‘Laboratories of Learning’: Learning to Learn in Co-created Communities of Practice

During the pandemic, through university feedback mechanisms, our students expressed the need for coming together in communities of belonging. Within this context, our study focuses on how we all learn can highlight our belonging. We argue for a need to implement a more explicit process to keep developed connections more permanent, by implementing co-creative and collective learning spaces, so our students can engage in their understanding of what it means to learn. This exploratory investigation underpinned by participatory action research (PAR) methodology uses focus group, workshops co-designed with students and peer-delivered sessions, to gain insights into what conditions would prompt students to 1) talk about learning as a practice beyond subject knowledge; 2) what conditions would be needed for students to want to share with others insights about their learning, and 3) what conditions would be needed to create student communities of learning, which we are calling ‘Laboratories of Learning’.