Beyond the clock: Communities of learners outside scheduled hours

The industrial revolution, the development of the Internet and the rising influence of Silicon Valley are all products of thriving knowledge networks. These networks of innovators rapidly increased the access to useful knowledge and drove the speed of development in their field.
At Leeds Trinity University these networks are being developed by Sports Journalists, who are competing to establish news platforms in the digital age, working across their week rather than in their allotted sessions. Led by self-regulated learners, who provide intrinsic motivation, the teams have driven each other to build weekly audiences in the thousands by constructing digital workflows that suit their learning.
Students are presented with contextualised data on a weekly basis by a lecturer who identifies areas of strong performance, regardless of the positive data to back this up, and areas for further improvements to provide an overview. Then students are given the space to problem-solve these issues, with the lecturer taking a facilitating rather than teaching role.