6 Focused Learning Categories to Boost your Change-Making Skills

Here at The UnSchool, there’s a handful of things that we never stop talking about: making positive creative change, embracing systems thinking, normalizing sustainability, igniting the circular economy, leveraging the Disruptive Design Method, and finally, diving into Cognitive Science by hacking our brains, mindsets and biases so that we can all expand our sphere of influence and active our agency to make massive sustainable changes to the way we live on this beautiful planet we all share!!!

When we started this experimental knowledge lab in 2014, we did so with the intent to give others the tools they needed to disrupt the status quo and solve complex problems in order to make the future work better for us all. Now that we’ve been fully operational for almost 7 years, having transferred knowledge to thousands of change-makers like you all around the world, run fellowships in 10 countries (!), and created >80 offerings at UnSchool Online, we decided to organize our courses, toolkits and ebooks into the themed-knowledge areas that we focus on the most.

Systems are all around us. Explore how to identify, work within, and understand the systems that make up the world around us, the relationships that connect us, and how to map them effectively for change making initiatives.
Sustainability is all about social, economic and environmental considerations we make to create a future that works better. Map life cycles, calculate your ecological footprint, think critically about sustainability and bust through eco-myths.
A holistic approach to complex problem solving combining sociological inquiry methods with systems and design thinking approaches to help you to develop interventions that are smart, effective, thoughtful, and sustainable.

Our six brand new learning categories — Systems Thinking, Sustainability, Circular Economy, Creative Change, Disruptive Design, Cognitive Science — are designed to help you find what you need more efficiently and take a more targeted approach to refining your creative change-making skill set. Whether you are brand new to the world of making change or you’re a leader in creative change, we have offerings that can help you build your knowledge bank, refine your skillset, and amplify your impact. These new learning categories are simply like destinations on your change-making journey map, and we’ll step you through where to go based on where you are right now.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll spotlight each of the new learning categories here in our journal to help give you a better understanding of why these focused areas are so important not only to us — but for your work, too. Stay tuned!

PS: Speaking of knowledge transfer, have you browsed our recently upgraded Free Resource Library lately? It’s packed with brain-activating content (like Leyla’s Decade of Disruption report, or The Circular Classroom or Sustainability in Business!)  and practical tools (like the Superpower Activation Kit, the Circular Redesign Kit, and our personal Post Disposable Kit!) that you can utilize right away.

Learn how the brain works and how our minds organize information, understand where to focus your efforts as a change-maker and know where to intervene, the intersections of behavior, bias, attitudes, and social structures.
New career paths continue to unfold, and at the centre is creativity. How we evolve as a species requires new ideas, ways of seeing, doing and making change. Creativity is not a hobby - it is a cognitive skill and job title for the future.
Understand the difference between our existing, resource-draining linear systems and the circular systems that we need for a regenerative, sustainable future, gain insight into how governments, industries, and individuals are shifting.

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Since its creation, The UnSchool has run immersive fellowships and workshops in 15 countries, trained 30,000+ people online, and written 6 handbooks (plus one cookbook!).