Community Powered Adult Learning

Despite demand and an eagerness to learn from engaged community members, we know that adult learning in the library doesn’t just “happen.” Learning circles are a great way to engage peer-to-peer adult learning, but many libraries feel that it takes too much staff time to facilitate.

Since 2019, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (CLP) has worked with Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) to offer its We Learn program, which utilizes learning circles as a format for demand-driven adult education. By taking courses together as a group, learners often feel more motivated to work through the material, deepen their learning through discussion, and develop relationships with neighbors who have similar interests. To lower the burden on staff, CLP and P2PU streamlined learning circles with the library’s volunteer program, allowing volunteers to convene small groups of learners around topics of mutual interest, from philosophy to the Korean language to Python.

The We Learn model of adult learning allows you to leverage assets that are freely available in your community to expand your program offerings. In this webinar, we will outline the free P2PU and We Learn resources that you can utilize to begin your own volunteer-led learning circles.

Learning Outcomes

At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Leverage free online resources and community capacity to convene adult learning in their community;
• Apply a variety of new strategies to increase volunteer engagement at their library; and
• Critically consider the affordances and drawbacks of relying on online learning resources.

Who Should Attend

This webinar is intended for library directors and administrators, adult services librarians who do programming in public libraries, and volunteer coordinators.

Panelists

Dan Hensley is the coordinator of adult learning at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (PA). In this role, he works with colleagues across nineteen locations to develop programs and services to support digital equity and adult learning in Pittsburgh. Prior to joining CLP in 2012, Dan worked in public and academic libraries in Pittsburgh and in San Francisco, CA.

Qumisha Goss has worked with Peer 2 Peer University since 2016, originally as a librarian at Detroit (MI) Public Library and, since 2020, as the partnership lead. Q leads all training and education programs at P2PU, including the recently-launched credit bearing learning circle program with College Unbound.

Grif Peterson joined Peer 2 Peer University in 2015 to help start the learning circle program. Since then, his role has grown with the project, and he does his best to make sure that people around the world have the opportunity to keep learning things they care about for free. A longtime resident of New England, he now lives in Phoenix, AZ.

CALL SPONSORED: CALL is offering a limited number of free seats to California library staff in this ALA webinar. Please use the link above to register for one of these no-cost seats. In order to gain the most impact from learning events sponsored by the CALL grant we ask that all participants engage fully (attend, participate, discuss and share). If you are unable or not willing to agree to this, please be kind and leave a seat or place for someone else.