Learning from the ground up: Learning communities as an evaluation strategy

At their core, learning communities are groups of practitioners who come together to learn while pursuing work independently. For evaluators, they can also play key roles in program evaluation - including design, implementation and dissemination.   

Grounded in the Oregon Community Foundation Research and Learning team’s experiences developing learning communities across multiple grantmaking initiatives, participants in this session will learn about opportunities to leverage learning communities as an evaluation strategy and what to consider when doing so. As part of the workshop, participants will learn by doing – using the room we’re in as a window into learning community development. We will facilitate exercises to explore aspects of learning communities including building relationships, facilitating peer-learning, and supporting and assessing growth. In a hands-on way, participants will explore the contours of a learning community led by participants and come away from the session with connections to a community of peer-experts in the room.   

Overall learning communities can help uplift voices, support adult learning styles, and invite participation at critical moments in an evaluation process. And they can be a vehicle to empower those doing the work to decide what to learn, how to seek out answers, and what to do with gained knowledge and understanding. Importantly, they place people and peer-learning at the center and celebrate how experiences and relationships often intertwine with learning and use.