iEARN Global Learning Circles: September 2021 to January 2022

Learning Circles are highly interactive, project-based partnerships among a small number of schools located throughout the world.   There is a topic of interest for everyone on all grade levels.  Projects begin on September 30, 2021, and run for 5, 10, and 16-weeks.  You can sponsor your own project idea or just participate in someone else's project.  Since you will be guided by facilitators along each step of the process, Learning Circles is an excellent choice for beginners as well as experienced iEARN teachers.

We are offering a 5 week-long project called Hello World: Learning Circles for Elementary, Middle, and High School teachers and students who have never participated in an online project, iEARN, or a Learning Circle.  There is also a 5-week beginning project for My Hero called My Hero: First Steps.

To join iEARN Learning Circles, you must complete a placement form at least two weeks before the beginning of the session. Once you complete the placement form you will be placed in a Circle for the next session.

Interested?  Please review the choices below, and then click Join this Space at the bottom of this page and fill out the registration form on the following page.

Below is the list of projects that will be offered for beginning and experienced participants:
Grade Levels are indicated after each project – Elementary (E), Middle (M), and High School (H)

5-Week Project for Beginners
Hello World: (E, M, H)
My Hero: First Steps (E, M, H)

10-Week Project
My School: (E, M)
My Hero: Celebrating Everyday Heroes (E, M, H)

16-Week Projects
Computer Chronicles (E, M)
Places and Perspectives (E, M, H)
Global Issues (M, H)

More information about the project can be found at http://www.globallearningcircles.org/.

Hello World: Learning Circles are for Elementary, Middle, and High School teachers and students who have never participated in an online project, iEARN, or a Learning Circle. This 5-week experience introduces teachers and students to the basics of online projects and Learning Circles including Teacher Introductions, Culture Sharing, and an Information Exchange. If you have never participated in an online project or Learning Circle project before and you would like to know what it is like, this is the place to begin your iEARN experience.

My Hero: First Steps is a joint venture between Learning Circles and My Hero. This Circle will bring together students and teachers who are interested in collaborating with other schools from diverse areas of the world on the topic of My Hero through writing, photography, and digital video.  Final Projects will be created using the My Hero Web site Organizer.

My School is a 10-week Learning Circle for elementary school students (Grades K - 5) which allows students to present information about their classroom and their school.  Participants may choose to write stories, take photographs, prepare a multi-media presentation, create a video, or use other media formats to share and highlight information about their school.  Each participating class will complete a class survey and project.

My Hero: Celebrating Everyday Heroes is a 10-week collaboration between Learning Circles and the My Hero Project (www.myhero.com) brings together students and teachers interested in collaborating with schools from diverse areas of the world honoring everyday heroes.  Students use MY HERO’s state-of-the-art multimedia tools in order to share their heroes with the world through stories and art on the MY HERO website.

Places and Perspectives encourages students to explore regional history, culture, government, and geography by sharing their knowledge with people from different locations. The goal is to help students understand how historical events and geographic conditions interact to help shape their lives and gives them a deeper understanding of themselves, their families and their communities.  Each classroom sponsors a project for a section in the Places and Perspectives Review.

Computer Chronicles promotes non-fictional forms of writing across the curriculum.  Each class has the opportunity to sponsor their own project based on the curricular needs of the sponsoring teacher and students. Each participating Learning Circles class will solicit articles from their partner classes and edit them to create a Final Publication/Project. This Final Project is combined with the other projects sponsored by circles partners to form a completed Circle publication.

Global Issues: Allows students to discuss a broad range of educational, social, political, environmental, and economic issues with concern and affect the Earth's entire population. Projects will focus on identifying and developing solutions for the countless issues that face the Earth's inhabitants.  This curriculum encompasses many subject areas including sociology, science, government, history, and economics.

For more information, please contact Barry Kramer at [email protected].