building and extending the learning community

Building and Extending the Learning Community

Winter 2007 Engaged Institutions

Cluster Meeting

Wednesday, January 24

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Building and Extending the Learning Community: Overview

• What are Learning Communities?

• Survey Results: Your Experiences and Interests

• Planning for the Year Ahead

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What are Learning Communities?

Example 1: The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnershiphttp://www2.urban.org/nnip

• Began 1996

• Coordinated by The Urban Institute

• 29 data intermediaries

• Common mission to democratize data

• Biannual meetings

• Active listserve

• Cross-site research

http://www2.urban.org/nnip

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Example 2: Active Living Networkhttp://www.activeliving.org/

• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

• Goals: raise awareness, translate information, stimulate coordinated action

• 60+ partners and RWJF program partners

• Listserves, Frequently updated public website

http://www.activeliving.org/

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Example 3: Comm-Orghttp://comm-org.wisc.org/

• Founded 1995

• University of Wisconsin Extension Center

• Goals: link academics and activists and theory and practice to improve community organizing

• Active listserve

• Website with syllabi, papers, resources

http://comm-org.wisc.org/

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• The palette of communications tools:

– Site visits

– Meetings/Conferences

– Conference calls

– Videoconferencing

– Websites

– E-newsletters

– Email and Listservers

– Discussion forums

– Blogs


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Survey Results: Your Experiences and Interests

• Many of you have been involved in learning communities of some form: 26 of 35 respondents, or 74%

• Some of you have been involved in a learning community for many years

– Less than 1 year 9%– 1-2 years 23%– 3-5 years 32%– 6-9 years 23%– 10 or more years 14%

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• Your frequency of participation varies

– Once a month 48%– Once a week 24%– A few times a year 20%

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• Learning and exchange was accomplished through:

– Convenings/meetings (90%)– Email (86%)– Listserve (59%)– Site visits (50%)– Website (50%)– Also: conference calls, wiki, collaborative

writing, presentations, funding

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• How you participate:

– Read emails (90%)

– Respond to information requests (77%)

– Send out information requests (55%)

– Read newsletters (41%)

– Look at material posted to a website (36%)

– Also: attend meetings, conference calls, read articles, collaborative presentations/publications, share data

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• Benefits of participation:

– Share ideas/successes/challenges and problem solve

– Network, incubate potential partnerships and collaborations, advise and train others to get involved

– Think outside the box, interdisciplinary collaboration, alternative conceptualizations and approaches

– Leverage financial resources

– Stay atop the field

– Link research, policy, and practice

– Link regional and state levels to national and international

– Impact decision making

– Opportunity to contribute and keep on learning

– Sheer enjoyment of meaningful, ongoing collegial relationships

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• Challenges:

– Time

– Resources for maintaining systems, communications

– Engaging people from different backgrounds, different areas of expertise, different learning styles

– Building trust and relationships over distance

– Reaching common ground in priorities and focus

– Keeping information updated and relevant

– Strong and sustained leadership

– Turnover

– Inefficient meetings

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• Your interests for the EI Cluster learning community:

– Ask for help with solving particular problems (79%)

– Send out requests for information (75%)

– Participate in online discussions about important topics related to university-community partnerships (61%)

– Share internal project-related documents (54%)

– Send queries about collaborating on grant proposals / research projects (50%)

– Post a response to a news article for other community members to read and respond to (39%)

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• Content you would like to see on a website dedicated to EI:

– Articles on engaged institutions/university-community partnerships (90%)

– Information about funding opportunities (86%)

– Contact information for cluster project participants (79%)

– Detailed descriptions of the Engaged Institutions cluster projects (72%)

– Articles relating to relevant program and policy areas (69%)

– Information and documents related to the cluster evaluation (52%)

– Electronic copies of internal documents of the EI cluster projects (31%)

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• Articles relating to relevant program and policy areas:

– Community organizing and capacity building (76%)

– Youth mentoring (66%)

– High school dropout prevention (55%)

– Youth development policy (55%)

– Early childhood school readiness (38%)

– Educational curriculum alignment (e.g., P-12/P-20 initiatives) (35%)

– School finance and policy reform (31%)

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In your words:

“They can matter in the world, and are worth the effort when there is thoughtful planning and intentionality supporting the

learning network.”

“Sustained interest emerges primarily when members can identify problems of common interest to work on

collaboratively or comparatively.”

“One challenge I see in this particular learning community involves our capacity to identify enough common ground to

keep us meaningfully involved in working together in a sustained way… For sustained mutual benefits, an important transition might be toward the identification of more specific and concrete areas of common strategies, models, problems, or benchmarks that can support 'deep structure' collaborative

problem solving and cross-program comparisons and linkages.”

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Planning for the Year Ahead

• Project calendar through January 2008:– 2nd round of site visits Fall 2007– 2nd convening Spring 2008

• PolicyLink goals:– Facilitate active learning community– Continue our research– Disseminate findings - publications, speaking

engagements

• Our task today:– Capture your ideas and input for the learning community

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Roundtable Discussions

• Formulate a vision of the learning community for the next year…

– What are 2 or 3 goals to achieve?

– What sort of infrastructure?

– What would the website contain?

– Are you interested in a listserve? Should there be subtopic listserves and what should they be?

Contact Information:

Sarah TreuhaftProgram Associate

(510) [email protected]

PolicyLink Headquarters1438 Webster Street, Suite 303

Oakland, CA 94612Telephone: (510) 663-2333 Fax: (510) 663-9684

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

building and extending the learning community

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