You asked, we’ll tell you!
You asked, and we’re here to respond to all your questions about The UnSchool of Disruptive Design! This page answers the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the UnSchool, our courses, the Disruptive Design Method and more.
About the UnSchool
Because we are all about undoing the damage that mainstream educational experiences have had on today’s adults. Many of us learned reductionism instead of how to see interconnecting parts of the complex puzzle that is the world we live in. We learned to memorize more than we learned to think dynamically. So, we are on a mission to support transformative thinking that leads to positive action.
Our courses, methods and tools challenge the stale modes of educational content. Here, you’ll learn systems thinking, sustainability sciences and designerly approaches to activating positive change.
Not sure what disruptive design is? See below to find out.
The UnSchool of Disruptive Design is dedicated to sharing knowledge and building capacity in systems thinking, sustainability sciences and design. We incorporate a variety of pedagogical practices, such as participatory action research, collaborative design, experiential learning and multi-modal accessible learning through text, visuals and videos. We know that self-directed learning is not for everyone, so we also develop different types of intensive training programs and, over the years, have explored a variety of different formats.
Some might get confused about The UnSchool being similar in name to the 1970s-style and presently revamped “unschooling” movement. Here, we are focused on disrupting the status quo of knowledge transfer. We also focus on empowering rapid transfer of transformative information (such as systems thinking and sustainability). So, we share the “un” as in undoing something with “unschooling”—but that’s about it.
Yes we do! Several years ago we developed our certification programs. Choose from becoming a Disruptive Design Practitioner (for those who want to learn how-to), doing an UnMasters (for those who want to create organizational change) or getting certified as a Disruptive Design Method Educator (for anyone involved in facilitation or teaching). These all require a longer time commitment and involve a series of real-world activities to demonstrate your capacity. You will also need to complete a live final panel presentation to our team.
All UnSchool of Disruptive Design certificates are provided via Accredible, a blockchain-powered system that provides the digital verification of your course completion. Accredible also offers functionality to easily share on LinkedIn with links back to descriptions and validation of skills. It helps us to track and rescind if needed as well.
In addition to program certification, we offer certificates of completion for many of our courses. Once you have 100% completed the course (which requires hitting that “complete and continue” button on each page), it will automatically unlock your certificate! You can always reach out if you have any questions about accessing it.
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu founded and launched The UnSchool of Disruptive Design on September 5th, 2014, with a launch party at the AIGA in New York City. A couple hundred plus creatives showed up to a giant find-a-word puzzle game on all the concepts connected to The UnSchool. They also received tiny invitations to events like a “park demolition tea party” and workshops on making change.
Then we started running immersive, hyper-dynamic co-learning experiences in the form of 7-day Fellowship programs. First in New York, then in Mexico City, São Paulo and a total of 10 different cities around the world over the next few years. Check out our archive of Fellowship videos here and read why Leyla started a school for adults here. Leyla created The UnSchool as a way of supporting fellow change-makers to rapidly develop the capacity to actively change and ensure that the progressive and collaborative community of people wanting to make a difference has the tools needed to leverage systems-level change.
While we do run in-person programs every now and then and offer several live online programs each year, we’ve largely embraced the online globally interconnected era in order to best support access to our content. Our Fellowships were magical; we ran 10 over the course of 5 years. You can check out the archive here, and you never know—we may develop something similar in the future!
The best way to learn about our live and in-person programs is to sign up to our bi-monthly newsletter, Interconnected. We can also curate Fellowship-style programs for groups such as universities and companies; reach out to learn more!
No. We are self-funded and don’t take investor capital so that we can maintain the integrity of what we teach and create. We do run a design agency whereby we redirect profits to create free content and to fund our equity access program. In addition to the fact that our raison d’être is to make positive change, we are all about reinvesting the profits we do earn into socially motivated projects. For example, we fund scholarships in part based on profits from online courses using a pay-it-forward model, aiming to build social capital through our work.
About the Courses
Our classes are geared toward adult learners who are interested in making positive social and environmental change. This includes a wide range of career professionals from all levels—those starting out, mid-career and experts—who are looking to fill knowledge gaps in specific areas that are still currently underserviced and undertrained.
While it says the UnSchool of Disruptive Design, you don’t have to be a designer to take any of these courses. Our subject matter is industry-agnostic and applies to everything from algae farming to municipal service planning. Our students come from all types of backgrounds—from those with deep experience in sustainability to those just starting to explore what it even means (at any age). We’ve had everyone from engineers to service designers to farmers to politicians to marketing, and more. We develop our courses so that you have a framework that applies regardless of your context, with adaptability and flexibility being key aspects.
The primary language of all our courses is English. We’ve had students from all over the globe join us – be it from India to Indonesia, from Toronto to Tokyo, Mexico to Morocco. The text can be translated using Google Translate, and the videos have closed captioning (English only), with the ability to slow down the audio. On-screen illustrations will be in English only. A few of our toolkits are available in either Spanish or Thai. We would love to offer more translations in the future!
All course content has been personally developed by our Founder, Leyla Acaroglu, and visually designed by our Creative Director, Emma Segal.
It depends! While each course landing page has a suggested duration, here are some general guidelines:
- Micro courses are only a few minutes a day, for 10 days
- Introductory courses: approximately 8-12hrs
- Full courses: approximately 20-30hrs per course
- Course packs: approximately 90hrs for a 3-pack
- Live online workshops: generally include 2x sessions per week, each being 2 hours, for 2 weeks or 4 weeks
- Certifications: 6-15 months depending on the track
- Sprints & Challenges are usually 30 days, with about 20-60min needed per day
To accommodate a wide range of learning styles, our courses integrate multiple delivery methods including video lessons, written materials, interactive activities like quizzes and worksheets and links to external resources for expanded learning opportunities.
We also run Live Online programs in which we meet on Zoom. The best way to stay in the know about these opportunities is to subscribe to our newsletter, Interconnected. A bimonthly email, here we share hand-curated content providing a pathway to action along with updates on any new in person or live online programs in your region.
Yes and yes. Equity access is very important to us. Check out our free courses and toolkits here and learn about our scholarship program here.
Yes, when you get certified as a Disruptive Design Method Educator first! We also have several free toolkits that are open-source and released under Creative Commons, so you are welcome to use those in your facilitation and projects as long as you reference us!
About the Disruptive Design Method
The DDM is a systems-based approach to creative problem solving for tackling complex social and environmental issues, the Disruptive Design Method was created by Leyla Acaroglu and combines sociological inquiry methods with systems explorations and creative design approaches. It underpins all that we do and teach at the UnSchool.
Anyone and everyone who is interested in developing the tools to activate positive social and environmental change. We’ve trained entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, teachers, flight attendants—people from small and big companies, entry-level all the way to C-suite, from every continent. Learn more by reading our alumni stories here.
The DDM is built on systems, sustainability and design, allowing for a three-dimensional perspective shift of a problem arena to ensure that interventions create positive change.
- Mining: This is where we learn to love the problem and do research to understand what is going on in any issue we are trying to solve.
- Landscaping: All of the found information is pieced together in the landscaping phase, where we get a bird’s eye view of the problem and how the parts fit together. This helps you identify the areas where you can intervene to design a solution to the problem
- Building: In the final stage, it’s all about ideation and prototyping—coming up with ideas and then testing to see how effective they will be at making change.
It differs in several ways, with the most important being the focus on systems thinking to see problems holistically. Everything is interconnected, and actions create reactions. Being able to see the relationships that make up cause and effect are part of any good problem-solver’s tool belt, and the DDM is designed to foster systems perspectives as well as deep identification with cause and effect relationships.
We have a wide range of opportunities for engaging with the Disruptive Design Method, including: 6-Week Disruptive Design Method Sprint (most popular), Disruptive Design Method Handbook, the full Disruptive Design Method masterclass, a free Intro Course, and Disruptive Design Method Practitioner Certification.
We offer a lot of different courses and to get a sample of what we have on offer, you can sign up to our free Tasting Plate or the free DDM course. You can also take our 3-minute wayfinding quiz here, which will recommend a course based on your interests. Or, you can book a free 15-minute call here (yes, you can talk to a real human!).
We want people to gain the tools they need to make the kind of change they have the capacity to make, so if you feel like another program is right for you, then do it! But we also know that we have some of the best on offer. Tens of thousands of people have joined the UnSchool, and we have 10+ years of experience in teaching people how to make change. If you are passionate about being a leader and gaining the tools to effect change in the world around you, then the UnSchool of Disruptive Design is for you!
Each program takes a different number of months to complete. These are not quick programs, and each certification requires a time and budget allocation. The Practitioner takes 6 months, UnMasters 10 months (including 2 months of mentorship) and Educator could take up to 24 months (including 3 months of mentorship). It’s not unusual that they take longer as life events do tend to come up.
These timelines are designed for people who are fitting it in around work and life, so if you want to fast track we offer that as an option. We recommend jumping on a call with us to talk through your expectations and goals to figure out the right fit for you.
Technically, yes. We give 3-month extensions on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes life and work take priority, so email us here and let us know why you need more time. If you have a subscription product or are pursuing a certification program, we can pause your account for a set period of time.
Each offering on the UnSchool has a different duration of access. These are between a few days for downloadable products through to a year or even two for masterclasses and certifications.
Check the duration of your course access on the specific product page to ensure you are happy with the duration terms before signing up. Access starts from the day of sign up. In general, access ranges from:
Micro Courses: 10 Days
Intro Courses: 90 Days
Full Courses: 30-180 Days
Sprints: 30-40 Days
Disruptive Design Masterclass: 365 days
Live workshops and in-person programs: 90-360 days
Downloadable content such as toolkits and e-books: 5-40 days
Challenge & Sprints: 30 – 180 days
All Access Passes: 30 days, 90 days or 1 year
Other
Subscriptions are on a rolling monthly basis. You only have access during the time you are paying. Once you stop payments, you will no longer have access.
In certain cases, we will offer an extension to your access terms. We reserve the right to offer or deny this based on our own discretion. Please email [email protected] with your request and the reasons you need an extension to be considered.
Our courses expire for a few reasons. Time restrictions cognitively help with motivation, so if you’re the kind of person that works well with time boundaries, you’re in luck! This has been designed to help keep you moving into the action space and helps us keep our prices low for accessibility—especially as so many of our students come from places where the dollar conversion ends up being a barrier.
If we offered lifetime access, it would be both unrealistic from a practical point of view and from a value perspective. We want to make sure that our courses are relevant and that we are not locked in for years on content that is rapidly changing as regulations and innovations roll out across the globe.
Additionally, we use third-party software platforms and cannot guarantee lifetime access on behalf of all the services we stack in order to deliver online learning. Technology changes, as do tech companies, so we don’t want to make any promises we know we won’t be able to keep for reasons beyond our control. We’re pretty sure in 10 years we’ll all be learning by 3D hologram and computers will be a relic of the past!

Still have questions?
Can’t find the answer you’re looking for? Send us a message and talk to a real human.