Learning circles are free, lightly-facilitated study groups that meet regularly to learn from open educational resources.

Rooted in values of community, peer learning, equity, and open access, a learning circle typically has the following components:

• a facilitator (responsible for organizing the learning circle, not teaching: the group should work together to understand the material; see Facilitating Peer Learning)

• a group of learners (ideally 4–12 for an engaging group dynamic; see Finding Participants)

• a regular meeting space (in-person or online; see )

• recurring meetings (90 minutes/week for 6–8 weeks is a sweet spot for building a productive group culture without being alienating due to the time commitment; see )

• dedicated learning materials (often an online course; see )

Interested in starting your own learning circle? Read on!

This knowledge base is maintained by (aka P2PU), a non-profit organization dedicated to creating and sustaining learning circle communities in public spaces around the world.

All materials in this guide are licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons license. You are free to download (click "Export as PDF" at the top right of any page), distribute, remix, and re-host these contents.

What can I expect in the first meeting?

In the first meeting, you’ll get to know your fellow learners and familiarize yourself with the course materials that you’ll be using for the duration of the learning circle. Your facilitator may contact you before the first meeting with additional information.

What topics can I learn about?

Learning circles use free online courses as the basis of study. These courses come from online course providers, universities, and non-profit organizations from around the world. Any online course can be used, so long as it is free for participants and not in violation of the terms of service of the course provider.

Do learning circles cost money?

No. Learning circles are free to participate in and free to start.

Do I get a certificate at the end of the learning circle?

P2PU is not a university and does not offer any accredited degree certificates. Some of the online courses that are used in learning circles provide the option to purchase a certificate, which you can do if you so choose. It is, however, possible to receive a certificate of completion following your learning circle. You should speak to your facilitator if this is of interest to you.

What personal information do I need to provide in order to participate?

When you sign up for a learning circle, your email address and information provided in the signup form will be shared with the facilitator of the learning circle. You should expect to receive at least one email when you sign up, one email per meeting and maybe one or two other emails from your facilitator with extra information and/or a request to provide your feedback on the experience. Additionally, if you opt-in to hearing about future learning opportunities from P2PU, you will receive infrequent emails (4 messages per year or less) from P2PU. If at any point you’d like to withdraw consent, you can do so by following the instructions included in all messages we send you. Alternatively, you can also withdraw consent on .

If you’d like more information, you can review our , or contact us at .

Can I facilitate a learning circle?

Yes! With a little bit of practice, anybody can facilitate a learning circle. , explore the resources on in this knowledge base, and attend a to get started.

Credit-Bearing FAQs

These additional FAQs only apply to learning circle participants who are pursuing college credit through our partnership with College Unbound.

What do I need to do to earn credit?

To be eligible to earn academic credit for a learning circle, you must complete all of the course material, fill out an accompanying learning journal, and complete one additional project, the details of which vary by course. Everything must be submitted to College Unbound within three weeks of the end of the learning circle.

What does earning credit mean in this case?

This list of are available for learners to take for college credit. You can take each course once. We are always working on adding more courses!

Credit is offered toward an undergraduate degree at (120 credit hours total). You can also use the transcript that you will receive to demonstrate your learning to employers. Other higher education institutions usually will not accept transfer credit for informal learning. If you have questions about pursuing a degree at College Unbound, you can contact .

Do I need to apply for credit in order to participate?

No. These learning circles are open to everybody, and pursuing credit is completely optional.

Do I need to attend each meeting?

You need to complete the course and the reflections. If you miss one or two but catch up, that’s okay.

Is there a cost?

No, the learning circle and the application for credit are free. If you need an official College Unbound transcript, it will cost $2.25 to $3.50, but College Unbound does not require that you purchase an official transcript.

How do I submit my learning journal?

Email your completed journal to within three weeks of your final learning circle meeting.

Who is my learning journal shared with?

Your learning journal will be shared with College Unbound, your learning circle facilitator, and Peer 2 Peer University. Nothing you write will be shared publicly without additional consent. For more, review the and privacy policies.

What if I have more questions?

For questions about learning circles in general, review the P2PU FAQ or reach out directly to your facilitator. For questions about the College Unbound credit process, send an email to Michelle Navarre at .

Members of Teams will have access to:

• A private calendar with members-only events, including quarterly organizer events where organizers can vote on topics for future learning resources and learning circles. A link to this private calendar will be available in the Organizer dashboard

• Quarterly learning circles facilitated by P2PU staff

• Our yearly community gathering (Teams get two free tickets to our in-person event)

Team organizers receive a weekly update every Monday. This update contains information about past, present, and upcoming learning circle meetings on your team, including learning circle reports, weekly feedback from facilitators, and information about who is signing up. This update also contains information about new facilitator guides and courses on our website. Facilitators can opt into receiving this weekly update through their account settings.

To create a supportive and effective space for everyone, it’s recommended that the group agrees on a set of norms for their meetings during the first meeting. It is the facilitator’s role to uphold these expectations and remind participants when they are not upheld.

Creating Group Norms

Here are some suggestions (adapted from Our Data Bodies’ Digital Defense Playbook) that work well for most learning circles:

• Respect the speaker: When a person is sharing, allow them to share their complete thoughts without interruption. Listen actively and push past distractions from digital devices and your environment when possible.

• Speak from “I” and eye: Share from your own experience and perspective. Don’t assume the experiences of others and avoid making comments or generalizations about entire communities. Keep your shares focused on what you see, what you notice, and what you feel.

• Lean into discomfort: Some topics may be uncomfortable to talk about because of personal experiences or oppressions felt in your everyday life. The emotions and feelings that may arise are normal and can help enhance authentic learning together if shared. Participants are asked to lean into their own discomfort and honor the space for others to do the same.

• Step up, step back: A learning circle is most effective when all voices can be heard. If you find yourself speaking often, step back and create space for others to share their ideas. If you’re someone who prefers to listen, push yourself to speak out and share at least once per meeting.

• Keep it confidential: What happens in the learning circle stays in the learning circle. Respect the privacy of your fellow participants and don’t share others’ stories without consent.

Setting Goals for Learning

Shared goals can strengthen engagement within groups and help participants to overcome conflicts when they arise. Common ground opens the door for dialogue! This activity has three steps that can be adapted according to the number of participants in your learning circle:

1. First, each participant writes one to three personal goals.

2. Next, participants pair up and combine their ideas to define shared objectives.

3. Finally, all pairs disclose their ideas and the group defines its collective desired outcomes through discussions.

Group norms are not just for the first day - you can revisit them at the end or beginning of subsequent meetings to make sure that your group norms still fit your group’s needs. It's okay for the group to change them to make sure that the learning circle continues to be a comfortable and fair exchange of ideas and information.

Because the learning circle model is designed to support facilitators who aren't experts in the material, it can be tough to know how to choose the right course.

For facilitators evaluating materials, here are a few key points to consider:

• Open Access: Far more than being free to use, open access allows for the 5 R's: retaining, reusing, revising, remixing, and redistributing. Open access allows for knowledge sharing and adapting in ways that simply isn't possible with proprietary courses, even if they are freely available. A Creative Commons license is a good sign! Note: many free courses aren't always available: make sure it aligns with your schedule. (OER = Open Educational Resources).

• Clear Prerequisites: Even the most basic course has pre-requisites (time, literacy). Ensuring alignment between the stated goals of the course and what is expected beforehand is important.

• No Additional Materials Required: There's nothing more discouraging than beginning a course only to learn that there is an expectation that you have access to software or a book that aren't freely available to everyone in the learning circle.

• High Quality of Instruction: Are the course materials and the platform intuitive to use? Who wrote the material? Where does it come from?

• Adaptability to learning circles: Do the activities make sense being done together as group work? Is information shared in a linear format that will be easily adaptable to group study?

• Acceptable Workload: Does the weekly time commitment and duration of the course align with your expectations? It's totally fine to decide that you'll only work through part of a course; just make sure you set a reasonable goal for participants.

P2PU's team moderates on our website to make sure this content is open and freely available. We do our best to remove content that is unsuitable for a learning circle (such as for-profit trainings and advertisements) or that is otherwise in violation of . If you have any feedback on the learning resources included on our website, let us know at !

Accessibility Considerations

Particularly when meeting online or in a space where digital resources can't be provided for participants, it's important to keep accessibility in mind when assessing learning materials:

• Support for low bandwidth: If your learners don’t have reliable internet connections at home, courses with fewer videos and interactive elements might be more accessible.

• Mobile-friendly: Many learners may not have a computer but can still participate via a smartphone or tablet. Fortunately, some course providers (including edX, FutureLearn, Coursera, and Udacity) offer mobile apps.

• Digital literacy: Will learners need guidance or tech support to navigate a course website on their own?

Learning circles are built on open, equitable, and peer-based values. P2PU’s community of facilitators enact these values by identifying their communities’ learning needs, using free resources in their library/community spaces, developing their co-learning practice, and meeting other facilitators who share these values.

P2PU supports facilitators in deepening the organic, collaborative, and supportive relationships that sustain this community of practice:

• We host events each month for facilitators to ask questions and get support, and we host community events on topics chosen by P2PU’s Team members.

• We gather facilitators’ feedback through to make sure your can benefit every learning circle that follows.

• We offer a for facilitators to ask questions, share resources, discuss courses, and collaborate on issues as they arise.

• We maintain that make facilitation easier for non-experts, and many of these guides are created and submitted by community members.

Our community is built on facilitators’ participation, and our learning circles are stronger for it. Help us strengthen our community! Attend an , sign up for our , and share stories from your learning circle on,, and. #learningcircles

Facilitator Functionality

Adding or inviting a facilitator to your team will enable a variety functions:

• Their P2PU profile image will appear on your team page

• Any learning circle they create will show up on your team page

• Their learning circle signup pages will list an affiliation with your team and include a link back to your team page

• They will see details about all learning circles happening on the team on their dashboard, and they'll have the option to opt into weekly team summary emails

• They will be able to create learning circles using any proprietary courses that have been added to the P2PU courses page by their team members

Adding Team Members

Once your P2PU account is set up as an organizer, you will see a new block on your learning circle dashboard called Team Management, where you can view and invite members to your team.

‌There are three ways to invite people to join your team:

1. Automatically through email domain: If your team is associated with an organization that has its own email domain, P2PU can save the email domain in your team settings so that any new facilitator with a validated matching email address will automatically receive an invitation to join your team. For example, if your team members all have staff emails such as [email protected], you can set bigpubliclibrary.org as your team domain so that when [email protected] registers on the P2PU platform, they’ll be automatically invited to join.

2. Email invitation: You can send invitations directly via email from your dashboard. If the recipient already has a P2PU account, they will be prompted to join your team. If they do not, they will be asked to create a P2PU account and then prompted to join your team.

Pending Invitations

Invitations that have been sent via Option 1 or Option 2 will be visible in the “pending invitations” tab until the user accepts or rejects the invitation.

Removing Team Members

Organizers can remove team members through the same management table. When a team member is removed, learning circles that they facilitated as part of your team will continue to show up as past learning circles for your team. If you'd like to remove these reach out to us.

Facilitator Profiles

All P2PU account holders can update their profiles through . In addition to appearing on learning circle signup pages, their avatar will also appear on the team page carousel. Team members who have uploaded a photo will appear first, followed by others with a placeholder image (example below). Organizers should encourage facilitators to add an image so that they can be fully featured on their team site!

Learning journals are designed to help learners reflect upon what they have learned, deepen their understanding, and make their notes more accessible when needed. Learning Journals comprise five unique components, three of which remain the same for every course.

1. Weekly Reflection: A recurring reflection that asks learners to share a reaction, insight, and/or question that they are taking away from the learning circle session. (This question is is the same for each course and need not change each week).

2. Weekly Prompt: A content-specific question that serves as an opportunities for learners to reflect on the course materials in their own words, and to connect it to past learning experiences. (Use our discussion question bank to help develop these questions).

3. Final Reflection: A final reflection on the course that asks participants to describe their experiences, reflection on their initial expectations, and share their next steps in 1-2 pages. (This reflection is the same for every course).

4. Final Assignment: An independent project that should take participants 6-8 hours to complete. This may require engaging with supplemental materials outside of the learning circle.

5. Course Review: A paragraph-long reflection on the course materials (this review is the same for every course).

Submission For Credit: In order to receive credit, make sure this entire journal is filled out and send a copy of your journal to within three weeks of your final learning circle meeting.

Learning Journal Template

Curated Course Lists

Sometimes, teams want to limit the selection of courses that their facilitator community can choose from. So long as you've done your homework to ensure that the courses you're selecting are desirable for your community, this can be a good practice for a few reasons:

• It removes a step in the process for facilitators who are just getting started

• It allows the team to prioritize topics that align with other strategic goals

• It creates a shared space for facilitators to work together and share feedback on the same courses

This functionality will expanded in the coming months so that it can be handled directly from the organizer dashboard. For now, we do this by adding a tag to courses that you want to feature (). You can add tags to courses that you add; if you want us to add a tag to an existing course in our library just reach out.

Proprietary Course Management

P2PU regularly moderates the list of online courses available in the to remove courses that are not open or freely accessible to the public. However, many institutions have memberships or licenses for paid course vendors that their patrons can access and that they might want to use for learning circles. In this case, the P2PU staff will flag a course as “proprietary” which means it will no longer appear on the public course page search but will still be visible to all teammates of the person who added the course to the library.

P2PU offers a free system for creating and managing learning circle meetings. Once you've created a P2PU account and decided what learning circle you want to run, you can create your learning circle and publish it to the world.

Create a learning circle:

P2PU offers additional functionality for institutions that are running learning circles across multiple locations or with a network of multiple facilitators. Each P2PU Team is led by an organizer who works closely with P2PU to ensure that facilitators in their area have everything they need to run learning circles.‌

Teams are granted the following features and functionality, as detailed throughout this section:

• Customizable learning circle team website (see )

• Weekly internal email with team updates and reflections

There are five types of data that are gathered during a learning circle, all of which is aggregated and shared with facilitators when the learning circle is completed.

• Information about the learning circle (gathered when created by the facilitator)

• Sign up info (input by learners)

• Weekly reflections (from facilitator)

With support from Walmart, P2PU, College Unbound, and Providence Public Library have developed a pathway from library-based learning circles to college credit. For now, this project is only open to individuals who have participated in a P2PU credit-bearing learning circle training (see upcoming events) using free online Courses Approved for Credit by College Unbound.

The primary difference between standard learning circles and learning circles for credit is that credit-seeking participants must complete a personal learning journal, which includes a weekly reflection, a wrap-up activity in their learning circle, and a few assignments that are part of the course.

Before the Learning Circle Begins

1. Participate in a P2PU credit-bearing learning circle training ( or ).

2. Create a learning circle using one of the , or .

3. Email us at [email protected] to add your learning circle to the for increased promotional visibility.

4. Add information about credit to your signup page and promotional materials.

Participants in this learning circle have the option to earn college credit from College Unbound. In order to earn credit, you must complete a learning journal while participating in the learning circle. For more information, .

During the Learning Circle

1. During the first meeting, make sure everybody who wants to apply for credit has their own copy of the learning journal, referring to as needed.

2. Remind participants that you will not be grading or correcting the learning journal. Submit any questions about learning journals and the credit process to [email protected].

3. Throughout the learning circle, check in with participants seeking credit to make sure they are completing their weekly learning journal questions.

Nominating a Course for Credit

If you're interested in proposing a new course for college credit, complete . We will respond to you within two days, and if we approve your proposal, P2PU will help you create a for the course.

When nominating a course using the form, please keep the following in mind:

1. More is better, even if sketchy: The more information you give us on the form, including your initial ideas and questions, the better we will be able to guide you on setting up this learning circle. In other words, this form isn’t a test but a tool to help us help you create an awesome learning circle through which participants can earn college credit.

2. Links to the supporting MOOCs, resources, sites, etc are super helpful for us.

3. When answering the questions about learning outcomes, levels, and Big 10 competencies, just go with your best guess. Don’t stress over these questions.

To find courses that have already been approved, visit.

The Facilitator Dashboard is the space you see when you sign in to your P2PU account. From here, you can create and manage your learning circles and see what else is happening around the community.

See the dashboard: https://learningcircles.p2pu.org/en/

Sections of the Dashboard

Member Learning Circles

Members of our Teams program have access to learning circles hosted by P2PU staff. Learn more about the Teams membership program .

My Learning Circles

This section of your Dashboard shows the learning circles you are facilitating. One tab lists your Active & Upcoming learning circles, and a second tab lists your Completed learning circles. If you don’t have any yet, click “Start a learning circle” to create one.

Courses I've Added

As a facilitator, you can add online courses to the P2PU platform to use in a learning circle. This table shows the courses that you have added, along with a link to go to the course editing page for each one. Visit our website to .

My Team's Learning Circles

You only have this table if you are part of a Team. It shows all of the learning circles facilitated by members of your Team.

If you are part of a larger organization that is running learning circles (such as Chicago Public Library), you should contact your learning circle organizer to make sure that you are added to the team. This will ensure that information about your learning circles is shared with them and that you have access to this section on your Dashboard.

Joining a Team

Some elements of the dashboard are only visible to members of a Team. (More )

Joining a Team means:

• Your learning circles will appear on your Team’s learning circle page, making it easier for people in your community to find your learning circles.

• You’ll be informed of other learning circles happening across your Team through your dashboard and a weekly update. (You can configure email communications in account settings).

• Your email address will be visible to other members of your Team in the weekly update.

P2PU offers additional support to Teams members, including members-only learning circles, extra features, staff onboarding sessions, and other professional development opportunities.

One-on-One Support

Teams members can make a one-on-one appointment with our Partnerships Lead, Q Goss, by logging into the dashboard.

Facilitators can also get help by emailing us at [email protected], filling out our contact form on the website, and attending our public monthly facilitator calls. Subscribe to our community calendar on our events page.

Adding a co-facilitator

is a great way to share facilitation responsibilities with colleagues, and Teams members have the added benefit of adding co-facilitators to their learning circles. This feature provides equal permissions to all co-facilitators to edit the learning circle, delete the learning circle, and receive all learners' messages.

Teams members can add a co-facilitator during the final step of the learning circle creation process. Teams members can also email P2PU at [email protected] to request that we add co-facilitators to a learning circle.

You can edit your learning circle to add or remove co-facilitators at any time, and co-facilitators will receive a message when they are added to or removed from the learning circle.

Co-facilitator profiles will appear on the learning circle signup page. All co-facilitators will be mentioned in the signup message sent to learners, and all co-facilitator email addresses will be cc'd in messages to learners.

Co-facilitators will receive a single survey at the end of their learning circle, and we recommend that co-facilitators collaborate to share their insights.

Each team is set up with a unique learning circle landing page hosted on P2PU.org (p2pu.org/your-team) which includes an introduction to your learning circle program, a gallery of your facilitators, and a searchable list of your team's current and past learning circles. (See Current Teams for site examples)

All active learning circles happening across your team will automatically appear below the header.

Editing Your Team Site

To change information on the Team page, organizers can visit the dashboard and click the "Edit Team Information" in the bottom right corner of the Team Management module. If you need to change the team name or URL, please email .

P2PU uses surveys at the beginning and end of each learning circle to document the successes, opportunities, and limitations of learning circles in a way that is not intrusive to the values of community, peer learning, and equity that we seek to cultivate.

This information is collected automatically using a combination of P2PU’s own software and integrated Typeform surveys. P2PU data collection and retention practices are compliant with GDPR, as outlined in our .

Facilitator Surveys

Learning Circle Promo Kit

Our contains flyer templates, icons, patterns, and tips for collaging images in Google Slides.

Each of these courses is eligible for credit from College Unbound. To start a learning circle using one of these courses, search for it on P2PU's and create a learning circle as you would for any other course.

If you're interested in , complete .

Learning circles connect people around a topic of common interest, supported by freely accessible learning resources. While the group's facilitator is not expected to be an expert in the subject, it's the facilitator's job to identify these resources before the learning circle begins.

Many facilitators use free online courses for subject material because they are designed in a linear format that is easily adaptable to group study. While these so-called MOOCs ("Massive open online courses") work quite well as the content basis for learning circles, there is a broad world of openly-available information that comes in all shapes and sizes. With some time and practice, nearly any learning resource can be adapted to the learning circle model, from YouTube playlists to software tutorials to the US Citizenship Exam website. (See )

Regardless of where the content comes from, there is no such thing as a perfect course! No matter how well content is arranged, a course will never know you as a person, help you make decisions, or tell you when you need to look for answers somewhere else. The learning circle format and the power of peer learning do a lot of work to create a great learning experience. At its best, a course is a starting point for a community of learners to reach common goal, wherever that path may lead.

Facilitator guides are weekly agendas that facilitators can use to adapt online course materials to the learning circle format.

Here are some examples of facilitator guides that we love:

• 1619 Project by Ulonda and Hilary

• 21-Day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge by Ulonda and Hilary

• by Deb

• by P2PU

If you create a facilitator guide (no matter how simple or detailed!), you can share it back with the community by emailing it to .

Read on to learn more about ways to use facilitator guides!

Adapting online courses

Many online courses are designed for individual study, and this material doesn't always fit neatly into a learning circle structure. Here are some ways you can use facilitator guides to adapt courses to a learning circle format:

• Add , , and to deepen learners' engagement with the course content

• Change the length of time devoted to covering a section of the course

  • Example: A free online course is structured into 4 weeks of 2-hour-long sessions, but your learning circle group can only meet for 60 minutes at a time. Use a facilitator guide to break up the content into 8 weeks of 60-minute-long sessions.

Take collective notes

Share an editable version of the guide with learning circle participants so that you can keep track of the knowledge that co-learners contribute. Some facilitators find that learners enjoy keeping records of particularly invigorating conversations between learners.

Keep track of questions

Facilitators are co-learners, not subject matter experts, and learners will often ask questions without a clear answer. Use the Reflection section of the facilitator guide to keep track of these questions, and check in at the beginning of sessions by asking learners to contribute the answers they found.

Save helpful resources

Over the course of the learning circle, learners will encounter videos, articles, books, and other resources to supplement their learning. Use the facilitator guide to save these resources for learners to find later.

Finding Facilitator Guides

You can search for all courses with facilitator guides on our . For courses with facilitation guides, you can find the guide by visiting the "More Details" link.

Facilitator Guide Template

Facilitators are free to follow whatever process they like! You can create these with any tool you like, including Google Docs, Dropbox Paper, or P2PU’s hosted version of.

P2PU follows this standard template when making new facilitator guides:

This template is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 and can be freely duplicated, modified, rearranged, or whatever else needed to plan a learning circle. .

Facilitating a learning circle requires about 3 hours per week on the part of the facilitator, most of which is spent in the actual learning circle. In addition to that, some time is often needed for set up, clean-up (if meeting in person), communicating with learners between each meeting, and familiarizing with the upcoming week of course materials.

Below is a recommended checklist that outlines the steps needed to get your learning circle running. We recommend that you schedule your first learning circle at least four weeks in the future, but you can compress or expand this timeline to suit your needs. If you don’t already have a dedicated group of learners, we recommend spending four weeks promoting your learning circle once you’ve finalized the date, time, course, and location.

First Steps

• by connecting with your own goals, your community, or your colleagues to identify the learning objectives and audience you want to support with your learning circle

• Decide your learning circle details:

  • Choice of course, learning materials, and/or

  • Number of meetings and length of each session

  • Meeting Dates & Times
• Confirm supplies will be available (laptops, headphones, pens, nametags, snacks, etc.)

• Reach out to affiliated or relevant local organizations to share your plans and look for advertising opportunities

4 weeks prior

• Create your learning circle using P2PU's free tools (see )

• Begin promoting online and offline (see )

• Connect with local communities to find prospective participants (see )

2 weeks prior

• Begin making a by exploring the learning materials and creating an outline for how you want to proceed through the materials

  • We recommend using the last session of the learning circle to review the facilitator guide with learners. This wrap-up activity is an opportunity for collective reflection. You can share your guide by emailing it to us at [email protected] - we'll add it to our website to help future facilitators.

• Visit your learning circle's management page to check in on your current number of of registrations and close sign-ups if needed (see )

1 week prior

• Follow up with all registered learners to make sure they plan to attend, ask about accessibility considerations, and make plans for any technical troubleshooting (as needed)

• If in-person, confirm reservations with your meeting venue

• Gather supplies

Before each meeting

• Edit reminder messages – these will be sent automatically 2 days before the meeting and will include an RSVP link and information about the meeting space (unless you choose to edit that out)

After each meeting

• Capture feedback and communication with learners

  • Facilitators will receive an email notification after each meeting prompting them to reflect on the meeting.

  • Additionally, facilitators can send a recap message to learners to recap what was discussed during the meeting and loop in participants who could not attend.

Final learning circle meeting

• Review and share your

  • During the last session of your learning circle, invite your class to review your facilitator guide with you. This is an opportunity to reflect collectively on the structure and activities that worked best from week to week.

  • When you're finished reviewing your facilitator guide, please share it with our community by emailing it to ! We would love to share your experiences to help future facilitators.

What makes a learning circle “credit worthy”?

It’s a combination of three things: a facilitator who has been onboarded, a library or partner that has agreed to participate, and a course that has been vetted by College Unbound.

How are credit-bearing circles different from “normal” learning circles?

Learners seeking credit will need to complete a learning journal, which includes a weekly reflection, a wrap-up activity in their learning circle, and a few assignments that are part of the course. All of this information is included in each learning journal for the course.

Can anybody sign up for the credit-bearing learning circles?

Yes, these learning circles are open to the public. Not all participants need to be seeking credit. There is no age limit for participants who wish to participate for credit.

Do participants need to have a high school diploma or equivalency to obtain credit from College Unbound?

No diploma or high school equivalency is necessary to obtain credit. However, if a learner decides to enroll in a degree seeking program at college unbound there are different requirements.

How do learners apply for credit?

Participants must submit their learner journals via email within 3 weeks of completing their learning circle. Instructions for submission are included in each journal. For participants who need to submit via mail, please contact for more information.

Is there a cost for learners in applying for credit?

There is no cost for learners to apply for or receive credit for learning circles. If for some reason you need an official College Unbound transcript, it will cost $2.25 to $3.50, but College Unbound does not require that you purchase an official transcript.

How much more time does it take to facilitate a credit-bearing learning circle?

It shouldn’t take more than an extra 30-60 minutes per week. Any credit-related questions should be directed to College Unbound, so the main difference for the facilitator is just reminding those on the credit track to do their weekly reflections.

Do I need to tell anybody before I run a credit-bearing learning circle?

No. Once you’ve completed a P2PU training, you are free to run credit-bearing learning circles whenever you want.

Do I have to do anything to verify that participants have attended meetings or completed all of their assignments?

Facilitators are not required to monitor or grade any of the learning journal reflections or assignments. You may be contacted to verify that a learner participated in the learning circle, but you will not be required to account for weekly attendance data.

Can I alter the duration of the learning circle?

Each course has a required minimum number of meetings and a recommended cadence. You can choose whatever tempo you want for your meetings (e.g. weekly, 2x week) or add additional meetings, but you cannot shorten the number of meetings. Longer learning circles are not eligible for additional credit.

Can participants take multiple learning circles for credit?

Participants can join as many learning circles as they want, but they can only earn credit for each course once. In other words, if there are six courses approved for college credit, participants may earn up to six college credits.

Will there be more courses?

Yes! We’re working on it now. If there’s a particular subject or course that you’d like to see please let us know at .

Does running a credit-bearing LC make me faculty at College Unbound?

No. If you are interested in becoming a faculty member at College Unbound, please see .

Are learning circle participants automatically enrolled at College Unbound?

No, they are being awarded credit as non-degree-seeking community members. If participants wish to apply this credit to a CU degree, they should reach out to for more information. If a learner decides to enroll in a degree seeking program at college unbound there are additional requirements that will need to be met. Learners who wish to enroll in a degree seeking program will also need to be able to attend classes in Rhode Island, either Providence or Newport at least once per week.

Is there a cost for seeking a degree?

Learners who wish to obtain a degree from College Unbound will be responsible for paying tuition for their classes at college unbound post-enrollment.

How can I promote a credit-bearing learning circle?

Our colleagues at College Unbound have created this to help you promote your credit-bearing learning circle on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

You can also find a general guide to promoting learning circles in the section of the Knowledge Base.

At the end of every learning circle, learners and facilitators automatically receive an email with a survey asking them to reflect upon the goal they first set, feedback about the learning circle (what worked well vs. what could be improved), and what their next steps will be. (See Evaluation Surveys)

The survey responses are used to generate a “learning circle insights” summary (example) that is shared with the facilitator, team organizers, and learners as well as on the public facilitator dashboard for others to learn from.

Survey Notifications

Facilitators can check their learning circle's management page to see which participants have completed the survey. P2PU only sends out one email to participants about filling out the closing survey (see Messages), so many facilitators like to send a small nudge to remind learners to give feedback:

Example email template:

Hi there,

Can you take a few minutes to let me know how your learning circle went? Your feedback - the good and the bad - will improve the learning circle program for learners and facilitators around the world.

Share your feedback here: <survey link>

Thank you!

For additional insights, facilitators can consider distributing their own survey using a free tool like Google Forms.

Certificates & Accreditation

P2PU does not officially issue any kind of accreditation or formal education certificates for participation in learning circles. Some courses offer various types of endorsement though learners often have to pay the course provider for a copy.

A number of facilitators like to give certificates at the end of a learning circle to help connote a sense of achievement and stronger connection between the library/learning center and learner. If you want to recognize and celebrate learners’ achievements, you can use or customize our .

Next Steps

Once the learning circle ends, the surveys are completed, and the facilitator has some time to digest... what's next?

• Run another learning circle: Every foray into facilitation informs the next. Consider running the learning circle again and experimenting with new techniques. Or try a new topic altogether!

• Improve the course: Every course added to the P2PU library gets an where facilitators can share their feedback and ideas on using the materials in learning circles. These discussions also appear on the course's page in the library and help inform future facilitators on how to best bring that material to their community. Experienced facilitators are encouraged to offer advice and thoughts in these threads!

• Write about the experience: Many people are forging their own paths through this unfamiliar territory, and a very common request is for more case studies and insights from experienced facilitators. Every facilitator's stories are welcome and encouraged in our

Learning circles work best when learners can identify what motivates their participation, and the same is true for the facilitator. As you begin thinking about the learning circles you want to run, here are some questions you can ask to set your intent:

• What are you personally hoping to achieve by facilitating a learning circle?

• What need are you trying to address in your community?

• Who do you expect to reach?

• How will you know if your experiment was a success?

Once you’ve established your personal goals for a learning circle, you’ll want to start sharing your ideas and gathering buy-in from people who will help you along the way. This may include reaching out to people who you think might want to participate, organizations that might help you promote your learning circle, or a group that you are part of that can give you feedback on your idea. You are also, of course, welcome to reach out to P2PU at any time if you want our input!

Identifying Community Interests

If your goal is to run programs that support the needs of your local community, you may want to gather insights and interests from prospective learners. By working with partner organizations and networks, building strong relationships between you and people around you, and outreaching to specific audiences, you’ll be much better suited to know what people in your local area want to learn and how to reach them.

Community outreach can be done successfully in a variety of ways, in-person and online, and will often depend on your unique resources and circumstances. Here are some popular tools and strategies:

• Promotion: Use organizational or local mailing lists, neighborhood apps (like ), local social media groups, or other local outreach lists to reach a number of people in your community with questions or surveys. We use Google Forms frequently at P2PU and have a that you can riff off of for your own uses. Collaborative polling tool like are also great for starting conversations between respondents.

• Focus Groups: In Kenya, libraries run as part of their learning circle training. They get a quick idea of what their local library patrons are interested in and their digital literacy skills which they can use for discussion as they continue their training workshop. Some libraries have offered a learning circle teaser or public orientation where they introduce the concept of learning circles through an informal meeting or large presentation and, through these meetings, they also receive feedback about what people are interested in learning

The Q Method

P2PU's go-to strategy for soliciting interest in learning circle topics is The Q Method, an asynchronous dot-based voting methodology that can be used in-person or online. The Q Method is named after Qumisha (a.k.a. Q) Goss, a librarian from Detroit Public Library who came up with the idea as a way to promote learning circles at her library branch. (She now works with P2PU full-time—hi Q!)

The Q Method is a participatory public bulletin, traditionally created using paper, tape, and dot stickers. The board documents and displays community interests on specific topics, online courses, or ideas.

The Q Method not only invites community contribution for deciding topics, it also helps promote upcoming programs to everyone who wanders by the poster. This concept has been re-used by learning circle facilitators around the world, and can also have applications for other community feedback issues, such as strategic planning, programming decision-making, and understanding community satisfaction and engagement.

Dot voting is an established facilitation method used to describe voting with dot stickers or marks with a marker pen. For more information, check out .

Q Method Templates & Examples

If you want to use the Q Method in person, we've created a few templates you can use, modify, or reimagine with your own designs or topics. They're all built in Google Slides so you won't need to download any programs to modify them, just a Google-compatible account.

To edit your own copy, click "view template" underneath the previews below; once you've opened the file, navigate to File > Make Copy to save a version in your own Google Drive.

Facilitators around the world have adapted this strategy to collect ideas for their learning circle programs. Visit our forums to

Virtual Q Method

To try the Q Method online, you can use a standard survey tool (such as , , or ) where responses are aggregated and shared with you privately, or you can use a collaborative polling tool (such as , , or ) where responses are shared publicly.

P2PU has created two Google Forms templates with different sets of topics based on the P2PU Q Method poster template shared above. You van view and make copies of them below:

View live form: Make a copy:

View live form: Make a copy:

You can submit test responses to these surveys if you’d like to try them out, but please make your own copies before distributing to your community to avoid any security issues with learner contact info. Feel free to make any and all changes that you need to!

When learning circles first began in Chicago in 2015, we didn’t have any tools and software. We just worked with librarians to find online courses and helped them become better facilitators. Over time, as the project has grown, we have iteratively developed a number of tools and resources to create an online ecosystem for learning circle facilitators. These tools are designed to improve the experience for facilitators and learners alike. On the one hand, we aim to make organizing face-to-face meetings easier by simplifying promotion, sending reminders, aggregating data, etc. On the other hand, we seek to create a strong, networked, community where a learning circle in one city can benefit, in a small way, from the fact that learning circles are also happening elsewhere. Learning circles have been successful so far not just because we have developed a single resource, but because there is a vibrant community of practice that has formed around a series of tools and resources.

Our tools address the needs of three different groups:

1. Learners: People participating in learning circles.

2. Facilitators: People facilitating learning circles.

3. Organizers: People organizing several learning circles across a town, city, or country as part of a . (Often, the organizer is also a facilitator).

Learners can:

• Browse learning circles available in their area.

• Sign up for a learning circle.

• RSVP for weekly learning circle meetings.

• Complete a survey on their experience taking the learning circle.

Facilitators can:

• Use a step by step dialog to guide them through creating a learning circle.

• See who signed up, when meetings are scheduled, who can come, etc.

• Send messages to learners.

• Customize weekly reminders.

Organizers can:

• See feedback from facilitators on weekly meetings.

• See what meetings are happening each week.

• Receive weekly updates on what happened in learning circles the previous week.

• Manage learning circles and facilitators.

Using the tools

Learners do not need a P2PU account in order to join a learning circle.

To facilitate or organize learning circles, you’ll first need to create a P2PU account, which you can do from the P2PU homepage or .

After setting your password you will be logged in and redirected to your learning circle dashboard.

The tools are hosted online and can be accessed from

All the source code is release under the MIT license and can be found on .

Communication and Feedback

Feedback is an important part of peer learning, and P2PU’s tools help gather and share information between learners, facilitators, and the P2PU team across the learning circle. P2PU holds user privacy to the utmost importance and we are compliant with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

You can learn how to view, edit, and create messages by visiting . Here is the type of communication that you can expect during a learning circle:

At sign up

When creating a learning circle, facilitators are prompted to state their goals for leading a learning circle and ask any questions or concerns they might have. Their responses are shared with a group of people that can assist a facilitator. Similarly, when learners sign up, they are asked what their goals are for joining a learning circle. They are then introduced to their facilitator in an email containing their answers to the signup questions.

During the learning circle

Each week, a reminder message is automatically sent to learners two days beforehand via email or SMS. Before the reminder is sent, you have the opportunity to log into their dashboard and customize the message. After each weekly meeting, you can record a weekly reflection on their dashboard and send it to your learners and/or P2PU.

Upon completion

At the end of a learning circle, learners and facilitators receive an email with a link to a survey that asks everyone to reflect upon the goal they first set, what worked well, what could be improved, and what their next steps will be.

The responses to the surveys are used to generate a summary of the learning circle, we call this the “learning circle insights” (). The learning circle insights are shared with the facilitator, any team organizers, and all the registered learners by email and is made public for other facilitators and learners to see.

Once a new learning circle has been created (either as a draft or after being published), P2PU will automatically generate a sign-up page and a private management page associated with that learning circle.

The facilitator will receive a confirmation email with links to both the sign-up page and the private management page, which can also be accessed through their dashboard in the My Learning Circles section.

Sections of the Management Page

Menu Tools

The top section of the page shows a preview of the learning circle's information: title, image, facilitator info, link to the course materials, and meeting details.

Below that is a yellow bar containing the following tools:

• Edit: Return to the to update any information previously entered.

• View: See the live learning circle sign-up page.

• Add Meeting: Quickly add a new meeting to the learning circle. This will add a section for that meeting on the management page and automatically generate an editable reminder message for that meeting.

Learners

All registered learners will appear in the Learners section of your dashboard. This will display the learner's full name and any contact information—email and/or phone—they've shared during sign-up. There are three buttons linked to each learner:

The Add Learner button can be used to manually add participants to a learning circle. This only allows for adding a participant's name and contact information, not their answers to the sign-up questions. Note that this will automatically send a welcome message to the participant to let them know they've joined a learning circle.

If you would like to add multiple learners to your learning circle at the same time, click the Add Learner button, then choose Click here to add multiple learners at once. This feature is particularly useful for learning circles that use physical signup sheets for learners.

Messages

The Messages section of your Learning Circle management page allows you to view, edit, and create reminders for your participants. This section displays the reminder messages that will be automatically generated for each meeting as well as any messages the facilitator sends to their learners manually.

Meeting reminders are automatically generated when a meeting is created, either during the learning circle's initial creation or when added afterwards. These messages can be edited from the Messages table or in the individual meeting's section of the meeting manager.

Manual messages allow the facilitator to send out information to all registered learners at any time via email or SMS. These messages will be sent immediately and cannot be scheduled to go out in the future. Manual messages have P2PU branding on them, and they will CC the facilitator and BCC all other recipients.

Facilitators can choose to manually send meeting recap messages to send out information to all registered learners after a meeting. These messages can be used to review what happened, share resources, and prepare for upcoming meetings.

Meeting Manager

The meeting manager offers another way to manage automated and manual email reminders.

The expanded Wrap Up section displays whether participants have taken the learner survey and provides a link to Learning Circle insights ().

Communication and Feedback

Feedback is an important part of peer learning, and P2PU’s tools help gather and share information between learners, facilitators, and the P2PU team across the learning circle. P2PU holds user privacy to the utmost importance and we are compliant with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Here is the type of communication that you can expect during a learning circle:

At sign up

When creating a learning circle, facilitators are prompted to state their goals for leading a learning circle and ask any questions or concerns they might have. Their responses are shared with a group of people that can assist a facilitator. Similarly, when learners sign up, they are asked what their goals are for joining a learning circle. They are then introduced to their facilitator in an email containing their answers to the signup questions.

During the learning circle

Each week, a reminder message is automatically sent to learners two days beforehand via email or SMS. Before the reminder is sent, you have the opportunity to log into their dashboard and customize the message. After each weekly meeting, you can record a weekly reflection on their dashboard and send it to your learners and/or P2PU.

Upon completion

At the end of a learning circle, learners and facilitators receive an email with a link to a survey that asks everyone to reflect upon the goal they first set, what worked well, what could be improved, and what their next steps will be.

The responses to the surveys are used to generate a summary of the learning circle, we call this the “learning circle insights” (). The learning circle insights are shared with the facilitator, any team organizers, and all the registered learners by email and is made public for other facilitators and learners to see.

A consistent meeting space goes a long way towards establishing a learning circle as a comfortable learning environment. Whether meeting online or in person, the best meeting spaces are reliable, accessible, and have limited distractions.

Meeting In Person

The most important consideration when meeting in person if whether or not a space supports the necessary equipment for a learning circle subject. At minimum, the space should have enough chairs and room for all participants to sit in a circle. For some topics, it may be useful or necessary to have additional equipment such as a projector to share video content with the group. If the topic is more technical, participants may need to have access to a computer.

So how should you go about finding course materials not already in the P2PU library? Beyond Googling "free online course in [topic]", (which honestly works pretty well), there are a few discovery sites that we often turn to when looking for learning circle course content.

• Class Central is the most popular search engine and reviews site for free online courses.

• Community College Consortium for OER keeps an updated list of the most popular OER repositories, disambiguated by media type.

• allow you to search by usage rights for content published to the Internet under an open license.

• searches for OER from 22 different sources of open educational materials.

• provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools.

• provides high quality online educational resources for teaching and learning, with current emphasis on the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

• is a metasearch tool that searches open content from 117 different sources.

• aggregates open educational resources developed in Africa.

• is a public digital library of open educational resources with tools to to create and collaborate on new resources.

• allows you to search for OER initiatives by geography.

• is a blog that curates the best free cultural and educational media on the web.

​Online Course Creators

To understand the various players in the world of free, online learning, it's helpful to distinguish between the production of course materials (commonly called "courseware") and the dissemination of the course (often through a learning management system). Some well-resourced universities do both production and dissemination, such as (MIT), (Carnegie Mellon), (Open University), (Hasso Plattner Institute), and (Wisconsin's Technical Colleges). Materials shared in this manner are almost universally open access, meaning that you can download course materials, remix them, and basically do whatever you want with them.

Other universities (and increasingly, businesses) enter into agreements with third-party organizations to host and disseminate their courseware. In exchange, the courses become available on the terms of the disseminating organization. Sometimes, as is the case with , there is a clear commitment to open access and you can rest assured that course material will remain freely available in perpetuity.

More often, as is the case with , , , and , an account is required to access course materials, certain courses may not be available all of the time, and some resources may even be put behind a paywall. A number of universities that work this way, including , , , , and retain open access versions of the courseware on their websites. The user experience may not be as good as when it's hosted on edX or Coursera (sometimes it's just a .zip file of PDFs), but you may find the content easier/more reliable to access.

There are plenty of non-academic organizations that create their own free online courses, either through in-house learning design or by contracting out to subject matter experts. Some, like , , , , and , provide course materials in a wide array of subjects. Other times, organizations develop course materials exclusively in certain topics, such as digital literacy (, ), psychology (), science and engineering (, ), social change (), US history (, ), workforce development (, ), web design and development (, , ), and writing (). BCcampus Open Education maintains an which lists a wide range of open educational resources organized by discipline.

Commonly Used Non-Course Resources

The type of content that can be used as the basis for learning circles extends far beyond what you think about when you think about "online courses". While using the materials presented in this section may require a bit more adaptation up front, many successful learning circles have been run using the nearly infinite breadth of material freely available on the web. Common types of resources include:

Open textbooks are generally designed for university study, but they provide an incredible amount of information about a wide variety of topics. Some of the most popular publishers/curators of open textbooks include , , , , and .

With a few well thought-out discussion prompts a book group can certainly be a learning circle. There are millions of freely available books that have been digitized are available to download or borrow from , and . Public domain audiobooks are available on .

Lots of free/open source software projects have extensive online tutorials and communities that can serve as the basis for a successful learning circle. Try for 3D design, for graphic design and photo editing, and for coding.

Many exam prep websites include free practice tests and additional resources to support test takers. Successful learning circles have been run using freely available materials from the and high school equivalency exams, citizenship test, and registered nursing exam.

The internet is your friend! Blogs, video series (like ), , databases, and archives can all serve as the basis of content for your learning circle. A few of our favorite reference sites are , , , , , , and of course, and .

A Note About Proprietary/Subscription Content

If your library/institution pays licensing fees for proprietary resources like , , or , then you are of course free to use those materials for learning circles so long as none of the cost is borne by the learner. You can add these courses to the P2PU course library, but they will only be visible to you and fellow team members, as the purpose of the P2PU database is to surface materials that are freely available to everyone.

No two learning circles are alike! Ultimately, it's up to the group to decide how they want to work through their learning materials. Below are a few common practices that help reinforce a peer learning environment and prevent facilitators from slipping into the role of a teacher.

Check-In

Starting and finishing each meeting as a group is a core component of learning circles. A consistent check-in warms up the group and is a reliable way to build community, recap previous sessions, and set expectations for the meeting.

A good check-in can:

For those who can't find the right course or who have knowledge they want to share in learning circles, this section outlines how to design and publish an online course for learning circles.

Whether a subject matter expert or a motivated hobbyist, we believe anyone can assemble high-quality learning materials that can be shared with learning communities around the world. Along the way, you’ll also:

• Learn new skills: Creating a course is a great way to practice and refine a number of skills, including learning design and web development.

• Participate in our community: Course creators are invited to join our community and stay up to date on how their course is being used around the world.

• Contribute to an OER ecosystem: By developing an open educational resource, you’re contributing to an equitable process of knowledge sharing.

The first step to creating a course is to get a good grasp of what learning circles are and how they work. The best way to do that is by participating or facilitating! Reviewing the rest of this guide, particularly the section on , is helpful too.

Outlining the Course

Before drafting content, course creators should first identify the audience they are serving and outline appropriate learning goals.

Establish Learning Goals

Take the time to establish an outline before diving in and writing content. There are three questions that we ask ourselves as we undertake a course creation project:

1. Who are you creating this course for? You should have an understanding of who you are creating this course for, and why. A helpful way to think about this is to write down minimal set of qualifications you have for a participant who joins the learning circle. Are there certain skillsets (language fluency, digital literacy, access to materials) that will restrict who can meaningfully engage with your course? Is it relevant only for people in a particular country or region?

2. What expectations will participants bring to this course? No matter how clearly you think you outline the scope of the course, people will show up to a learning circle with their own expectations about the subject matter. Understanding the outcomes that participants will be hoping to achieve as well as any preconceptions that they may bring to the learning circle will help you scope out a course that is both rewarding and also appropriate given the format and time allotted.

Outline Each Module

Once you’ve established the goals for a course, start arranging materials into weekly modules, outlining 2–3 learning goals for each individual meeting. When scoping out the learning goals, keep in mind the 6-8 week length of learning circle: we tend to think about the learning content as being more than a workshop, but less than a semester’s worth of work.

Our section on creating provides some examples of course outlines created by our community, and you can of our Facilitator Guide Template to help structure your course.

Write Course Introduction

Finally, we often find it helpful to take all of this work and summarize it into a first draft of the course landing page. In addition to drafting a course title, you should include:

• Who you are and why you created the course

• Major learning objectives for the course

• Expected pacing for working through the material

• Any needed prerequisites or expectations for participants

Collecting Content

Structuring the Course

If you're going to publish your course with Course-in-a-Box, we recommend drafting content in a Google Doc, as it allows for both easy editing and collaboration during the drafting phase as well as conversion to Markdown for when it's time to put the course online (see more in ).

Pulling in Third Party Materials

In addition to bringing your own expertise to the table, we encourage course creators to broaden the perspective by referencing or including external content, as long as it can be done appropriately and will full credit to the original sources. Some practices for identifying usable external content:

• Quotes and Ideas: Standard citations rules apply when creating online courses. The is an exceptional resource for making sure you’re citing things accurately.

• News Articles: Linking directly to news articles is a great way to bring in outside opinions and connect your course to current events. Consider using the Internet Archive’s or to prevent link rot, and be mindful about not linking to articles with paywalls.

• Images and Icons: Reuse images and icons from , , ,

When in doubt, reach out! You might be surprised how responsive people are when you’re trying to share their work with new audiences.

Design the Course

Building on the , there are some principles for learning design that work well for learning circle regardless of the subject matter.

• Project-based > theoretical: Learning circles work well when participants are working towards a shared goal. Frame your learning circle more towards “Learn to Write Fiction” than “Composition 101”; more towards “Build a website” than “Intro to HTML/CSS”.

• Personal > “objective”: You are human! Be clear about your expertise, perspective, and motivation in creating this course. Own your expertise, and don’t try and hide behind the cloak of objectivity.

• Group discussion > user interaction: Rely on the relationships formed in the learning circle rather than overbuilding interactivity into the course. Personal exploration comes through discussion questions, not quizzes.

Publishing

Once you’ve drafted your course content, it’s time to get it online. There are a number of considerations to make when choosing where to host your course:

• Are there platforms that you’re already familiar with?

• What types of media and interactivity do you want to include?

• How do you plan to maintain the course long-term?

• What technical skills do you have? What do you want to practice?

Regardless how you publish your course, make sure to add it to the when it's complete so that facilitators can find it!

Course-in-a-Box

is P2PU’s tool for building and publishing online courses, built on the premise that you don’t need to spend money to produce a course that can stay around for a long time. While no prior coding experience is required to use Course-in-a-Box, it still provides great exposure to some of the building blocks of web development including HTML, CSS, Markdown, and Git. It’s free to use and 100% open source (), so you can adapt it to suit your needs however you choose. Examples of courses built using Course-in-a-Box include:

• (Pittsburgh Children’s Museum)

• (New York University)

• (Amrita S. Patel and Denise LaForce)

• (P2PU)

Browser-based word processor

If Course-in-a-Box seems like a heavy lift, it may be sufficient to publish your course using a browser-based word processing tool like Google Docs, Dropbox Paper, or P2PU’s hosted version of . This is how P2PU publishes our Facilitator Guides, and there are more resources about that in the section.

Ready-to-use website builder

remains the world’s most popular website builder, as it strikes a good balance between ease of use, customizability, and cost. This is what Jordan from Boston Public Library used to create their about fiction writing. There are plenty of , including Drupal, Joomla, and Squarespace, though beware: as customizability increases, so does cost.

Static site generator + hosting solution

The most flexibility for minimal/no cost will come by combining an (e.g. Jekyll, Hugo, Eleventy) with a hosting solution (e.g. Github Pages, Netlify): this is the approach that we used to build . While highly customizable, this option requires either a technical background or a lot of motivation and patience.

Other directions

There are plenty of other formats for hosting content on the web, some of which are explicitly designed for open educational resources. Popular options include:

• Open textbook (e.g. , , )

• Interactive online course (e.g. )

• Discussion forum (e.g. )

Learning circles are facilitated, not taught, which means you don't need to be a teacher or a subject matter expert in order to successfully host a learning circle:

The facilitator's role is to maintain the fidelity of the learning circle model (e.g. cultivating a supportive environment, keeping discussion on track, ending each meeting on time), but you’re not responsible for what happens during each meeting.

All of the resources and methodologies referenced in this handbook—the , the , the —have all been developed to help you lead a successful learning circle. That being said, facilitation can still feel daunting, especially at first.

The good news is that facilitation is a practice, and that you needn’t stress about getting it “perfect” right away. Growing comfortable as a learning circle facilitator will be a continuous process of trying, reflecting, and iterating. And you needn’t do this alone. The P2PU community is here to help -- our welcome committee, community forum, monthly facilitator calls, and weekly reflection prompts are each designed to help you refine your practice and grow confident and comfortable in the facilitator role.

What follows are some of the most common questions and worries we hear from facilitators, followed by specific strategies for addressing them.

The following discussion questions are aligned with College Unbound’s Big 10 competencies, and you can adapt these questions to use in facilitator guides and learning journals for your learning circle. TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Accountability

2. Advocacy for Self & Others

Accountability

Demonstrates the ability to meet or exceed agreed-upon expectations, taking ownership of all that happens as a result of personal choices and actions, and looking for solutions when there is a problem.

1. Demonstrates personal responsibility – acknowledges and corrects mistakes.

   a. What is a mistake you now realize you have made related to [topic of week/learning circle]? How might you correct it now and/or avoid it in the future? b. What is a mistake you have made? What did you do to address it?

2. Practices integrity – walks their talk. a. How does the [topic of week/learning circle] align with and/or challenge your values and beliefs? b. How will what you have learned from the [topic of week/learning circle] allow you to act in accordance with your values and beliefs? c. Give an example of when you have walked your talk. Said differently, give an example of when your action and behavior aligned with what you believe and value. d. Give an example of when you acted professionally in a challenging situation.

Advocacy for Self & Others

Actively negotiates positive change for self and/or others, clearly seeing both sides of the issue and proposing new processes or parameters that more effectively meet the needs of all stakeholders.

1. Makes own decisions about short and long term plans.

   a. What are your goals for this learning circle? What is your plan for achieving these goals? b. How does this learning circle fit into your plans for longer term life/learning goals? c. What is one of your life or learning goals? What is your plan for achieving this goal? d. How will you advocate and/or create opportunities for yourself to achieve this goal?

2. Practices assertive communication. a. Give an example of how you have asked for what you needed using “I” statements and without blaming others. b. Give an example of how you have stood up for yourself, your needs, and/or your rights. c. Give an example of how you have stood up for others. d. How will what you have learned this [week/learning circle] help you communicate as an advocate for yourself and/or others?

Collaboration

Deliberately partners with others, negotiating, challenging, and being challenged on issues of partnership, in order to produce something together.

1. Engages effectively with the members of their Personal Learning Network. a. Map your learning network. Who are your mentors, coaches, cheerleaders, subject-area experts, editors? What are their special talents? b. How might you draw upon your network to support and extend your learning during this learning circle experience? c. How well do you communicate with, show appreciation for, and learn with and from your network? What would you like to improve about this and how do you plan to do so? d. Who would you like to add to your network? What is your plan for doing so? e. What are three ways in which this learning circle has helped you expand and/or more effectively engage with your learning network?

2. Ensures contributions of self and others. a. How did you contribute to the discussion in this week’s learning circle? b. How did you support others in contributing to the discussion in this week’s learning circle? c. How do you plan to contribute to the discussion in next week’s learning circle? d. How do you plan to support others in contributing to the discussion in next week’s learning circle? e. Give an example of when you clearly expressed your ideas in a group discussion. Why did you pick this example? f. What are the characteristics of a collaborative discussion participant? g. What are the characteristics of a problematic discussion participant? h. What are the characteristics of a collaborative discussion leader? i. What are the characteristics of a problematic discussion leader? j. Give an example of when you have demonstrated the characteristics of a collaborative discussion participant or leader. k. Describe the characteristics of an active listener. l. Give an example of when you have been an active listener. What were you able to accomplish by doing this?

Communication (Written, Oral, Visual)

Constructs sustained, coherent argument or presentation on issues and processes in more than one medium for general and specific audiences, adapting behaviors and goals to meet the needs of interaction and achieve shared meaning.

1. Uses knowledge of audience and context to shape communication. a. How can you apply / have you applied what you learned this [week/learning circle] to use knowledge of audience and context to shape communication? b. Who is the audience for what you have created/written/recorded? c. What are your greatest strengths as an interpersonal/visual/oral/written communicator? How do you plan to build upon these strengths? d. What are your greatest opportunities to develop as an interpersonal/visual/oral/written communicator? How do you plan to do so? e. How are you targeting the expectations, values, and beliefs for your audience? f. How are you adapting this work to fit the context in which it will be read/heard/experienced? g. What decisions have you made about language, style, organization, media, and design based upon your audience, purpose, and the context?

2. Articulates and defends a compelling controlling idea clearly and effectively. a. How can you apply / have you applied what you learned this [week/learning circle] to make a compelling argument for your position? b. How have/can you make a compelling argument for your position? c. What is your main idea and how is it communicated? d. How might you anticipate and prevent someone from misunderstanding or not getting your main idea? e. Describe a time when you were misunderstood. What would you do differently now to prevent such a misunderstanding?

Creativity

Consistently brings into being products, processes, or thoughts that did not previously exist, merging ideas and making connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena to generate solutions.

1. Demonstrates imagination and innovative thinking, suggesting new solutions to old problems. a. How can you apply what you have learned this [week/learning circle] about thinking innovatively / imaginatively/ creatively? b. What new ideas do you have for solving a vexing problem that you currently face? c. Give an example of when you suggested a new solution to an existing problem. d. Give an example of your own or someone else’s imaginative or innovative thinking? What made it imaginative or innovative? e. When have you had to deal with a messy problem? What did you do? How did it work?

2. Takes risks. a. What is a risk or chance you might take here? b. How did you take a risk last week? What did you do? What did you think would happen? How did it work out? c. How did you take a risk in this learning circle? What did you do? What did you think would happen? How did it work out? d. Give an example of when you took a risk or a chance. What did you do? What did you think would happen? How did it work out

Critical Thinking

Engages in evidence-based practice, able to identify the issue/dilemma/problem, frame it as a specific question, explore and evaluate information relevant to the question, and draw conclusions, applying conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence.

1. Accesses, analyzes, and connects information, considering its relationship to context and evidence. a. How do you interpret/analyze/evaluate the information presented in this learning circle to determine if it is of value for you? b. How can you apply what you have learned this [week/learning circle] to find and use valid, reliable, and relevant information? c. What is the purpose, audience, and context for which the [assigned materials] were developed? How does this influence how you interpret their relevance for you? d. Compare and contrast the arguments/evidence/information presented by xx and yy. e. What do you think xx means by yy? f. How might you use/apply the information shared by xx? g. What are the limitations of the points xx is making? h. Where do you disagree with xx? Why? i. Why might what xx has to say not be relevant in yy situation/context? j. What does xx not understand about yy? k. Drawing upon the information presented this week/learning circle, how would you persuade others to xx? l. What causes and/or effects has xx failed to consider? m. Whose experience has xx failed to consider? n. When is a time when you in your head or out loud called “bullshit”? Why? o. Give an example of when you have interpreted/analyzed/evaluated information to make a decision. How did you do so?

2. Identifies and considers the influence of bias and others’ assumptions. a. Which of the 24 logical fallacies here can you identify in xx? b. Which of the 24 instances of cognitive bias here can you identify in xx? c. You/your team have/has 10 minutes, how many examples of

Intercultural Engagement

Continuously improves capacity to identify own cultural patterns, compare and contrast them with others, engage in respectful dialogue, and adapt empathically and flexibly to unfamiliar ways of being.

1. Understands own cultural identity. a. Who were your people? How would you describe the traditions, rules, values, and beliefs of the culture(s) that you grew up in? What have you continued to embrace and practice and what have you moved away from? Why? b. Who are your people? How have you explored new cultures, traditions, rules, values, and beliefs over time? c. How has what you have learned this [week/learning circle] helped you better understand your own cultural identity?

2. Open to others. a. What cultures are represented in this learning circle? How might you draw upon the strengths of your respective cultures to learn together? b. What is one thing you would like to share from your culture(s) with the members of your learning circle? c. Share a recipe from your culture, explaining why it has meaning for you and what it demonstrates about your culture. d. Give an example of when you have embraced the opportunity to connect with individuals from a different culture. How did it go? What did you learn? What would you do differently next time? e. How has what you have learned this [week/learning circle] expanded your understanding/appreciation of another culture(s)?

Problem Solving

Identifies and analyzes problems and uses prior knowledge, logic, and imagination, weighing the relevance and accuracy of information to develop, recommend, and implement alternative solutions.

1. Identifies and defines the problem. a. What is the problem? b. How do you know it is a problem? c. Why is it a problem that needs to be solved? d. Why is it a problem that needs to be solved now? e. What is and what is not part of the problem? How do you know? f. Based upon what you learned this [week/learning circle] how has your understanding of the problem challenged?

2. Asks the right questions. a. What did you learn this [week/learning circle] about how to ask better questions? How have/will you apply this? b. Why is asking the right questions crucial for problem solving? c. Give an example of when you did/did not ask the right questions about a problem. What happened? What did you learn? What would you do differently next time? d. List all of your questions about the problem. Which of the questions are most likely to help you get to the root of the problem?

Reflection

Engages in an intentional process of continuous learning, consciously analyzing personal decision-making and actions as well as the reactions they prompt in themselves and others, drawing on theory and experience, and modifying actions as for the benefit of themselves and the communities they serve.

1. Connects learning experiences and growth, acknowledging and articulating changed perspectives. a. What do you already know about the week’s topic? b. How has what you have learned this week connected to, changed, challenged, and/or deepened what you already know from prior experience? c. What do you want to know more about? d. How has your understanding of xx changed over time/this learning circle?

2. Engages in honest self-appraisal, analyzing performance with the goal of improving. a. What did you do well / where did you struggle / where were you confused this week? b. When you were challenged, surprised, and/or proud of yourself this week? c. What are your strengths in xxx? d. What is one thing you want to improve based upon what you learned this week?

3. Displays curiosity. a. What are you curious about? b. What was the most surprising thing this week? c. Describe a time when you needed or wanted to know or learn something? What did you do? What did you and did you not enjoy about the experience? d. What new thing did you learn last week

Resilience

Able to maintain effectiveness, remaining focused, composed, and optimistic when faced with time pressures, adversity, disappointment, or opposition, and recovers quickly from setbacks and failures.

1. Persists in finding necessary resources to accomplish goals. a. What resources have you gained this [week/learning circle] for achieving a goal(s)? b. Describe a time when you persisted to accomplish a goal. What strategies, resources, and supports did you draw upon to achieve your goal?

2. Demonstrates flexibility and adapts readily to change. a. What did you learn this [week/learning circle] about how to adapt rapidly to change? How have/will you apply this? b. Give an example of when you have demonstrated flexibility and adapted to change. What did you do? What worked? What didn’t? What do you want to remember for next time? c. Describe a time when you changed priorities to respond to the changes in a situation. What did you do? What worked? What didn’t? What do you want to remember for next time? d. Tell about a time when you had a plan in place but had to change it to deal with unanticipated challenges. What did you do? What worked? What didn’t? What do you want to remember for next time?

One of P2PU’s 4 core values is open: the belief that we create value not by gatekeeping but instead by working together, sharing resources, and lowering barriers to entry. P2PU is built on open source technology and everything we create is free to share, remix, and redistribute.

In that spirit of open, we use collage in our visuals, often paired with images from our community, to diversify the imagery and imagination of the look and feel of P2PU.

Make Your Own P2PU Collage

We've designed free DIY flyer templates in Google Slides to help you create promotional materials with collages for your learning circles. Check out our DIY Collage + Flyer Kit!

Below we’ve shared a few of our favorite sources for open-access imagery to inspire your works*.

*Many media archives in the United States highlight the disproportionate representation of wealthy white people in historical narratives. To counter this, P2PU makes a dedicated effort to prioritize respectful depictions of people of color and women in our collages. We review the content of all materials we include in our collages (even when it’s obscured or illegible in the final piece) to avoid sources or materials that contain violent, harmful, or otherwise disrespectful representations of human beings.

P2PU.org Image Credits

Header collage:

• Program from the NOMA Second Annual Conference by National Organization of Minority Architects via National Museum of African American History and Culture ()

• Unfinished bag via Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum ()

• JOHN RIDGE, A CHEROKEE., from History of the Indian Tribes of North America via Smithsonian American Art Museum ()

Learning circle icons:

• No expert required: Man Giving Speech by via Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum ()

• Explore any topic: The Copper Plate Engraver via Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum ()

• Learn better together: Lunch Hour via Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery ()

Join the Community:

• Commercial via Smithsonian Open Access ()

• Handwritten Note, Manuscript Page of Knitting Instructions via Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum ()

• Library date due slip via Labratmatt, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons ()

Start a Team:

• Study for "Mathematics," "The Sciences," Library of Congress, Washington D.C. via Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum ()

• Ceiling paper via Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum ()

• Library via Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum ()

• Our Values, Peer Learning: The Virgin Teaching the Infant Jesus via Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum ()

• Our Values, Community: The ascent of Mont Blanc, no. 1 "The Glacier du Tacconay" via Harvard Library ()

• Our Values, Open: Water color; A Neapolitan watermelon shop via Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum ()

Learning Resources

Antiracism

• Put People Before Profits via National Museum of African American History and Culture ()

• Placard from memorial march reading "HONOR KING: END RACISM!" via National Museum of African American History and Culture ()

• Poster for presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm via National Museum of African American History and Culture ()

Climate Change

• Hypecoum grandiflorum Benth. via National Museum of Natural History ()

• Great Auk Skeleton Mounted for Exhibit via Smithsonian Libraries and Archives ()

• Trees in Washington, DC via Smithsonian Libraries and Archives ()

Computer Programming

• Details of the mechanisms of the Leibniz calculator, the most advanced of its time by Jacob Leupold via Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division ()

• DDR4 SDRAM bar from Samsung with 16 GiB of memory at 2666 MHz. by PantheraLeo1359531 via Wikimedia Commons ()

• Installation of WINE under Linux Deepin 20.1. OS by Deepin-Gemeinde/Screenshot by PantheraLeo1359531 😺, GPL , via Wikimedia Commons ()

Creativity

• Parrot Painted by M Street High School Student via Anacostia Community Museum ()

• Border via Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum ()

• Untitled (Artist Painting) via Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery ()

Digital Literacy

• Different shape networks by Melusine Boon Falleur via Wikimedia Commons ()

• Photo of an Apple Desktop Bus Mouse II - the black version by StephenEdmonds for http://popcorn.cx/computers/, CC BY-SA 2.5 AU, via Wikimedia Commons ()

• A vector hand cursor and cursor. by Lordalpha1 via Wikimedia Commons ()

Job Readiness

• Watch-Tower, Corner of Spring and Varick Streets, New York, from Harper's Weekly, February 28, 1874 by Winslow Homer via Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery ()

• Neville Chamberlain by Samuel Johnson Woolf via National Portrait Gallery ()

• Old Time Card Rack by John F. Peto via The Phillips Collection ()

Language Learning

• Colophon in running script via Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art ()

• Alphabet, c. 1525/1555 by Heinrich Aldegrever via Smithsonian National Gallery of Art ()

• Sequoyah, c. 1830 by Henry Inman via Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery ()

Communication

• Courtesan Kasugano Writing a Letter by Suzuki Harunobu, c. 1765 via Wikimedia Commons ()

• Diagrams from A System of Elocution, with Special Reference to Gesture, to the Treatment of Stammering, and Defective Articulation (1846) by Andrew Comstock, via Public Domain Review ()

• Advertising illustration of a hand writing with a fountain pen (1919) via Wikimedia Commons ()

Create an Account

Icons:

• Tools: Created by John Caserta from the Noun Project

• Community: Created by P2PU

• Course Library: Created by DvM Design from the Noun Project

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Icons:

• Hosted by a Facilitator: Created by P2PU

• Peer Learning: Created by P2PU

• Meet Regularly: Created by WEBTECHOPS LLP from the Noun Project

Help

Icons:

• Forum: Created by Vectors Point from the Noun Project

• Knowledge Base: Created by Abdellah El Falah El Quadmiry from the Noun Project

• Community Calls: Created by Danil Polshin from the Noun Project

Dashboard

Icons:

• Getting Started: Created by David Khai from the Noun Project

• Using the Tools: Folder by WARPAINT Media Inc. from NounProject.com; Settings by Three Six Five from NounProject.com

• Help: Created by Adrien Coquet from the Noun Project