Greetings WOL Friends!
This week Olivia and I dive into a conversation about learning in community. We draw from our own experiences and discuss how our ideas expand and our understanding is broadened when we engage with others.
We think about how community happens at the World of Learning for the students and our own Virtual Learning Facilitators. And about how the discussions in live sessions and our Communities of Inquiry give us tools to see what others think, how they tackle a problem or issues, and how the light bulb often goes on.
The feedback that we get from both our peers and our teachers, to our solitary endeavors, is also important. In this virtual world that we all live in how do you support and provide the feedback for learning in your environment? Pull people out of isolations?
An email, a visit to the classroom, a call?
Have a great week!
Pat
We have an awesome Online Learning Symposium on March 26th were experts from all corners of education share what works for them. The event offers live sessions and recordings for future use.
You can 📌 Register now: https://iu17.link/2025OLS or contact me for more information.
The Power of Learning Together
by Olivia Grugan
My husband and I are doing a book study with another couple. We have identified six dates to meet for about 1.5 hours and discuss excerpts from two texts. To guide our study, my husband has written some reflection questions. The four of us take turns leading our discussion and have developed a simple agenda:
We start by sharing any things that are on our hearts that might keep us from being fully present.
Then we discuss the readings using the guiding questions.
At the end, we each share a small thing we are grateful for.
As we’ve progressed through our discussions, I am struck by how much deeper my understanding grows when I engage with others. So now I’m reflecting: What happens when we learn together?
When we learn together…
We develop intellectually when we learn together.
The four of us each bring different areas of expertise to the conversation. When I finish the readings alone I’m left with initial impressions and strong biases. After we have discussed them together, I not only have a better understanding, I also see them from various angles and can appreciate multiple interpretations
Our relationships grow deeper when we learn together.
My husband and I have known this other couple for about three years. We’ve had lots of dinners together and our children happily play together. We share life updates and have fun recreationally. However, this book study has deepened our relationships in a relatively short span of time. The initial sharing before we dive into the text has invited us to be more vulnerable with each other and therefore, more able to support each other.
We understand our interconnectedness when we learn together.
Studying a common text has highlighted the areas of overlap in our thoughts and experiences. Though we come from very different backgrounds, we are able to identify where our points of intersection are. We are also able to identify shared visions we have for our children and the world they are living into.
Can learning together happen online?
The value of learning in community isn’t limited to in-person settings. While our book study happens face-to-face, I’ve been thinking about how these same principles apply to digital learning spaces—like those we create at the World of Learning.
Often, online courses have the reputation of being very solitary. There are certainly benefits to being able to learn at your own pace, during your own times and without anyone else’s pacing slowing you down or pushing you faster than you’d like to go.
But the benefits of communal learning are so often lost.
At the World of Learning, every course has a live session component that students can attend to interact with other students as well as with their teacher. In our “on campus” single enrollment courses, students are typically in the same room as their classmates and can even turn and pair with them in person, while their teacher prompts them from the screen. Asynchronous discussion boards allow for slower and more thoughtful interaction with others.
This feels like the heart and soul of learning. Content may be able to be mastered without community, but real growth in terms of perspective and personal development must come from interaction. Our students have these opportunities.
How are you learning with others?
As adults, we often default to learning in isolation—Googling answers, reading books alone, or watching instructional videos. But what perspectives and insights are we missing by not engaging with others? How might you intentionally create space for shared learning in your life?
Tell us about a time you’ve recently learned with someone else and how it benefited you!
AI use disclaimer: I used AI to re-write 3 sentences in this post. I put the sentences in Chat GPT and asked for some syntax edits.
Join us for our inaugural Online Learning Symposium!
We’d love to have you join us and become part of a new community of educators gathering annually to sharpen their skills and re-energize for the end of the school year!
📌 Register now: https://iu17.link/2025OLS
If you want to know more about the World of Learning and how we can help you or your district, contact us!
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