In an earlier post, I mentioned the Teachur Marketplace. This is a 2-sided marketplace (i.e. aimed at both students and experts) where participants can earn tokens for contributing to, or helping to improve courses or educational pathways, and can spend tokens to follow them.
As I mentioned in my first post, when it comes to educational pathways, we have been bound to educational institutions (e.g. colleges and universities). But an educational pathway is formed when an expert, or group of experts orders and organizes what must be mastered in order to become an astronomer, philosopher, computer scientist, etc. Educational pathways require expertise — and expertise can be found across the globe, in and outside of educational institutions. In fact, it is the expertise housed in institutions that allows institutions to play their role in educational pathways. But this expertise is separable from the housing institution. Professor Higgins is an expert whether or not he is an employee of University X.
Currently, we are mostly accustomed to following educational pathways through an educational institution. But not far from this is following educational pathways with the support of local experts who work independent of their university. Larry Sanger described this scenario in his brilliant essay. Not far from this (and not opposed to Sanger’s vision) is following educational pathways with the support of global experts. This is what the Teachur Marketplace aspires to.
STUDENTS -
The Teachur marketplace lets students earn a college degree (and other learning benchmarks such as credentials, certificates, etc.) at a fraction of the typical cost from anywhere in the world, on their own schedule, and have robust, competency-specific records that they own and can freely share to show for it.
Students can also earn tokens by reviewing and rating instructional content, and through peer tutoring.
EXPERTS -
The Teachur marketplace lets experts contribute to degree learning by the project (e.g. reviewing student work, tutoring, or hosting oral exams), or by contributing to the actual curriculum (creating objectives, assessments, instructional media, etc.)
Teachur provides a marketplace built to reward the latent expertise of billions of people, whether they are tenured professors, field or hobbyist experts, etc. Experts can earn on a project- or royalty-basis. Currently, higher ed options for experts to share their expertise with students have high barriers to entry: a faculty position in a college department, a complete course to upload online, affiliation with a prestigious university, national or international name recognition, etc.
With Teachur, this all changes. Any individual expert can participate and earn on a project- or royalty-basis, without needing to have a full course, or be hired by any institution. So expert Beth, in Latvia, can build curriculum, tutor, and test student Robert, in Singapore. They can both work according to their preferred schedules, the cost is marginal, and the process for validating mastery is as rigorous or more than traditional colleges. They both win.
CONTENT/SERVICE PROVIDERS -
The Teachur marketplace is built to serve participants not only on educational pathways, but on adjacent markets as well. While we can easily imagine a host of products and services, such as career counseling, premium content, mentorships, cultural exchanges, etc., what is even more compelling are the products and services we can’t yet imagine, but that are enabled by a 2-way marketplace, unencumbered by traditional institutional constraints. As more people complete course work, our community of experts grows. As more people create or offer more products and services, the utility of the platform increases.
What do you think? Do you see higher education as a ripe industry for disruption through something like the Teachur Marketplace? Or do you disagree? Please let me know in the comments. Or connect with me on Twitter, My site, LinkedIn, or reach me at: ben@teachur.co.
image from: https://www.relgo.com/MarketPlace.aspx
