Understanding and Responding to Various Member Needs in a Global Learning Network Focused on Foundational Skills

• In Event: What We’re Learning About Learning Networks

Proposal

The learning network for reading and foundational skills is a community built by and for its members—dedicated to connecting basic education stakeholders to the ideas, evidence, practices, and people that can help them improve their work and make an impact in their communities. The network’s overarching goal is to support quality learning outcomes across the continuum of basic education, including pre-primary through primary and youth levels. It was first launched in 2014 and relaunched in 2020 as part of a larger project. The network is guided by a Steering Group, which consists of individuals and organizational representatives chosen to guide the network’s priorities, activities, and membership.

The learning networks membership has continued to increase since its founding in 2014. Consistently, membership and interest have been largest in Africa and North America; these membership figures are currently 40 percent and 30 percent, respectively. Seventy percent of the GRN membership on LinkedIn is from America.

These general audience data points also trickle down to more specific asks of the network. For the learning network’s Concept Notes solicitation process, the network received a total of 23 concept notes, 15 of these were submissions from Africa, and 12 concept notes were based on increasing foundational skills, which is also a priority of the funding agency. The learning network was able to see very strong alignments with work being done in Africa on foundational skills, with broad reaching topics from community involvement, teacher training, book supply chain, and more. In reconstituting the Steering Group, there were 22 total applicants, five from the US, three from Asia, one from the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 from Africa. There is a huge interest in participation, involvement, and getting voices heard from Africa.

Throughout the current project year and as part of planning for the next year, this learning network is learning from the engagement and data and adapting our approaches in order to better respond to the demand. These adapted approaches include: expanding regional steering group representation, redesigning networking and facilitated learning opportunities, and strengthening our capacity to engage participation through multiple languages. This overall learning process is guided by the aspiration to further evolve from a community of practice to a learning network.

During this process, we will seek to deepen our understanding of the demands of our network members and further evaluate our response. We will seek to better understand which activities have the greatest impact. As mentioned above, we will explore how trust among members supports the evolution of the learning network. Finally, we will evaluate which knowledge products are the most useful to our members.

Author

• Carrie Stout, Edcucation Development Center EDC