April 29, 2025

The Third Horizon of Learning: Shifting Beyond the Industrial Model

Over the past seven months, Incubate Learning and Getting Smart, with the sponsorship of LearnerStudio, have been curating, editing, and writing a blog series that showcases the voices of 30+ organizations building the future of learning today. The series includes the voices of:

• Students envisioning the education system they want and need
• Schools redesigning the core of what they do for the five-seven hours students are present
• School districts and charter networks reformulating how they operate so that their students can thrive in today's world, not the 19th century
• Organizations that support all this work of redesign in different communities and contexts
• Thought leaders exploring how policy and philanthropy can support these new designs
• and more

From these many voices, Incubate Learning and Getting Smart have distilled 7 design principles for schools/learning environments and 5 systemic moves we need to make to nurture such learning environments.

You can find the 7 Design Principles and 5 Systemic Moves, as well as the entire series of 24 blogs, below.

The Third Horizon Series

What are Teacher Roles + Responsibilities in Third Horizon Learning Models?

We also heard from some readers that the link for the 3 Learning Models framework from our previous post didn't work, so we've included it again here. This framework highlights 3 different models of pedagogy:

• traditional
• standards-based personalized mastery
• competency-based personalized mastery

It shows how teachers and students operate differently in these three models -- across 7 dimensions:

• pedagogical approach
• classroom management
• curriculum design
• student support
• pacing
• assessment practices
• flexibility

3 Learning Models PDF

Let’s build a future where every teacher and adult in the school is equipped to meet students where they are and help them grow in meaningful ways.
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