Proposal to re-create the Education Guild Organizational Unit within the DAO

Preface

Due to the transition of Season 5 Education Guild work transitioning to a Department, the Education Guild was dissolved as instructed by the Grants Committee. The Education Department is responsible for Educating DAO members on DAO tooling and operations, however we feel there is a need for an Education Guild to exist in order to develop Educator Talent within the DAO. So as per the instructions of the Grants Committee, we find ourselves re-creating the Education Guild and will explain why below.

The Education Guild Scope Squad proposes to create an Education Guild (Edu Guild) within BanklessDAO. The Edu Guild will be the landing pad for DAO members wishing to develop their Teaching Skills. The guild will provide talent to organizational units and serve as an upskilling base for educators in the DAO.

What is the value proposition of the Education Guild?

Guilds have a new Mandate to focus on developing talent and the demand for education has increased across the DAO and the gap in demand and supply for educators has increased.

The Education Guild will now focus solely on upskilling educators. Previously we only had one educational program, Instructional Design, that focused on educating educators. And the rest of the educational programming we created was general education for all DAO members. The majority of educational programming is now under the purview of the Education Department, however they have no mandate to develop educator talent, only to service the general educational needs of DAO members.

The Edu Guild will work closely with the Edu Department to provide practice opportunities to folks learning how to educate so that educators can build up their experience with mentors from the Guild. The Season 4 & 5 Education Guild has already developed the tools and processes for developing educational material and training, an important aspect of the Guild is teaching DAO members how to access these tools and replicate our processes for How to Sessions, Knowledge Sessions, Self Study Courses, and Workshops. Once folks develop their teaching talent through guild programming, and department courses, they will then have the confidence, skills, and tools needed to help other guilds and projects with educational needs.

Smooth Operations and Well Designed Tools

The history of the Education Guild is one of constant change. Since the beginning of the DAO, educational opportunities have always been in demand. Most organizational units within the DAO at some level are addressing the needs of their members or audience through educational content. Education being one of the 7 principals of all cooperative organizations means that education is built into effective operations as a matter of design by those that are constantly addressing learner needs. Education as a service is one of the largest opportunities in a world transitioning to complex systems environments, and building service oriented architecture.

This may be best exemplified through projects like the Bankless Academy which focuses on outward facing async online learning, but as well as in the new mandate of Guilds to focus on Talent Development.

Our focus in the Education Guild is to identify the talent needs of organizational units within the DAO and then to upskill DAO members to meet those needs. We want to impart education as a cultural norm and to transfer broad/general educational skills to as many DAO members as possible over the course of 2-4 seasons of learning opportunities.

But who is educating the educators? Who is listening to the learners? and Who is mentoring and coaching apprentices and practitioners?

We the Education Guild Scope Squad

have a Genesis Social Agreement creating the initial membership of the guild and laying down the framework for self organization. Folks have opted in to participation via a Voter Registration. We have identified 17 creators and 18 learners within our membership and a total of 19 members have fully registered providing their wallet address as well. Five Members of the 35 have yet to be onboarded, Thirty respondents have been onboarded in previous seasons.

If you wish to develop your teaching skills or help us in teaching others how to teach, feel free to fill out our Season 6 Voter Registration. Participation in Guild Activities will still be needed to be considered as an Active Member. Registration Alone will not qualify for Active Membership in the Guild, though that is where we will start each Season. Participation will be defined as work activity related to the creation of learning opportunities, engagement within the educational opportunity itself, or the management of guild responsibilities.
The Education Guild Genesis Social Agreement

Our Purpose

The Purpose of the Education Guild is to provide Diverse Education Opportunities for DAO Members interested in becoming better teachers.

The Education Guild Scope Squad is currently operating voluntarily under the following 3 mandates

→ Design the Scope and Funding of the Education Guild
→ Build the Decision Making Structure for the Creation of the Guild
→ Define Season 6 Guild Workstreams, Policies, and Incentive Structure

Mission & Values Alignment

We, the Education Guild Scope Squad, feel that the Education Guild is very aligned with the DAO’s mission and values. In fact, the demand for education talent within the DAO has never been higher and the lack of available educators has never been more noticeable.

Organizational Structure

Pod #1 - Attract -

We feel a positive high touch onboarding experience focused on caring for member needs will create an attractive environment for those wishing to develop their teaching talent.

Pod #2 - Retain -

We feel smooth operations, access to guild resources, and effective tools will bring folks home to education guild as they shift to other guilds and projects over time and find themselves teaching others. Our operations should take care of our Guild Member needs.

Pod #3 - Upskill -

We approach learning from the learners perspective. The educational content should be designed in a way that cares about how the student learns. We currently have 1 upskill session on Instructional Design and weekly short form educational articles, but members need a diverse set of curriculums over various lengths of time (up to a year).

Each Pod is it’s own domain responsible for achieving the aims of attracting, retaining, and upskilling Educational Talent. The Guild Membership largely wants to operate through consensus based decision making, though the details have still yet to be finalized.

Policies

Most of our policies will be carried over from Season 4 & 5 and will be updated over the course of this season to reflect the current state of the Edu Guild in Season 6. Here is the link to our Policy Table. You can filter the view of the notion database based on Section and Sort by Code number in order to quickly find the policies of the guild.

Success Metrics- how we will develop educator talent

We aim to fill the demand for educational talent within the DAO.

Firstly we will provide educators for the Education Department so that as DAO tool adoption increases we can continue to provide educator talent to teach DAO tools and processes. As folks demonstrate the ability to teach entry level educational material on DAO tooling we feel they will then be able to transfer those skills to other organizational units within the DAO.

Secondly we will outreach to organizational units within the DAO to assess the educational skills in need and we will prioritize our focus on those needs requested by other units in the DAO. An important part of our tracking of skills and development will also be to track the flow of educators to other organizational units within the DAO.

Some of the basic hard and soft skills we are already working to develop in folks.

  • Presentation and communication skills
  • Slideshow design skills
  • Course design from templates
  • Feedback and self assessment skills
  • Basic event management skills

Additional not-so-basic skills we will have to find or develop educational material for will likely include:

  • Instructional Communication
  • Organization for tracking and reporting student progress
  • Mentoring — very important for the transfer of cultural and procedural knowledge
  • Leadership — Leading by example
  • Adaptability — diversity, inclusion, learner-focused education

Financial Impact

Season 6 Funding for the Education Guild based on Membership Based Guild Funding
273,000 BANK + 10,000 BANK per active member (35 Active Members consistent with previous season averages) = 623,000 BANK

The Education Guild Genesis members are requesting a total Season 6 Funding of 623,000 BANK for operations.

NEXT STEPS- it is up to the DAO

Proposal to Create the Education Guild as an Organizational Unit within BanklessDAO
  • I approve the creation of the Education Guild
  • I do not approve the creation of the Education Guild
  • I have comments or clarifying questions as a reply to this post that need resolved before I can vote
  • I abstain from voting, my vote counts towards quorum requirements

0 voters

Proposal to fund the Education Guild
  • I approve the funding of the Education Guild at 623,000 BANK for Season 6.
  • I do not approve the funding of the Education Guild at 623,000 BANK for Season 6
  • I have clarification questions in a reply to this post that need answered before I can vote
  • I approve funding of the 623,000 BANK, but think that the total amount is a bit high
  • I do not approve funding for 623,000 BANK and would like to see a lower amount suggested for funding

0 voters

Please feel free to leave a reply in support, let us know if you have a need for educator talent, or even ask clarifying questions. Thank you for taking the time to read our proposal.

3 Likes

Thank you for the proposal @ernest_of_gaia

According to the constitution: “Guilds are professional associations of subject matter experts focused on onboarding, education, and community building”

with this logic, I think all guilds should have the goal of education and the idea of having a separate guild solely for education defeats the purpose of guild definition according to the constitution.

1 Like

No guild however Educates Teachers, that is the key distinction here not currently addressed in the dao, despite the increased mandate for education.

separate guild solely for education

I would encourage you to go back and read the purpose of the Guild as your description of our proposal is incorrect

The Purpose of the Education Guild is to provide Diverse Education Opportunities for DAO Members interested in becoming better teachers.

2 Likes

Thank you for addressing this need, @ernest_of_gaia! The Education Department has very few educators to present our workshops at the moment. A source of effective educators from the Education Guild will be a crucial foundation for the sustainability of the educational programming that has been designed. If we’re trying to onboard a billion people to web3, it’s important that these new folks know how to use the tools and participate when they get here.

I also like how you’ve structured the vote to separate the formation of the organization and the funding of the organization. Granular. Informative. Appreciated!

1 Like

Is there a location where I can see how the requested funds would be utilized? This is not a question of the funding amount. I am just trying to understand the basis for the amount. Thanks

1 Like

I strongly support the establishment of the Edu Guild. I have been a Edu Guild member since season 0 when we were trying to create our bDAO structure. The guild and project structure was what was first formed. Not perfect but a great start. Each season improvements were made and for season 6 it was suggested/mandated that guilds needed to choose to remain as guild or proceed as departments. I thought the dictate too unDAO like as our 5 season progress and momentum would be lost or at least slowed. I advocated for a new department completely aligned with the department requirements but also supported retention of the edu guilds mission, a split function. As an education/media DAO surely there is room and requirements for both. The functional roles are established. While I agree every guild has an educational role. To me it is the same as everyone has a Governance role but someone, even in web3 needs to be assigned or it will be accomplished poorly. Please support our Guild and funding request. As currently designed and envisioned, I fit, I have found my purpose, tribe, and place. I fit here but not what we have created as the Department. Can either or both change, of course but having both for now is IMHO the best and affordable choice for season 6 and season 7 then evaluate the contribution and structure for improvements if necessary.

5 Likes

our voter registration form is linked above in the doc. Here is the responses from everyone that filled out the form to be a member of the guild. other wise it uses the same funding formula as the rest of the guilds. and the descriptions of the pods shows our aims to achieve with our funding.

Until we are actually approved to be created as a guild we can’t organize and make further decisions on how we will distribute the funding to the different pods to achieve our aims.