Last night, I joined my first online learning circle. It was hosted by Sebastien Vigneau of BosLab, a Boston-area nonprofit organization that supports community-based biology programs. The topic at hand was coronavirus, and we were going to be working through FutureLearn’s online course COVID-19: Tackling the Novel Coronavirus, developed by the London School of Hygiene…
About a year and a half ago, I wrote a blog post about the state of online learning and how P2PU could take a stronger position in ensuring that there were high quality, open-access courses for the learning circles. We are thrilled that this idea is now a reality, thanks to Kansas City Public Library…
We ask facilitators and participants a few questions at different times during the life cycle of a learning circle. We want the questions to be thoughtful and the information gathered to be useful. After getting some input from facilitators in Boston last year, we started working on improving the process. Overall it was a process…
Since learning circles began, our community-generated learning circles course database has continuously been one of the most appreciated features that we offer. Rather than turning to Class Central or a search engine to find a course for learning circles, facilitators around the world can come here first to explore courses that have already been used in…
For nearly two years, we’ve sent out the same surveys to learners and facilitators around the world when they are finished with their learning circle. Some of this information gets put to immediate use (e.g. feedback about the quality of course materials goes straight to our courses page), and some of it was designed to…
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to participate in a day-long workshop run by Feedback Labs; a D.C.-based group that helps organizations close feedback loops in their work with the goal of more authentically engaging end users, whoever those people might be. Before I joined, I took their organizational feedback quiz (which you can take too)….
From September 18 to 20th, we welcomed 55 educators, librarians, and learning circle advocates to Boston for a P2PU Gathering. This came on the heels of a similar event in Kansas City last year, and we are grateful to the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Siegel Family Endowment for providing us with the…
If you’re like me, you probably grew up thinking that serious learning only happened in school, college and university. The consequence of this belief is that it devalues, denies, and discriminates against how most of the world actually learns, which is outside of formal education. If we’re serious about achieving education for all, then we…
We just submitted our mid-term report for our 2017-2020 IMLS grant with Kansas City Public Library. This project has aimed to grow learning circles from a Chicago-specific project into a nationwide community of practice across public libraries. Since our project began in May 2017, our 12 partner libraries have run more than 178 learning circles,…
If you’re reading this, you probably already know that you can run a learning circle for free whenever you like. You probably also know about our facilitator resources, Juliana’s guide for local organizing, and of course, the global community of facilitators who are ready to help you out on our forum. However, there is a…