What is modular learning? 🚀
A guide for families, educators, and entrepreneurs.
Hello and welcome to the free monthly edition of The Modulo Community! Every week, we address questions from families about K12 education, homeschooling, and modular learning. We also have kids clubs, and a virtual online community, where families can get access to resources and personalized support from education experts, certified child life specialists and homeschooling families. Send us your questions and we’ll address them in a future post!
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For a while, we’ve been hearing that homeschooling is the future of school. The US homeschooling population has tripled since pre-pandemic levels. This movement is beginning to be less populated by outliers and more populated by innovators who are attracted to the flexibility, mastery-based learning, personalization, and even opportunity for world travel that homeschooling affords. A whole host of tech startups have emerged to support this growing industry. Nir Eyal, Rachel Thomas and Jeremy Howard, Naval Ravikant, Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, David Perell, Albert Wenger, Eric Ries, and Marc Andreesen are among the many trailblazers in tech who’ve publicly discussed their decision to homeschool their kids.
Even if you don’t consider yourself a homeschooler, you may be teaching your child to read, helping them with homework, finding them a math tutor, tinkering together at a makerspace, enrolling them in an afterschool dance class or online history program, exploring adaptive learning apps or sharing your expertise in some way - such as running a robotics club for your child and friends.
✨ If so, you’re practicing “modular learning.” ✨
Despite this growing trend, many families find the idea of homeschooling and modular learning completely overwhelming. They feel they don’t have the time, money, or the expertise to do this well. They may be afraid that their kids won’t have friends if they homeschool. Or that getting more involved in their child’s education will lead to a constant battle of wills.
At Modulo, we disagree. We don’t think children need to learn in the same place at the same time, in the same way, to learn effectively and make friends with a large, diverse group of kids. And families shouldn’t have to quit their day job either, because there are more flexible, cost-effective childcare options than 8-3 pm school.
What’s more, as the key stakeholders in their education, parents, and caregivers are ideally suited for this role of educational guide, especially with the thousands of new educational resources that have emerged to support them.
Why trust us?
Our team has over forty years combined experience in teaching PreK-12th grade kids in seven countries. We founded the first platform for microschools seven years ago and the largest organization helping families impacted by school closures where we answered questions from 100,000 families.
Over the last ten years, we’ve interviewed hundreds of secular homeschooling families, done in-depth studies of trends based on over 100k comments in online secular homeschooling groups, and tested hundreds of educational resources with our own students at Modulo (thanks, kids! ❤️). From there, we’ve amassed a lot of experience about best practices for homeschooling and modular learning (from choosing curriculum to making friends to accountability). And we’ve also seen what can go wrong.
Like it or not, families will continue to play a more prominent role in shaping their child’s education. And that’s why we’ve created this guide - to make it easy for parents to help their child (and the whole family) flourish, not only academically but socially and emotionally as well.
If you’re already convinced to do modular learning and don’t need to know more, see our quick checklist for getting started. Otherwise, read on!
1. What is homeschooling?
Technically, the word “homeschooling” refers to the situation when a parent or caregiver chooses to withdraw their child from traditional private or public school and educate them themselves. The person responsible for their education, taking attendance, planning curriculum, and in some states, doing the teaching is their parent or guardian. Generally, if a child is over six and the family chooses not to enroll in private or public school, they have to register as a homeschooler, following the guidelines from their State and City’s Department of Education.
However, many families who attend online schools, umbrella charter schools, or microschools also identify as homeschoolers and participate in homeschool activities. For example, in California, it’s very easy for families to set up a small private school of one (PSA) in their house, which gives them a lot more freedom over how they homeschool. In some states, families can also enroll in public school and do an independent study at home. As we’ve pointed out, even some public school families consider themselves homeschoolers, incorporating classes, homeschool meetups, tutors, and parent-led instruction into their homeschooling.
In the United States, families have a legal right to pull their children out of school and educate them as they see fit. In some countries, homeschooling is illegal. However, even if homeschooling is illegal in your country, you can still take a modular approach to your child’s education.
Each U.S. state has different requirements as to how much-standardized testing children need to do and what types of materials parents have to teach. While some states require that the child’s parent or caregiver is the main educator, many homeschooling families hire homeschool teachers or tutors, send their children to homeschool classes or homeschool co-ops (which may be led by a hired teacher or through a work exchange with several families). Families should consult the Department of Education website in their state and city to see the up-to-date homeschool laws and contact the official homeschool coordinator to clarify any questions.
Homeschooling isn’t pandemic schooling or The Little House on the Prairie
When most families think of homeschooling, they think of traditional homeschooling or pandemic homeschooling.
Traditional Homeschooling
When families think of traditional homeschooling, they often envision a woman in a house in a homemade skirt (perhaps on the prairie) sitting at her kitchen table, giving bible lessons to her children on a chalkboard for six hours a day. And then, perhaps, she makes homemade bread and cleans the house.
Pandemic homeschooling
Pandemic schooling conjures up images of exhausted parents (in-between conference calls) bribing, coercing, or pleading with kids with cabin fever to sit through six hours of zoom school - and then assist them with several hours of homework based around a very specific (and often complex) method of teaching aligned with common core. And then, they attempt to work from 9 pm-1 am. During the covid-19 pandemic, we helped 100k families through school closures via our non-profit hotline and information platform, School Closures, and saw first-hand how unpleasant pandemic schooling can be.
Veteran homeschoolers are quick to point out that pandemic homeschooling is not homeschooling.
In reality, modern-day homeschoolers live in urban, rural, and suburban environments. They’re teachers, technologists, entrepreneurs, artists, healthcare workers, and other innovators. And they’re not at home but out in the world.
5 styles of homeschooling
Here are the five main styles of homeschooling and what they describe. (Within this, there are numerous subcategories: Worldschooling, Forest School, Montessori, Waldorf, Carschooling, Youtube schooling, documentary schooling, and even Gameschooling! While some families lean more heavily on one or two styles of homeschooling, most are applying modular learning to some degree.
🏠 1. Traditional homeschooling (school at home)
is where most of the homeschooling is led by a parent at home using a curriculum aligned with school standards. Traditional homeschooling follows a similar schedule to school. Historically, traditional homeschoolers use a standardized curriculum, though sometimes they create their own curriculum.
🖥️ 2. Online schooling (school on the computer)
is where most of the schooling is done online via a live teacher or asynchronously via recorded classes with assessments, homework, and quizzes. If families enroll in an accredited online school, they don’t have to register as a homeschooler. Online schooling often follows the same curriculum as traditional school, though some newer online schools have adaptive educational software and live tutors.
🤸♀️ 3. Unschooling (no school)
In unschooling, learning is largely self-directed, with children driving their own learning with no structure or schedule imposed by parents. The word unschooling is often used synonymously with modular learning or any type of secular homeschooling. However, there is more emphasis on self-directed learning and free play. Unschooling groups tend to be great places to meet other secular homeschoolers.
⚖️ 4. Hybrid schooling (half school, half homeschool)
(half-school, half-homeschool) includes some combination of traditional homeschool, online school, or unschooling with a homeschool co-op hybrid school, learning pod, or microschool. These hybrid schools can help support families with social and childcare needs.
🧩5. Modular learning (customized education, social, childcare, and accountability)
In modular learning, families draw from a mosaic of styles and activities to optimize social, educational, and childcare outcomes for their children. These modules frequently include a combination of mastery-based curricula, social gatherings, adaptive technology, nature-based activities, tutors, mentors, parent-led instruction, and extracurriculars.
A few key differences between modular learning and other homeschooling styles
There’s more structure and accountability than pure unschooling but much more room for personalization and self-directed learning than traditional homeschooling or online schooling, as well as built-in accountability mechanisms (as opposed to periodic evaluations.)
Modular learning puts strong emphasis on 1-1 mastery-based instruction, allowing children to learn at their own pace and evolving teaching methods as they go.
In contrast to traditional school, hybrid school, and online school, modular learners don’t recreate school at home. They customize academic, social, and childcare experiences to ideally suit their family. Social and childcare experiences are not seen as supplemental, but integral to a well-balanced education. They also customize their goals and accountability framework.
Due to the focus on 1-1 mastery learning, students only need 1-2 hours of formal study per day. Modular learners have more time to socialize, direct their own learning and pursue extracurricular activities. And parents & caregivers have time to work at home and take breaks.
Unlike online school and traditional homeschool, modular learning is highly personalized. The curriculum is flexible and diverse and always changing to better suit the child’s needs at any given time. One reason we like it a lot as an approach to homeschooling is because it echoes best practices in user design and product development. Online schools vary widely in their degree of personalization. Adaptive educational software is very complex to build.
Some additional factors to consider
Modular learning can (and usually does) incorporate some unschooling, traditional homeschooling, hybrid school and online school (educational software and online classes/tutoring)
Adaptive educational software & 1-1 tutors can make online school more adaptive.
1-1 parent-led instruction can make traditional school more personalized even with a homogenous curriculum as teacher naturally adapt teaching style to suit the child.
Pure 100% unschooling is rare and varies widely depending on the child's ability to self-direct their learning - and their family's level of engagement with their learning. Even unschoolers are influencing their child’s learning through the environment and tools
Hybrid schools are more personalized due to small class sizes. Since students enroll in hybrid school attend school 1-3 days a week. and use another approach the rest of the week, we think of this approach as half private school/half unschooling, modular learning, online schooling, or traditional school.
2. What is modular learning?
Our description of modular learning is based on patterns we’ve identified from direct observation, interviews, participating in groups, and reviewing conversations of over 100k secular homeschoolers (many former teachers) all over the world who are successfully educating their children way above grade level.
Modular learning describes the most common patterns we observed in how they approach their child’s academic learning, social and childcare experiences, which have been developed and refined through years of testing, iteration, and exchange of ideas within secular homeschooling communities.
Modular Learning vs. Traditional School
In traditional education, all students have the same schedule, the same curriculum, the same assessments, and the same amount of playtime & collaborative learning with children the same age. Schools provide the same amount of childcare to each family, in accordance with the typical national work schedule in the late 19th century.
For public schools, this standardized approach is designed to ensure that on a national and state level (for public school) or on a school level (for private school), the maximum number of children are learning and socializing adequately for a particular time period in history, according to the federal and state standards for that time. For private school, standardization helps ensure the school is performing at levels that will reassure parents and donors that the school is performing better than the public alternatives, and for the most competitive private schools, that their tuition dollars are resulting in higher levels of acceptance at elite colleges and universities.
Here’s the problem: while standardization may help schools, they might not provide the optimal learning, quality & quantity of social interaction for any individual child or the ideal childcare schedule for every family.
In contrast to thinking of education in one place at one time with one set of resources, modular learners think about their child’s education as a constantly evolving mosaic of educational resources that come together to optimize each individual child’s whole child development & support the entire family’s well-being.
School can be a module or not, but it is not the only module or, necessarily, the most important one.
In traditional school, the family relegates responsibility for a child’s education to the state or private school. In modular learning, the person who takes responsibility for the child’s education is the family. The family sets goals and iterates based on academic and social outcomes. And, what is sometimes a little more scary, but equally exciting is that the parent or guardian is not absconding responsibility, but answering directly to the child (and the future adult), ensuring that they are engaged right now, while simultaneously preparing to lead a happy, successful life, hopefully one that makes a positive contribution to their community and the world as a whole.
Vestigial School
Not surprisingly, many families who homeschool or start microschools re-create aspects of school that are remnants of a system designed to standardize education even if it’s not the best fit for their child or family (such as an 8-3 pm schedule) or using a curriculum aligned with state standards (as opposed to one aligned with their own goals, based on academic readiness, their child’s interests and strengths, the science of learning or evidence-based developmental milestones).
School is designed to serve a large number of students adequately in a classroom setting.
We discourage families from assuming that the ways things are done at school must have an underlying reason that they can’t identify. As engineers, product developers and entrepreneurs know, it’s crucial to identify untested assumptions, especially if you care deeply about the outcome. It might seem scary to start from scratch. By describing some of the best practices of modular learners, we hope to support you in creating a homeschool experience that best fits the needs of your family.
The Core Needs
As an approach to nurturing whole child development for each family, modular learning is focused on optimizing whole child development through a combination of activities that address the following core family needs:
Cognitive development & academic readiness
Modular learning helps children learn effectively and efficiently at the right level of challenge by choosing the best mix of curriculum and teachers to support their unique way of learning and adapting along the way. While being behind in school (or lagging on standardized tests) is not necessarily reflective of intelligence or future success, modular learning resources can also help with academic readiness, ensuring the door stays open if kids want to go back to school at any stage.
Social-emotional development
Modular learning incorporates the right amount of play and collaborative learning with a diverse social group to nurture healthy development. Modular learning also focuses on building community for families and plugging them into networks to help raise and educate their kids.
Childcare
Depending on their work, families will need different types of childcare. Modular learning is focused on finding the ideal childcare to support every family’s unique schedule, budget, and type of work, whether it’s remote or in an office. It should be noted that childcare is not just something families can use to help them earn income. Childcare can also contribute to the health and happiness of a family by giving parents time to themselves or with each other.
Accountability & support
Modular learning focuses on finding the right tools to ensure children are on track intellectually, socially, and emotionally, drawing on developmental milestones, assessments, learning support specialists, and social services.
Here are some examples of modules and how they contribute to each of the core needs above:
The Modular learning schedule:
Modular learning is fully curated homeschooling: custom education, custom socialization, and custom childcare with custom accountability & support.
Nearly every style of homeschooling incorporates some level of modular learning, but this is what we’ve observed “full-on” modular learning most typically looks like in practice.
This approach has emerged from decades of secular families collaborating, iterating, and improving upon homeschooling methods within secular homeschool communities.
For a more in-depth look at a modular learning schedule, see our post “what’s a typical day look like?”
3. Seven reasons why modular learning is the future of school
A 2021 poll by Mckinsey revealed that thirty-three percent of parents felt an alternative model (hybrid homeschooling, remote learning, homeschooling) would be a more ideal fit for their child ”than five days a week in a traditional brick-and-mortar school.”
In decentralized systems, the key stakeholders can make quick decisions, adapt and scale quickly to optimize outcomes. Following the general trend towards decentralization (in travel, work, and transportation), families are also recognizing the benefits of customizing their children’s education and having the freedom to choose the best learning resources, technology, and teachers to support their learning.
Here are some of the main reasons families are homeschooling:
Mastery learning leads to better learning outcomes
Mastery-based learning is an instructional strategy and philosophy coined by Benjamin Bloom in 1968. When students learn for mastery, they learn at their own pace, mastering each concept before moving on to the next. 1-1 instruction is the ideal mode of delivery for mastery learning. In 1968, Bloom’s 2 Sigma Problem demonstrated that students learning through 1-1 instruction learn 90% better than those who learn in a group setting. That’s two standard deviations above the norm. And this is true whether or not the instructor is a trained teacher or not.
It’s no surprise that children learn better through 1-1 instruction, but it’s extremely difficult to deliver mastery learning in a school at an affordable cost due to the nature of schools and classrooms themselves.
The explosion of mastery-based edtech tools and physical curriculum in recent years has made it significantly easier for families and caregivers to guide mastery learning. While some subjects are still taught better in a group setting (such as theater or foreign language), families can see how mastery learning helps students learn subjects like math and writing much more quickly and efficiently than in a group setting.
📈 Homeschooling is on the rise
After schools re-opened in 2020, experts expected families to return to school. Instead, the opposite happened. According to US census data, the global population tripled, growing from 3.3% (pre-pandemic) to 11.1% at the start of the 2021-2022 school year. The most significant jump was in Massachusetts, where homeschooling grew from 1.2% in May 2020 pre-pandemic to a staggering 12.1% in September 2020.
As more families homeschool their children, more educational resources emerge to support them, social groups grow and the stigma around homeschooling lessens, paving the way for more families to join the movement.
💰 Homeschooling is more cost-effective
It’s no secret that private school is exorbitantly expensive, costing upwards of $40,000/year in major cities. However, public school also comes with its costs. Between afterschool, summer camp, back-to-school supplies, and education technology, even going to a free public school can get expensive. A study by Deloitte showed “concern that students falling behind causing 51% of parents to increase spend on virtual learning tools.” Data from Capital One compiled by Anne Lee Skates and Connie Chan at A16z revealed that 20% of parents expected to spend over $2000 on afterschool activities and school supplies alone in the 2022-2023 school year.
In contrast, the average homeschooling family spends $500/year on their child’s education. Homeschoolers have a lot more options about how they can distribute their education spending, and there are also a lot of free resources available. Over decades of evolution, the homeschooling community has developed creative solutions for reducing or eliminating the cost of childcare and education that have become ingrained in homeschooling culture. It’s less typical to outsource education and more typical to do it yourself or share with friends for free.
For more on the cost benefits of homeschooling, see our post on how to afford homeschooling.
Families are also increasing spending on their children’s mental health, which leads us to reason #4…
❤️ Families want to leave hostile social environments Systemic racism, bullying, and gun violence
Since 2018, there have been 121 school shootings in the United States, leading Peter Cunningham and former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to suggest that every family boycott school until gun control laws are passed. According to the NCES, One out of every five (20.2%) students reports being bullied, and only half of those students tell an adult. Despite the research on the critical importance of unstructured play for healthy cognitive and social development, according to the CDC, the average kindergartener still only has 26 minutes a day of recess at school.
Systemic racism, homophobia, and struggles with gender identity are also causing families to leave school. The Black homeschooling population has grown more than any other group, with many citing “White-washed” history as a primary reason.
✏️ Standardized testing doesn’t help individual kids
The opt-out movement caught nationwide attention when in 2015, 20% of New York public school families opted out of standardized tests in protest. According to a study by Columbia University Teacher college, this movement is largely driven by “opposition to evaluating teachers in part by their students’ test scores (37 percent), (2) a belief that standardized tests force teachers to narrow the curriculum to only the subjects covered on the tests (34 percent), (3) opposition to the growing role of corporations in schools.”
Families are deeply concerned about how these tests shape their child’s education and the private interests they benefit, leading many to not only opt out of standardized tests but opt out of standardized school altogether.
👩🏫 👋 Teacher attrition is causing a national education crisis
48% of teachers report that they’re considering leaving the profession.
In addition to helping parents and caregivers learn to teach, homeschooling offers students the opportunity to connect with the best teachers selected by their families for their passion, expertise, and rapport with their kids.
Homeschooling offers entrepreneurial opportunities that make it possible for the best teachers to thrive through tutoring, teaching online classes, leading homeschool co-ops, or developing curriculum.
🌐 Decentralized systems are the future
New Technology has enabled many systems to become decentralized (travel, transportation), making them more affordable and personalized to the individual experience but still holding users accountable through systems like ratings and reviews.
“As technology evolves, the most profound and destabilizing change is likely to be the transition from centralized internet services to decentralized ones.” -Tyler Cohen (Bloomberg)
Decentralized education makes more sense for K12 education, too: In both private and public systems, the decision makers are several steps removed from the key stakeholder, the child. In a decentralized school system, those who care the most (parents and teachers and local communities) can quickly adapt to suit the needs of the individual child based on the context of their local environment, the time in history and their lives, and their future aspirations.
Let’s talk a little more about how technology is paving the way for a decentralized school system.
4. How technology 🖥️ is expanding access to homeschooling
Over the last 20 years, tens of thousands of online resources have emerged to support k12 education. 51% of K12 parents report spending more on online classes, virtual tutors, and other e-learning resources than ever before.
“The pandemic has been a catalyst for parent-driven, technology-enabled educational change that will have a large and lasting impact on the education sector.” -Marc Andreesen (Invest Like the Best)
This explosion of edtech resources is significant in more ways than one:
Access to teachers: Kids have direct access to the best teachers in the world through online tutoring, classes, and free media platforms (podcasts, youtube, etc.).
Less need for subject experts: Parents and caregivers don’t have to be subject matter experts to help kids learn. This is particularly important for kids whose parents didn’t receive a formal education or can’t speak the language in the country. In some cases, well-designed educational software has the same impact as 1-1 tutoring.
“When considering narrow knowledge of a series of facts, or basic skills taught at the elementary level, the effects of ML and DI can be Large for the general population and Extremely Large for disadvantaged students….
Adaptive learning apps: Educational software can help track children’s progress as they go, reducing the need for periodic standardized testing and zoning in on areas of challenge.
…With really good tutors and really good software, the effect size can indeed be Huge.” - Ricón, José Luis, “On Bloom's two sigma problem: A systematic review of the effectiveness of mastery learning, tutoring, and direct instruction”, Nintil (2019-07-28)
Technology connects people in person: Technology can help connect people, even in rural communities, creating more social opportunities for homeschoolers.
Educational software is extremely complex to build. And we have a long, long way to go before we build the perfect AI adaptive technology to personalize learning for the infinite variety of children in the world. Many families still lack internet and home devices.
For more guidance on how to find a well-designed curriculum and learning apps to support your child’s learning, see our guide to homeschool curriculum
More and more parents are taking power back over their child’s education
Far from sheltering weird and anti-social kids, modern homeschoolers are building a mosaic of 1-1 mastery learning with personalized curriculum, highly enriching social experiences, self-directed learning, flexible and extra-curricular to optimize learning and whole child development for their individual kids. This flexible, personalized approach has many advantages over homogenous, one-size-fits-all-school.
What’s next?
We hope you enjoyed this week’s issue! In the next post, we break down 10 common myths about homeschooling. Read on to find out how expectations about homeschooling compare with reality.
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And thanks for being here! ❤️
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Excellent analysis of the various school alternatives. For too long, people have just naturally felt that government school was just what you did and never considered alternatives. We are starting to wake to a world where more and more people recognize there may be another way. Therre MUST be another way.
I am working on a book that deconstructs what brought us to our current state of the educational system and builds a pathway to a different educational universe. We are not aligned on everything, but I was very intrigued by your analysis. Thanks! David
Excellent