Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning (CIRCL)

Challenge

Rapid advances in technology create an urgent need to prepare learners for the changing world of work. The new field of cyberlearning research is advancing knowledge of strategies to ensure learners are ready to thrive in highly technological environments. Yet cyberlearning researchers need support in sharing their findings to inform and impact education.

Through their leadership of the Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning (CIRCL), EDC, Digital Promise, and SRI advanced cyberlearning researchers’ important work. CIRCL helped researchers ensure that their findings reached educators, policymakers, and the public. CIRCL also provided researchers with technical assistance, connected researchers, and supported strategic planning for future studies. In 2020, CIRCL became the Center for Integrative Research in Computing and Learning Sciences, which was a community-based hub of researchers exploring and investigating technologies that will be available to learners in 5-10 years.

Key Activities

The CIRCL team’s activities included:

• Convening researchers to share challenges, successes, and lessons learned
• Launching and maintaining an online cyberlearning resource hub for the general public and educators, as well as for researchers
• Addressing common needs of researchers through webinars, workshops, and consultation
• Hosting a Summit on the Design of Digital STEM Learning Environments and publishing a related report

Our Impact

• Led seven national convenings have engaged hundreds of researchers, educators, students, designers, and industry experts in identifying strategies to accelerate the cyberlearning community’s work and impact
• Published 24 CIRCL Primers that provide brief overviews of key cyberlearning topics for educators, journalists, policymakers, and proposal writers
• Provided over 25 webinars on topics such as the skills people need to succeed in work at the human-technology frontier