How Education Can Borrow 'Stacks' From the Tech World To Create a Blueprint for Learner-Centered Transformation

What is a stack?

In the tech world a solution stack is a set of component layers that run on top of each other to produce a desired solution. Each layer does a different type of work, and they can be built separately. However, to be successful as a stack, they must work together to offer a seamless experience for the user. There are many sublayers and options inside each component layer which you can choose bundled or unbundled depending on your needs.

I know it’s much more complicated than this, but, at a surface level, I find this a useful analogy to explore the work that needs to be done to transform education to be user-centered and 21st century-relevant. Others I’ve worked with have also found it useful, so I’m fleshing it out a bit more in this post.

Not Another Framework!

There are many, many frameworks out there for what 21st century-relevant could look like – I have a collection of about 100, and each of you probably has others saved that aren’t in my collection. They describe content, competencies, resources needed, new classroom and school design principles, the roles/institutions who need to do the work, what success looks like, change levers, or scenarios for the future.

I haven’t yet found one that focuses at the most basic level on what work needs to be done to shift our current learning system into one that is learner-centered and 21st century-relevant.

If you have one, PLEASE send it to me.

In the meantime, the framework / diagram above is my attempt (with feedback from many people – thank you!) to sketch the layers of work to be done.

Let’s translate the system as it currently is into the stack – from the point of view of a user.

Meet Enrique, a User of the System

Enrique is a 16 year old who, like many 16 year olds, is trying to:

develop himself
be social
help his family
earn some money
and find his way to adulthood.

The way our society is currently structured, schooling is the main publicly-provided mechanism for him to get these needs met. It’s widely available, and it’s also required that he use it (or some alternative, often fee-bearing, to it).

Currently, schooling:

DEFINES what he needs to learn
DEVELOPS the experiences that are counted as opportunities for learning (mostly a list of specific courses, but also, in some places, internships or work experiences)
ASSESSES + VALIDATES whether he has learned what is needed through time spent in attendance in particular locations as measured against an arbitrary number of required hours, performance on different types of learning assessments (grades, test scores), and various other often arbitrary conduct / behavior / citizenship activities (my son’s chemistry teacher gave students extra credit for bringing in tissue boxes)
COMMUNICATES the learning through GPAs, transcripts, letters of recommendation
CIRCULATES the communication of learning through request-based paper and digital transmissions at the end of multi-year learning chunks (send a transcript to a college in 12th grade) + EXTRACTS learning that may have taken place in another institutions (pull out and translate that learning from another institution into the receiving institution's validation processes--transferring credits, for example).

Who's Got the Power?

Currently, schooling has almost all of the power: it controls Enrique’s time, location, and attention as well as the content of what he learns. It provides him with opportunities and resources, but on its terms. It determines his success in learning. It controls the records of what it counts as his learning and circulates them when he requests them to be sent to other institutions. In short, it controls all five layers of the stack in ways that make it easier for it to function as an institution but not for Enrique to navigate it as a learner developing into adulthood wanting to make choices and do things in the world.

It is NOT a seamless experience for the user.

Because it's institution-centric and not user-centric, there are countless businesses that have sprung up to help the user (for a fee) navigate the current stack from course selection to tutoring to test prep to college advising and more. Facing this complexity (and often, lack of relevance to their needs), so many young people just walk away from it all, both before COVID and now.

How a Transformation Stack Supports Enrique’s Needs

For us to build a transformation stack where the five layers are redesigned and work in harmony to serve Enrique’s – and each and every learner’s needs – schooling needs to see the whole of Enrique’s world.

Enrique learns not just at school but also

as a big brother helping his younger siblings with algebra
as a team member at Chipotle
as a center forward on his soccer team
when he’s helping out with his uncle’s carpentry business
when he's creating skateboarding beats
when he’s building his TikTok brand focused on his skateboarding beats

Currently, in most places, these types of learning are not captured by the current owner of learning – schooling.

Shifting Ownership to the User

If the true owner of learning is Enrique, a wider variety of institutions need to work differently (collaboratively) to DEFINE learning and DEVELOP learning experiences in ways that capture the full range of Enrique’s explorations as an individual and a social being. Institutions need to work differently (and collaboratively) to ASSESS + VALIDATE these explorations in partnership with him in a wide variety of learning environments. They need to build and / or adopt new forms of record-keeping to enable him to COMMUNICATE his development and achievement. And they need to work differently (and collaboratively) to give him the power to CIRCULATE these records of achievement as he needs to, to whom he needs to, when he needs to (not just at the end of his journey in a particular institution) and enable them to EXTRACT the meaning they need from it to offer him opportunities.

This means the various institutions of schooling need to release some institutional control and autonomy – and collaborate – to make it easier for him to meet his needs.

This is the work to be done, and the Transformation Stack shows the layers of work that need to connect to each other for true user-centered change to take place.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this approach to defining the work to be done. Please reach out