Dr. Laura Gogia practices leadership in “connected learning,” a paradigm that shaped the work of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Academic Learning Transformation Laboratory (ALT Lab), and one that continues to inform vital research and practice around the world. This “way of life,” as Laura describes it, also helps to describe the many powerful links between AAC&U’s Faculty Collaboratives project and Open Learning ’17.

Laura sat down with me recently to describe her background and how her work first as a physician, and then a Ph.D. student in educational research, led her to the practice of openly networked learning. In part one of our conversation, Laura tells the story of her search for community, and how as Open Learning ’17’s “connected learning coach” she will help our community of learners find their own paths to more effective networked learning.

Please click on the image below to see and hear our conversation.

In part two of the interview, coming soon, Laura discusses strategies for the most effective kinds of connected learning. She also points out important connections–or “crosswalks,” as Susan Albertine calls them, between connected learning and the “mind-liberating education” Dr. Albertine and the AAC&U advocate as an essential part of all higher learning.

You can read more of Laura’s impressive and soulful work on her website, Lauragogia.com, where you will also find a link to her blog, “Messy Thinking.”