Over the past year, we’ve focussed our Lens on Learners: the types of learners, how they learn, and what they want from their education. With our Lens on Educators, we’ve explored what it will take for the education system to effectively bridge the gap between learners and employers.

Centralised methods of education have been the hub of learning historically for a long time. However, at what we now consider the K-12 level, education was often decentralised. Learning occurred at home, or with a small local community of leaders with different specialties, in one-room schoolhouses and more.

“Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome.” - Charlie Munger

We focus our Lens on Educators a bit wider than usual today, as we digress into the realm of possibility. We take a blue-sky approach to consider what the future world of learning might look like if we borrowed a verification system the banking industry has been using since the days of the stage coach - and end up in a Web 3.0 hyper-connected Meta University. Here’s how it started...

As we focus our Lens on Educators in the latest arc of our Stakeholders in the Modern Credential Marketplace series, the real story is the interaction between educators and learners. Because it is the learners who will take the skills and knowledge transferred to them through education out into the world, where they will need to do something with them.

Continuing our Stakeholders in the Modern Credential Marketplace series, we turn our Lens on Educators, starting with a look at how educators can impact the employability outcomes of learners and programs around them now. The reason is simple. Change must start somewhere, and as when setting any goal, we need to aim for that which is a stretch for us, but still achievable.

So far in our Lens on Learners series, we have looked at lifelong learners, those who are unemployed and underemployed, and those still in grades K-12 (or their country equivalent of elementary and high school). However, we haven't as yet addressed one group, one that we still need to talk about - those learners who are recent college graduates. These learners currently face the question “What now?” Let's dive in and see...

Continuing our Lens on Learners series, we come to one of the most challenging and perhaps most important topics of all, yet one of the most difficult to navigate. We talk about the skills gap, the need for soft skills and ways to quantify, measure, and document them when it comes to universities, trade schools, and even adult learning, but what about starting even earlier?

LIfelong learners or adult learners fall into a few different categories, but the broadest ones are those who have been displaced from their current careers for whatever reason (as covered in our previous article) who have an urgent need to reskill or upskill to reenter the workforce and preserve their means to make a living. The second, and the topic of this article, is the group of lifelong learners that want to upskill or reskill to advance in their current career, switch careers, or prepare for potential displacement that may be on the horizon.

As we turn our Lens on Learners, we want to look at the different types of learners in today’s space, define who they are and also work to understand their needs and how micro-credentials and digital badging can help them. Let’s look at the learners with the most urgent need for retraining or additional education - those learners who are underemployed, unemployed, or have been displaced from their careers by either technological advances or other factors.

What does the word 'learner' mean to you today - and compared to 5 years ago? What about in 5 years from now? As the world of work has changed, so learners too - significantly in some respects. In our new blog series, Lens on Learners, we'll take a deep dive into what learners look like today, what their needs are now and in the future and how the modern credential marketplace is meeting the needs of the new global economy.