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ORIENTATION TO COLEARNING
Starting May 24, 2022 | Online at the 100 Roads Community HQ
OVERVIEW
The Orientation to Colearning Founders Course is a practical introduction to the realities of starting your own colearning community or microschool. This course gathers founders starting or implementing their own learning community and creates a space for founders to work through the decisions they need to make to their learning community successful.
Orientation to Colearning is a 6 week, 2 hours/week online immersive experience. All gatherings will be conversation-based, and founders will be challenged to think and talk through questions. The supporting content for the course will be inside our 100 Roads community site in our Cohort Studio: Orientation to Colearning.
PREPARATION
Many sources are used to assemble the content in the asynchronous course. Here are some texts, by some very wise people, which I will be often referring to.
Primary Texts:
FOUNDATIONS (Tuesdays 8 PM ET)
- Let’s hear your idea!
- Where are you going to make a difference in people’s lives?
- Community
- Ecology of Services
- Space
- Developing a System of Action
DESIGNING SPACE
Saturdays 11 AM ET
- What space do you need?
- What space is available?
- Buildings: owning and transforming physical space
- Renting space and embedding into other people’s space
- Envisioning your space
- Creating virtual space
Week 1
Tuesday at 8 PM ET
Foundations
Let’s hear your idea!
Foundations
Let’s hear your idea!
This week we are getting to know each other and each other's ideas.
Independent Reading and Reflection:
- Definition of Colearning
- Situating colearning in the world of education
- Ecosystems of learning and world views
- Defining your essence, and how it relates to what you want to create
Saturday at 11 AM ET
Design
What space do you need?
Both physical and online spaces have benefits for colearning. Your colearning environments will have a variety of locations that need to be designed and convened
FOCUS
- Where can learning take place
- Why start with an online colearning environment
- Using platforms vs creating your own
- Choosing a palette of tools for design: Canva Pro, Pixel based and Vector design programs
- Choosing tools to organize your information: Google Workspace, Notion, Basecamp, Miro
- Using Mighty Networks as platform to convene
Week 2
Making a difference in people’s lives
In your education space you will be working with many different groups of people. How are you going to add value to all of these groups?
FOCUS
- Creating a container for education
- Creating a value map
- Understanding your user groups and their needs
- What is the right vehicle for your vision?
Design: What space is available
Learning happens everywhere. Where are the learners going to meet in your community? It pays to be creative.
FOCUS
- Physical space
- Embedded space in the community
- Partnering with others
- Designing online space
- Embedding in online space
Week 3
Foundations: Community
You are serving a unique community. What elements form a strong interdependent community. What is your vision for the weave of your community? How do you build one from scratch.
FOCUS
- Why is community important?
- Starting from scratch
- Getting the right people on the bus
- Growing and developing your community
Design: Buildings: owning and transforming physical space
Many people find they suddenly have access to a space, or they find the perfect building for sale. Should you own a building? Where to start when making these big decisions.
FOCUS
- The costs and benefits of owning your own building
- Working with the town
- Tips for decorating your space
Week 4
Foundations: Ecology of Services
As founders you will be providing many services to your families. Families may need help in creating personalized education pathways, college prep, accreditation help, transcript creation, specialists and more. You will need to either provide them or find people who they can go to for help. You may need a catalog system, a searchable app, and a way of communication. What are you going to use?
FOCUS
- Service you may need to provide
- Finding partners to provide services
- Defining what you do vs what other people do
- Technology that makes colearning easier
Design: Renting space and embedding into other people’s space
Where do microschools find space? Can you share space with others set up for working with children? Do you have to meet everyday in a physical space?
FOCUS
- What should I keep in mind when renting space?
- Costs and benefits of renting space.
- The possibilities of hybrid learning
- How does online space work?
Week 5
Foundations: Envisioning your space (part 1)
Envision your learning spaces and how you would like them to evolve over time. As your community grows and evolves your space requirements needs will change. Let’s design your learning landscape. What happens, where?
FOCUS
- Online learning spaces
- Where is the value going to be added
- What other spaces are you creating for communication and connection
Design: Envisioning your space (part 2)
This is a working session on your design.
FOCUS
- Getting your design on paper
Week 6
Foundations: Developing a System of Action
A system of action is a vision, vehicle, concept, the mechanisms and network. Now you have spent the last six weeks thinking about what you will create. Let’s add the System of Action to your design.
FOCUS
- Vision
- Vehicle
- Concept
- Mechanisms
- Network
Design: Presenting your vision
We have been on a journey together. Now it is time to passionately stand up and share your vision with our community.
FOCUS
- Presentations of your visions
End of course celebration
WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?
The workshop is for anyone creating or thinking of creating a colearning community, microschool, or for those who know they want to create something new in the fields of learning, work, and living.
ABOUT YOUR FACILITATOR
Catherine Fraise founded Workspace Education as a result of 30 years in education exploring her passion for creating environments where humans thrive. She started her career as a public high school teacher to reform education and realized the importance of the right environment, context and culture to maximize the potential of every human. After three AMI Montessori certifications and 10 years of project-based homeschooling, she set about to create a low-cost private alternative to traditional school that is adaptable, flexible, and allows for authentic personalization for every child, as well as a platform for authentic creative self-expression.
Workspace Education seeks to be a beacon for those families who believe their children are underserved in conventional school environments and challenges them to use the wealth of available resources to create engaging, meaningful educational experiences that prepare learners for life, future academics, and the workforce with assistance from educational experts, the community and surrounding businesses. Insatiably curious and adventurous, Cath has traveled the world, living on four continents, skydiving, exploring alternative education, and deep-diving into her passions.
Cath founded 100 Roads, a research and development nonprofit, as the result of educators and founders wanting to replicate the Workspace model and to launch studies that validate the work.
100 Roads serves founders by:
- 1. creating founder learning communities for support and development;
- through finding and developing resources that help founders serve their communities; and
- by creating learning landscapes that founders can use to serve their communities.
Example Weekly Course Section
Weekly Offering
- Asynchronous version of the course in its self-contained studio on 100 Roads
- Video recording of the sessions
- Live sessions
- Optional events at 100 Roads
- Mid-session checkin
Live Sessions
- Tuesdays 8-9 PM ET and Saturdays 11-12 AM ET
Community Happenings
- Join optional events with the 100 Roads community