve more than 225 partners worldwide. 

When I look back at edX and 2U’s beginnings, I marvel at the impact we’ve made on learners' lives and the higher education industry so far, and am even more excited about the incredible impact to come. This will be an industry redefining combination that will have a lasting impact on the future of education. I want to spend some time examining the industry itself and share with you what I believe are the trends and driving forces that will shape education in new, exciting ways over the next five, ten, and 100 years. 

This is the first in a three-part series in which I hope to give you a glimpse of that future and invite you to participate. In part one, I’ll discuss how our higher education system must reimagine its role to be learner-centric, deliver more job-relevant education, and unbundle its traditional role within the higher ed ecosystem.

Putting learners first, always

If the past year and a half has taught us anything, it’s that the education industry must come together in radically new ways in order to survive and better serve the needs of its students. Faculty have innovated and taken learning to where the students are, schools have relied on each other in entirely new ways throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and the edtech ecosystem has stepped up to fill in gaps that seemed to be changing faster than they could be filled. 

For example, from an entirely in-person model, faculty and colleges pivoted to remote teaching and learning, bringing learning to where learners are. Even if lectures were delivered at fixed times synchronously, videos and course materials were posted online so that learners could access them at their convenience, no matter where the learners were.  Students were also allowed to complete assignments at their own pace.  If all of this is not learner centric, then I do not know what is.

It’s easy to look to the pandemic as the catalyst of these learner-centric changes, but the reality is that education has been transforming for quite some time. Serving the next generation of learners is going to require a level of collaboration and innovation that we, as an industry, have been laying the groundwork for the past decade. 

I dove into what it looks like to have a learner-first education system in a previous article, and I wanted to draw a comparison to an adjacent example of this model in action – the Mayo Clinic’s model of integrative medicine and care. In their system, the primary healthcare provider works in tandem and in conversation with specialists – cardiologist, neurologist, dietician, and more – for a more holistic approach to the patient’s health. Breaking down healthcare silos to appropriately center on the patient. The world of healthcare is brought to the patient instead of remaining fractured and unfocused, and exemplary care is delivered.

The Mayo Clinic unites all of the resources a patient needs in one place and at the same time. Similarly, learning is most effective when it reflects the needs of the learner, and leverages the resources of the entire global education network. Because traditional education cannot bring together all of the best professors, teaching assistants, learning tools and materials in the world in one room just for a single student, online education at scale steps in to create a seamlessly convenient experience that bridges worlds of knowledge in a way that allows every learner to take part. Think of this approach as mass customization - the fourth industrial revolution coming to education.

Job relevant learning in an integrated, multidisciplinary approach

In our lives, we use all of our accumulated knowledge to continuously evaluate and tackle complex problems. We do not split our tasks into those that require reading comprehension and critical thinking and those that call upon deductive reasoning or higher-order thinking and mathematical reasoning. In the traditional model, however,  education does not structure learning in ways that mirror how we will interact and live in the real world, but it needs to be reimagined in this way, where learning becomes relevant to the future reality, life and workplace that the learner will face.

Online education tackles this head on, by nature of the blurred lines between work and learning that often come with an online learning experience. The benefit is that learning can be motivated by and even applied immediately in a real-world context. Boston University does this incredibly well in their online MBA on edX. The BU team looked at the curriculum for their in-person MBA program and completely reimagined it with the online learner in mind. It’s the same quality education, but instead of siloed courses, there are six interdisciplinary modules based on real business problems. One student, Leslie Lew, told BU Today that since starting the program he can “better communicate to investors and other large stakeholders about business methods that he’s using every day.”

2U and their university partners also center learners with real-world application and outcomes, as evidenced by their recent graduate alumni outcomes survey, released this April in partnership with Gallup. The study found that 97% of all alumni surveyed reported a positive career outcome after completing a 2U-powered online graduate degree, which demonstrates that their programs are designed to be incredibly relevant to today’s workplace.

COVID-19 driven mass shift from jack of all trades to master of one

Many universities are facing declining enrollment and the pressure to slash budgets. In response, some universities are proposing that faculty teach more courses and increase their workload while raising the number of students per class in an effort to reduce labor costs. Instead of doubling down and insisting on owning all the functions of a university, should we be thinking about unbundling some services in order to free up resources for universities to focus on where they excel: teaching and mentoring students? I first wrote about this idea in 2013, but it is even more relevant in today’s times.

For example, 2U powers six Simmons University graduate degrees and one undergraduate degree. Simmons knew it had the expertise in the content and teaching, and unbundled its services by partnering with 2U to bring 2U’s unique expertise and experience to students across the globe. This decade-long partnership has been wildly successful, with over 3,000 graduates, all because Simmons and 2U are each doing what they do best.

As another example, edX launched edX Online Campus, which creates a sharing economy of courses made by edX partners amongst users of the service. Students from over 1,000 universities worldwide are getting access to the best of both worlds - learning from their institution and access to high quality courses from other top schools. Many professors are using the online digital content to create blended models of teaching and learning, much as they used textbooks in the past.

These examples serve as an excellent reminder that teaching is a team sport that brings together the best and brightest minds in service of the learner. The instructor does not also need to be the course design expert, the technologist, the platform builder, the financial aid specialist, and the guidance counselor. 

While it may seem counterintuitive, specializing roles in education actually allows us to create better models of collaboration and more personalized learning pathways. Online learning platforms like edX and 2U work with our partners to each put our expertise forward, putting learners and their outcomes at the center of what we do, and curating a holistic education experience that serves each individual learner’s unique needs in the process.

Up next

Now that we’ve laid the groundwork for a higher education system that is learner-centric, job-relevant and multidisciplinary, and has universities focusing on what they do best, I’m excited to dive into our next topic: blended learning as the future. While I’ve talked about this future extensively on this channel, especially in the context of COVID-19, I’m even more excited to consider its future with a combined 2U and edX. 

In my next post, I’ll talk about how blended, hybrid learning will be the gold standard for education, and how we can see it coming to life.