CAT & CAMEL

🐈 (Cheerleader, Advocate, Tutor) & 🐪 (Curious, Ambitious, Motivated, Excited Learner)

Overview

CAT & CAMEL is an accessible, affordable, flexible, personalized, and project-based education program that helps people learn new skills from local experts.
Instead of students and teachers in a formal school system, there are CAMELs (Curious, Ambitious, Motivated, Excited Learner) and CATs (Cheerleader, Advocate, Tutor) in a fun learning community.
As you can tell from the name, CAT & CAMEL doesn't take itself seriously, but as you will see from the community, it does take lifelong learning seriously.

Purpose

Humans are naturally curious and our brains are built to learn. Everyone wants to learn new skills to expand their capabilities and potential.
Before adulthood, a general education is free to all, and during adulthood, education is extremely costly in terms of sacrificing both time and money. All throughout life, people should have accessible, affordable, and personalized education — no matter their current expertise, age, or career. Most people who cannot sacrifice the time and money necessary for college, (boot)camps, and seminars need an alternative educational program that can be personalized to meet them where they're at and account for their unique life situations. They need an educational program that is flexible and customized to their schedule, location, interests, learning styles, motivations, and current skill level.
While video courses and online classes are accessible, they do not provide personalization to the education nor any in-the-moment or in-person feedback from the teacher. Therefore there is a gap between accessible online video education and expensive in-person university education that needs to be filled with an educational program that is as accessible as online courses and as personable as college courses.
Additionally, both college and online courses are designed for a general audience, with the expectation that the students enrolling must all be at the same skill level to begin with. Those courses are built with a specific skill level in mind — a one size fits most approach. Therefore there is also a need for personalized courses that are tailored for the individual, meeting the learner at their skill level and beginning and building upon whatever base/foundation the learner has currently.
CAT & CAMEL strives to bridge the accessibility and affordability gaps and fulfill these educational needs by offering flexible, accessible, affordable, and personalized courses. The courses are built based on the learner's needs and wants, priced based on the learner's financial situation, scheduled based on the learner's schedule, paced based on the learner's abilities, and customized based on the learner's current skill level and desired skill level.

Mission

To help people learn new skills from local experts through affordable, personalized, project-based education.

Vision

To create a community that celebrates curiosity, lifelong learning, and personal passion projects in order to inspire aspiration, ambition, and actualization.

Courses

Overview

The core of CAT & CAMEL is customized courses created by both the tutor (CAT) and the learner (CAMEL) to fit the learner's personal needs. No two courses are the same. After choosing a skill to learn, the CAMEL finds a local CAT to work with and hire. Together they design and structure the course by scheduling where and when to regularly meet, deciding on projects and milestones, and exploring learning methods and materials. From there on, they follow the planned schedule and meet up periodically. The CAT helps, encourages, and pushes the CAMEL to learn, explore, and complete milestones by set deadlines. Every course ends when the CAMEL completes a capstone project. At this point, the CAMEL is given the opportunity to publicly present the capstone project at a showcase celebration. (While it is not required of a CAMEL, the public presentation is strongly encouraged.) No accredited degrees or certifications are given from CAT & CAMEL. (Although fun fake certificates and stickers are offered to those who enjoy that sort of thing.) CAT & CAMEL believes that the capstone project should be a self-evident demonstration of the CAMEL's capabilities — the work proves the learner's skill. The capstone project is the central culmination of the CAMEL's progress in the course. All courses have a series of milestones that lead to the completion of the capstone project, and most courses include preliminary practice projects before beginning the final capstone project.

Group courses

Sometimes CAMELs may wish to take the same course at the same time with the same CAT, whether it's a group of friends, family, partners, classmates, etc. In this scenario, the learners must decide if they would like to do one project together or individual projects on their own.

Goal

The objective of every course is to meet the CAMEL at her current skill level and determine where she would like to go / at what level she would like to be. From there the CAT and CAMEL plot out the course toward reaching that skill level. (This is the true beauty of personalized courses, because they can adapt to any skill level and take as long as necessary to bring the learner up to the level of expertise desired.)

Breakdown

Who

CAMELs come from all walks of life. The learners can be anyone from any age, background, or experience. They can also take a group course together.

What

The course is completely personalized by/for the CAMEL and is intended to help the CAMEL learn a new skill or develop a skill. Every course is completed with a capstone project. Generally, courses have learning resources and materials, practice projects, and a capstone project with a series of milestones leading to the completion deadline.

When

The CAMEL and CAT decide the schedule and pace of the course. A course can be as flexible or as rigorous as needed or wanted, whether that means meeting a few hours a week or a few hours a day.

Where

The CAMEL and CAT decide the location of the meetups. Generally, people tend to choose coffee shops, libraries, studios, offices, or even the home of the CAMEL or CAT.

How

The CAMEL and CAT decide what the course will consist of and what they will do during meetups. Learning styles vary, so the learning methods and materials will be personalized to the CAMEL and the skill. Every course must have at least one project to be considered the capstone. Generally, there will also be practice projects before beginning the culminating capstone project, which then is broken down into milestones.

Why

Each CAMEL decides for themselves what their motivation and reasoning is. Typically a CAMEL is seeking to learn a new skill because they want to create a project, apply the skill at work, try a new hobby, get a job or change jobs, start a business, or just to have fun. The CAT is excited to help the CAMEL learn or develop a skill and complete a project. The CAT thrives on the connection and the opportunity to have an occupation in this personalized, project-based education.

Steps

  1. The CAMEL gets a CAT.
    1. The CAMEL decides which skill to learn.
    2. If there is a group of CAMELs who want to learn the same skill, they may decide to join in the same course together.
    3. The CAMEL extends a request for a CAT (using the form).
    4. The CAT accepts the request and gives an hourly rate.
  2. Together the CAMEL and CAT define the course outline (using the course template).
    1. Define the capstone project (although this is not always necessary to define right away).
    2. If there is a group of CAMELs in the same course, they may decide to work together on one group project.
    3. Define the schedule, including the timing of meetups and milestones.
    4. Pick the location of the meetups.
    5. Define practice projects and milestones.
    6. Choose learning methods and materials.
  3. The CAMEL takes the course and learns a new skill with the help of the CAT.
    1. The CAMEL and CAT meet regularly at the scheduled times.
    2. The CAMEL completes practice projects and works on the capstone project (one milestone at a time).
  4. The CAMEL completes the capstone project by the course deadline (and is awarded a fun certificate from the CAT).
  5. The CAMEL presents the capstone project at a showcase celebration. (The CAMEL and CAT celebrate!)