Pop Culture Learning Circles?

[Megan_McNaughton]

I am curious if anyone has run (or thought about running) learning circles that focus on a pop culture phenomenon, icon, or subject ? For example, analyzing song lyrics, movies in a certain genre, or the rise and fall of applications (like Vine), or anything else that falls under the “pop culture” umbrella.

Here’s two questions I’ve been mulling over for this topic:

• What kind of resources would be useful while running a course like this?
• Are there certain activities that would work better than others to build engagement and interest?

Feel free to toss more questions/ideas for this concept into the comments!

[Lydian_Brambila]

I love these ideas, Megan! Here are some of the most popular courses for learning circles focused on pop culture:

• Art of Storytelling uses Pixar movies to explore narrative structures
• Bibi Film Review uses an 18-minute short film as the basis for five weeks of discussion using this facilitator guide
• The American South: Its Stories, Music, and Art is a great way to dig into the history of that region

You can find a full list of our recommended activities in this section of the Knowledge Base, and I think these activities could be helpful for this topic:

• Read & Watch as a Group
• One Minute Paper
• Recap

You can also try creating a facilitator guide (more info here!) and using it with your learning circle participants to take collective notes, keep track of questions, and add links to helpful videos, articles, and activities.

If anyone else in our community has suggestions, feel free to chime in! Hope this was helpful, Megan

[Megan_McNaughton]

I am definitely going to think about the activities you mentioned - I love the idea of the one-minute paper and I would totally want to implement that. I’m in the process of creating an outline using the facilitator guide - but the idea of using the guide itself to take notes/track questions/add links is SO good. Thanks for the ideas, @Lydian_Brambila!

[Lydian_Brambila]

That’s so great!! It kind of sounds like you’re well on your way to creating a course of your own. If you’re interested in some of the knowledge we’ve gathered from our community about designing learning content, you can find it in the Creating a Course section of the Knowledge Base!

Let us know if you have any questions about any aspect of this process - super excited to hear about what you’re working on