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GitBook: [#228] Topic Guides Update
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README.md

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* **a facilitator** (responsible for organizing the learning circle, not teaching: the group should work together to understand the material; see [**Facilitating Peer Learning**](facilitation/facilitation-basics.md))
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* **a group of learners** (ideally 4–12 for an engaging group dynamic; see [**Finding Participants**](facilitation/finding-participants.md))
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* **a regular meeting space **(in-person or online; see [**Setting Up Meeting Spaces**](facilitation/set-up-your-space.md))
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* **a regular meeting space** (in-person or online; see [**Setting Up Meeting Spaces**](facilitation/set-up-your-space.md))
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* **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 [**Meeting Structure**](methodology/learning-circle-structure.md))
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* **dedicated learning materials** (often an online course; see [**Choosing a Course**](courses/choosing-courses.md)) 
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courses/choosing-courses.md

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# Choosing a Course
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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.
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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. 
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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. \(See [**Adapting a Course**](adapting-courses.md)\)
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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 [**Adapting a Course**](adapting-courses.md))
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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.
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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. 
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## P2PU's Course Library
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## P2PU's Course Library 
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![P2PU's community-curated library of open course materials](../.gitbook/assets/p2pu-course-library.png)
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![P2PU's community-curated library of open course materials](<../.gitbook/assets/Learning Resources.png>)
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{% hint style="info" %}
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### Visit the course library: [p2pu.org/en/courses/](https://www.p2pu.org/en/courses/)
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### Visit the course library: [p2pu.org/en/learning-resources/](https://www.p2pu.org/en/learning-resources/)
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{% endhint %}
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P2PU maintains a space where the learning circle community can collect and share open courses found from across the web. With a few exceptions, P2PU does not create or own this content—it is primarily a curated list. Materials added to this list are moderated and removed if they are duplicated, no longer available, or otherwise inappropriate for learning circles.
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Facilitators are not limited to the materials in the P2PU [course library](https://www.p2pu.org/en/courses/). Anybody with a P2PU account can add a course to the P2PU course library by filling out the "[Add a Course](https://learningcircles.p2pu.org/en/course/create/)" form which asks for the following information:
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Facilitators are not limited to the materials in the P2PU [course library](https://www.p2pu.org/en/learning-resources/). Anybody with a P2PU account can add a course to the P2PU course library by filling out the "[Add a Course](https://learningcircles.p2pu.org/en/course/create/)" form which asks for the following information:
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* **Course title**
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* **Course website link**
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* **Course platform** \(e.g. Coursera, edX, FutureLearn, Udacity\)
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* **Course creator** \(e.g. MIT, University of Michigan, Khan Academy\)
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* **Short Course description** \(1-2 sentences that describe what people will accomplish if they take this course. This description is what learners will see when signing up for learning circles, and what facilitators will see when selecting a course.\)
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* **Availability** \(indicates if the course is openly licensed or on-demand, meaning that there are no scheduled start and end dates for course availability\)
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* **Topic tags** \(a few topics that will help learners and future facilitators find this course\)
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* **Course platform** (e.g. Coursera, edX, FutureLearn, Udacity)
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* **Course creator** (e.g. MIT, University of Michigan, Khan Academy)
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* **Short Course description** (1-2 sentences that describe what people will accomplish if they take this course. This description is what learners will see when signing up for learning circles, and what facilitators will see when selecting a course.)
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* **Availability** (indicates if the course is openly licensed or on-demand, meaning that there are no scheduled start and end dates for course availability)
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* **Topic tags** (a few topics that will help learners and future facilitators find this course)
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* **Language of the course materials**
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* **Course license** \(copyright status of the materials, often found on the course or provider's page\)
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* **Course license** (copyright status of the materials, often found on the course or provider's page)
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This information is shared on detail pages for each individual course. These pages are updated automatically to include details about how the materials have been used for learning circles, including:
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* **1–5 star community ratings** \(from facilitator and participants\)
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* **1–5 star community ratings** (from facilitator and participants)
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* **Links to a dedicated discussion about the course** in the P2PU forums
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##
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## P2PU's Topic Guides
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Our [topic guides](https://www.p2pu.org/en/learning-resources/) help facilitators choose courses related to popular topics, and they include helpful practices and additional readings suggested by our community.&#x20;
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![P2PU's current list of guides to popular topics](<../.gitbook/assets/Topic Guides.png>)

courses/searching-for-courses.md

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# Searching for Courses
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So how should you go about finding course materials not already in the [P2PU library](https://www.p2pu.org/en/courses/)? 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.&#x20;
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So how should you go about finding course materials not already in the [P2PU library](https://www.p2pu.org/en/courses/)? 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.&#x20;
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* [Class Central](https://www.class-central.com) is the most popular search engine and reviews site for free online courses.
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* [Community College Consortium for OER](https://www.cccoer.org/learn/find-oer/) keeps an updated list of the most popular OER repositories, disambiguated by media type.
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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:
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**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 [African Minds](http://www.africanminds.co.za), [BC Campus Open Ed](https://open.bccampus.ca), [LibreTexts](https://libretexts.org), [Open Textbook Library](https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/), and [Openstax](https://openstax.org).
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**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 [African Minds](http://www.africanminds.co.za), [BC Campus Open Ed](https://open.bccampus.ca), [LibreTexts](https://libretexts.org), [Open Textbook Library](https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/), and [Openstax](https://openstax.org).
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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 [Feedbooks](http://www.feedbooks.com/publicdomain), [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org) and [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org). Public domain **audiobooks** are available on [LibriVox](https://librivox.org).&#x20;
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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 [Feedbooks](http://www.feedbooks.com/publicdomain), [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org) and [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org). Public domain **audiobooks** are available on [LibriVox](https://librivox.org).&#x20;
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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 [Tinkercad](https://www.tinkercad.com) for 3D design, [GIMP](https://www.gimp.org) for graphic design and photo editing, and [Scratch](https://scratch.mit.edu) for coding.
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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 [GED](https://ged.com/study/free\_online\_ged\_test/) and [HiSet](https://hiset.ets.org/resources/prep/) high school equivalency exams, [US Citizenship and Immigration Services ](https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship)citizenship test, and [NCLEX](https://www.ncsbn.org/nclex-practice-exam.htm) registered nursing exam.
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**The internet is your friend! **Blogs, video series (like [TED Talks](https://www.ted.com)), [open journals](https://www.cccoer.org/learn/find-oer/open-journals/), databases, and archives can all serve as the basis of content for your learning circle. A few of our favorite reference sites are [Digital Public Library of America](https://dp.la), [Encyclopedia of Life](https://eol.org), [Internet Archive](https://archive.org), [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/), [WikiHow](https://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page), [Wikiversity](https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main\_Page), and of course, [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main\_Page) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com).
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**The internet is your friend!** Blogs, video series (like [TED Talks](https://www.ted.com)), [open journals](https://www.cccoer.org/learn/find-oer/open-journals/), databases, and archives can all serve as the basis of content for your learning circle. A few of our favorite reference sites are [Digital Public Library of America](https://dp.la), [Encyclopedia of Life](https://eol.org), [Internet Archive](https://archive.org), [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/), [WikiHow](https://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page), [Wikiversity](https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main\_Page), and of course, [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main\_Page) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com).
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### **A Note About Proprietary/Subscription Content**
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courses/set-your-intent.md

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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:
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* **Promotion: **Use organizational or local mailing lists, neighborhood apps (like [Nextdoor](https://nextdoor.com)), 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 [topic survey template](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5TByw6oXOFz3EluzEiZ\_aA6BdWKQg0oBGSjWPW1XgkSMVbA/viewform?usp=sf\_link) that you can riff off of for your own uses. Collaborative polling tool like [Tricider](https://www.tricider.com) are also great for starting conversations between respondents.&#x20;
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* **Promotion:** Use organizational or local mailing lists, neighborhood apps (like [Nextdoor](https://nextdoor.com)), 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 [topic survey template](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5TByw6oXOFz3EluzEiZ\_aA6BdWKQg0oBGSjWPW1XgkSMVbA/viewform?usp=sf\_link) that you can riff off of for your own uses. Collaborative polling tool like [Tricider](https://www.tricider.com) are also great for starting conversations between respondents.&#x20;
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* **Focus Groups:** In Kenya, libraries run [mini focus groups](https://community.p2pu.org/t/library-patron-focus-group/3129) 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
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* **Assess interests of and gather data from current students or patrons:** Observation and insights gathered from each branch and location is key to understanding your unique community. If you're part of a library, you can use collections data or access stats from institutional memberships (like Lynda.com) to understand what your patrons are seeking out.
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* **Ask local businesses:** Visiting a number of local businesses and simply asking what skills or community programs they feel are missing.
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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.&#x20;
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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.
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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.
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| ![](../.gitbook/assets/q-method-poster.jpg) | <p></p><p><img src="../.gitbook/assets/q-method-template.jpg" alt=""></p> |
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| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

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