In the front-lines of Blended Learning: Running my first Learning Circle
An account of the final thoughts and ideas that emerged after I facilitated the first Learning Circle in Paris.
Knowledge is, among many of its describers, fluid. Sometimes it builds upon itself like a skyscraper, other times it resembles a confusing mess of guesses and presumptions only brightened by silver linings of truth. Whenever I try to describe my experience running my first Learning Circle I think of that: fluidity, change, movement.
In February I started running my first Learning Circle (read here if you have no idea what I’m taking about). I was excited. I had just moved to Paris in September, had been studying an inspiring Master EdTech for over six months and was now starting to work on my first internship. Having a project of my own was definitely on my bucket list, but I never expected it to arrive so quickly. I had previous experience as a teacher (I worked as a high-school professor for over three years), and had worked with Blended Learning. I also had some experience managing groups from when I worked as a group psychotherapist. Thus, my expectations were high towards my own performance. I gathered five initial participants (with high hopes of attracting more on the way), found an attractive public place with WiFi and prepared everything I could. I was eager to start and ready to kill it!
Admittedly, the whole thing was kind of a mess. Never did we repeat the same cast, although there where a couple participants who were constant and attended most sessions. On terms of time-management, there were some sessions, especially at the beginning, when we finished early or students were not very active in their discussions, and the minutes slouched away. Most of the time, however, we had to end the sessions abruptly, without even finishing the week’s lesson: discussions tended to be long, passionate and very interesting. Very much like my experience as a teacher, each day was unpredictable to some extent. But order can be mined from chaos, and this is my goal with this article: to narrate what I mined out of this experience.
Blended Learning is far from being the new kid on the block, nor the idea of taking MOOCs in-person, in group is very new (see here, link in french). What P2PU has brought to the table is a set of standards, recommendations and tools that aim at viralizing this practice. Learning Circles are a reflection of P2PU’s guiding philosophy and values. These are values I hold very dear because they resonate with what I believe education should do, and how should it be addressed. If I had to choose one thing I liked over everything else about running this first Learning Circle, it’d be that I could sense those values working on the background. A constant and pleasant buzz that filled every session: collaboration, equity, curiosity and honesty.
To teach is to fail: the shifting role of the facilitator
One of the leading ideas behind P2PU is (obviously) peer to peer learning. The gist of the idea goes something like this:
Everyone holds some kind of knowledge that is valuable to someone else
… yes, everyone. This is an extremely important fact to have in mind because a) it is the basis for promoting equity inside the group, and;
b) it is crucial that the facilitator does not fill the role of a teacher.
A teacher is a fixed authority figure, and fixed authority figures don’t fit well with the model behind peer-to-peer learning. Ideas and opinions must come balanced from everybody, and each individual should have similar degree of influence within the group. The facilitator’s role is mostly focused on promoting this culture all the time, and act whenever peer-to-peer learning is being overturned.
This role resembles to that of the group psychotherapist: not a guide nor a mentor, but a moderator. One that will make sure that conversation is not being monopolized, that all opinions are heard and pondered, that all members are participating equally and are equally valued.
The facilitator should also be good at spotting people’s strengths. More than once I had to dig deep into a conversation to find something that a participant knew inside-out. This is especially true with participants who are unfamiliar with the widely-accepted idea that we are learning all the time, and that all knowledge counts. Very much like writing, inside Learning Circles, you can make use of everything you know, and you should!
If you are familiar with group psychotherapy, you would know that the facilitator’s role starts strong, but fades over time. During the first sessions, I dedicated myself to promoting the culture of sharing information, of giving people a space to state their opinions freely, and of considering own knowledge as valuable and relevant. But soon after (and this happens most of the time), participants start to… well… participate. They initiate conversations, they engage in discussions among themselves and even take the lead in organizing the next session. This is when the facilitator’s role is diminished and runs only on the background. Its initial tasks are distributed among the many members of the group, and the facilitator becomes just another guy in the room. He only intervenes when the peer-to-peer model is being threatened or transgressed. A truly neutral moderator.
Not everything that shines is gold: Flaws and lacks of my Learning Circle (and what I am doing to solve them!)
Learning Circles is far from being perfect, though. As an process still open to experimentation, it has important setbacks that need to be addressed. An increasing community of facilitators and learners is ready to help with valuable propositions and ideas on how to tackle these obstacles. For example, one of my main conflicts throughout the whole process was the unsteadiness in attendance. Although there always were at least two learners per session, not one participant was able to attend all sessions. There was a core group that remain considerably constant, and another pool that functioned more as a satellite, with students attending one or two sessions only. All in all, eight different students attended Learning Circles, and most of them attended at least two sessions. Constancy is not crucial for the success of a Learning Circle, but it definitely is an important ally. Constancy is the fastest way to building a community, and community is a pillar for peer-to-peer learning. Figuring out how can a facilitator maintain attractiveness of the Learning Circles and use attendance to foster community is something that still needs further discussion, experimentation and feedback.
Another problem I had was the content of the MOOC itself. However, this one is on me. I confirmed that the content and material of the MOOC were relevant to the participants’ objectives, but I never checked on how much time would it require to cover the week’s content. In our very first meeting we quickly learned that the 90-minute sessions where barely going to cover watching the videos: no discussion in-between, no aperture or closure, no nothing. We quickly shuffled our possibilities and agreed on watching half of the week’s videos prior to our session (there was a very clear division within the format of the videos: ones were for exposing or presenting information, others were dedicated to the analysis of the the first group of videos). Starting the second session, we had approximately 45 minutes of watching videos and another 45 for discussing the content.
There were other minor problematic situation that where solved with relative ease. For example, I mentioned there were some students who were unfamiliar with the model behind peer-to-peer learning, specially with the idea that they held valuable knowledge. This is a situation that was solved as the group progressed and only little introduction and explanation of these ideas were required. I found out that conversing with the participants about unrelated topics was a good incentive for them to open up and start sharing their ideas.
As far as my experience dictates, there seem to be no major problems with the intrinsic logic of Learning Circles. The instructions and recommendations are put together very well, and only minor problems arise. These minor problems are fairly easy to detect, manageable and promote growth in both, the circle and its individuals. I was able to draw from my experience with managing groups to navigate the fluid role of facilitator.
Closing thoughts: All in all it’s NOT just another brick in the wall
I want to be clear that I am no authority on the matter of Learning Circles. I am still experimenting with them and finding ways, contexts and populations where they could be useful. I am very fond of the idea. I think it has potential, not only for enhancing the MOOC experience, but to change the way communities organize around education, particularly informal education. I wish to find similar minds, to build; and unsatisfied minds, to create objective criticism and healthy skepticism. This is why I am writing these articles and will continue to do so throughout my experiences as facilitator or participant. To share is to grow, that is my motto.
Learning Circles is far from being perfect or complete. It is a work in process and will surely evolve and grow as the method popularizes and is adopted by several communities. It has its imperfections, yes. It has important limits, granted. But I still genuinely think it is a very, very good idea. Their openness makes them an extremely dynamic tool, and it easily targets MOOCs’ forgotten audiences. Facilitators require little-to-no experience managing groups, but having it does transform a group. You don’t many digital tools, but adding them could enhance the overall experience. They are not something to be perfected, but to be exploded and tinkered, and answer accordingly to a community’s needs.
Knowledge is, among many of it’s describers, fluid. So are Learning Circles. They are adaptable, open, malleable. But much more than that, they are natural. We, humans, are social creatures and we learn more effectively when we are socially engaged. Emotion, a concept often inscribed both in the psychological and the social behavior, is one of the most powerful mnemonic tools available to us. Debating is one of the best, if not the best tool for solving problems. Feedback is a core element and motor of any development process. To communicate is to learn. It is only natural that we look for ways to gather in groups to learn. When MOOCs arrived and started distributing high-quality educative content, everyone soon started forming groups: to debate, to rectify, to ask, to answer, to experiment, to build. Learning Circles are just an extension of this natural trend. And they work very well.
