Agent Learner Initiative
Empowering
learners as
individuals
Through learner-centric culture change
By giving learners control over academic records
By enabling personalized learning at scale
Through innovative digital K-12 education
America faces unprecedented demand for increased educational access to meet the needs of diverse learners, but many universities remain technologically and organizationally unequipped to provide high-quality, personalized learning at scale.
Transforming America’s universities to create social progress requires innovative, high-scale education enabled by a major shift in the culture of education that prioritizes the agency of learners, regardless of their age, life circumstances or socioeconomic status.
Together, universities must rise to the challenge of unleashing the potential of learners from all backgrounds.
The Agent Learner Initiative draws upon the lessons ASU has learned over nearly two decades of its own transformation to support universities and empower learners across the country with greater agency and the capacity to pursue their self-defined potential. With support from the Stand Together community, the Charles Koch Foundation and a growing network of philanthropic donors, the Agent Learner Initiative is helping to improve learning outcomes by advancing an entrepreneurial, solutions-oriented shift in higher education and enabling the development of ground-breaking education technology innovations.
The Agent Learner Initiative supports four integrated efforts to help universities to innovate, enhance outcomes for learners and deliver high-quality education at scale.
The Catalyst
Digital Transformation Initiative
The Technology Infrastructure
Orchard
The Ecosystem
Pocket and Trusted Learner Network
The K-12 Pipeline
ASU Prep Digital
Digital Transformation Initiative
Promoting Technology-Enhanced Culture Change in Higher Education
ASU’s University Design Institute is launching the Digital Transformation Initiative to support universities in advancing learner-centric technological and organizational innovations. Drawing upon ASU’s experience in managing rapid online growth and building learner-responsive instructional infrastructure, the Digital Transformation Initiative will respond to the challenges in higher education unleashed by COVID-19 and help universities to leverage technology as a catalyst for institutional transformation.
UDI engages forward-thinking universities seeking to embark on their own transformation process and adopt entrepreneurial cultures that better serve students and society. The Digital Transformation Initiative will serve as UDI’s framework for identifying issues and developing solutions that help institutional leaders adopt sustainable, whole-of-university approaches for culture change and technological innovation. UDI will mobilize ASU subject matter experts in education technology and organizational design to provide customized support to partner universities and improve their capabilities to meet learners’ needs.
UDI is developing the Digital Transformation Initiative’s programmatic framework; advancing solution designs for institutions to support their digital transformation processes; and fostering strategic partnerships to scale its assistance efforts. Learn more about the Digital Transformation Initiative here.
Mass personalization is a process of delivering the right lesson to the right student at the right time.
Orchard
Enabling Personalized Learning at Scale
ASU EdPlus is leading the design of Orchard, a technical infrastructure that supports fully personalized learning at scale through frictionless sharing of digital curriculum between educators within and across universities. Orchard will act as a marketplace for educators and students to share the assets and content that they create, which can be rapidly integrated and deployed into customized learning experiences.
Orchard will eliminate administrative and technical barriers to sharing and repurposing learning assets across institutions. The platform will allow educators to access and plan courses utilizing a varied array of materials built to enhance adaptiveness, customization and outcomes for learners.
ASU EdPlus is currently developing a foundational architecture to add, find, configure and map learning assets. Subsequent development will culminate in an integrated platform that unites learning assets into adaptive, personalized pathways for learners. Learn more about ASU Orchard here.
Orchard is a set of interconnected technologies that enable a student to progress on their own learner journey regardless of their interests or their passions or their struggles and barriers to education.
Pocket and Trusted Learner Network
Giving Learners Control Over Academic Records and Achievements
ASU is designing a unified solution to transfer direct control over academic records to students. The Pocket app will enable learners to share digital proof of their achievements—including courses, competencies, degrees and other accomplishments—through the Trusted Learner Network, a coalition of academic institutions and employers that provides jobs and academic opportunities for students.
Pocket and its back-end systems will act as a secure, permission-based platform that holds validated learner records together across the Trusted Learner Network. By establishing computational trust across network participants through blockchain (distributed ledger) technology, this approach ensures privacy and accuracy while giving students the ability to share all or part of their records with external parties.
ASU’s University Technology Office (UTO) is designing Pocket’s core functionality to allow learners to curate a unified portfolio of their achievements, along with back-end systems to enable credential verification. UTO is also developing the Trusted Learner Network’s standards architecture and cultivating a diverse base of network partners. Learn more about Pocket here and Trusted Learner Network here.
The bottom line is that there must be some way for you as the individual to capture the value of these experiences that you’ve acquired and accumulated over a long life.
ASU Prep Digital
Overcoming Barriers to Access and Quality in K-12 Education
ASU Prep Digital is a scalable, digital K-12 education platform that draws upon the university’s innovative technological assets and curriculum to enable fully personalized, student-centric K-12 learning experiences. Drawing on ASU’s vast technological and curricular assets, ASU Prep Digital is working to overcome the geographic and socioeconomic barriers facing K-12 learners nationwide and transcend the traditional boundaries between high school and college through seamless pathways to post-secondary education.
Leveraging ASU’s embedded resources, ASU Prep Digital offers learners a seamless transition to college, breaking down traditional barriers between K-12 and post-secondary education. ASU Prep Digital provides flexibility for independent learners, while augmenting and strengthening public education schools and systems through innovative online curriculum, technology systems and teacher training.
ASU Prep Digital is supporting the Agent Learner ecosystem by developing new adaptive courseware and innovative AI-enhanced tools for student success. These assets will allow ASU Prep Digital to reach hundreds of thousands of students nationally and globally and partner with public and private K-12 schools to improve learning outcomes. Learn more about ASU Prep Digital here.
ASU Prep Digital’s platform creates a permissionless school environment that allows us to bring the innovation of the university into the homes and schools where learners are.
Derrick Anderson
Associate Professor, Science and Technology Policy, ASU
Co-Chair, Agent Learner Initiative
Minu Ipe
Managing Director, University Design Institute, ASU
Project Lead, Digital Transformation Initiative, Agent Learner Initiative
Lev Gonick
Chief Information Officer, ASU
Project Lead, Trusted Learner Network, Agent Learner Initiative
Phil Regier
University Dean for Education Initiatives and CEO of Ed PLUS, ASU
Project Lead, Orchard, Agent Learner Initiative
Amy McGrath
Deputy Vice President for Education, Outreach and Student Services and Chief Operating Officer, ASU Prepatory Academy Schools
Project Lead, ASU Prep Digital, Agent Learner Initiative
Partnering with the Agent Learner Initiative
Arizona State University is building the assets of the Agent Learner ecosystem to integrate with and work across the higher education landscape. We are partnering with colleges and universities, employers, K-12 schools and systems, and technology providers to collaboratively create a future of higher education that gives learners greater flexibility, autonomy and agency.
To learn more about how to support or partner with the Agent Learner Initiative, contact:
Derrick Anderson
Managing Director, Office of the President
Associate Professor, Public Affairs
derrick.anderson@asu.edu
Rasmus Lynnerup
Assistant Vice Provost and Agent Learner Initiative Director
rasmus.lynnerup@asu.edu