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🇬🇧 English
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🇪🇸 Español
🇧🇷 Português
🇸🇦 العربية
🇯🇵 日本語

Learning Creative Learning
April & May 2026

A free online course and community from MIT
For educators, makers, parents, and curious learners everywhere

✓ Completely free 🗓 Doors Open April 13 🌍 Multilingual community ⏱ 6 weeks, self-paced
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About

What is Learning Creative Learning?

Learning Creative Learning (LCL) is a free course and open community for educators and for anyone who cares about learning and creativity.

Over six weeks, you'll explore the ideas behind the creative learning educational approach, work on projects you actually care about, and connect with people from around the world who share your curiosity.

It's part course, part community, part creative playground.

LCL is developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT, the research team behind Scratch and Octostudio, the creative coding platforms used by millions of young learners worldwide.

It is also made possible by a global network of volunteer facilitators who help organize, translate, and support the community in multiple languages.

The big idea

The 4 P's of Creative Learning

LCL is built around four principles that guide how we design and facilitate creative learning:

Projects

We learn best when we're actively engaged in making things, not just reading or watching.

Passion

When we work on something we care about, we go deeper, try harder, and learn more.

Peers

Learning flourishes as a social activity: working together, sharing ideas, building on each other's work.

Play

Creativity thrives where there's room to try things out, make mistakes, and discover something unexpected along the way.

How it works

What will you actually do?

Each week we propose a few things to do, but you're always free to engage with just the parts that feel relevant to you.

📺

Watch

A short video with Mitch Resnick introducing the week's idea.

📖

Read

A reading or two to go a little deeper into the week's topic.

🎨

Make

A creative mini-project with an open-ended prompt. Use whatever materials you have.

💬

Share & discuss

Post what you made in the forum, see what others created, and leave a comment.

All activities are optional and self-paced, and each week is self-contained, so you can jump in at any point, skip what doesn't resonate, and engage in whatever way feels right for you.

Typically, participants spend around 3–4 hours a week, but it can be as little as 10 minutes, just watching the video and sharing a thought in the community. It's entirely up to you.

Live sessions

Live events on Zoom

We also host a few live sessions each week. It's a chance to meet other participants, discuss the week's ideas, or create something together. These are always optional, and everything gets shared in the forum afterwards so you won't miss out if you can't join.

Octostudio

Octostudio Playground (Wednesdays, 11am ET – 1 hour)

Experience creative learning in practice with OctoStudio, a free coding app to make stories, animations and games using your mobile device.

AI Playground

AI Playground (Thursdays, 3pm ET – 90 min)

Experiment with generative AI creative tools, and reflect critically on what this means for creativity and learning.

LCL Chat

LCL Chat (Fridays, 3pm ET – 1 hour)

Meet other participants and talk about ideas, projects, and your experience in LCL.

All times are Boston/New York time (ET). Make sure to convert to your local time zone or add to Google Calendar

Week by week

Timeline

Apr 13 Doors Open!
Join the forum, introduce yourself, add yourself to the community map, and get familiar with the platform.
Apr 20 Introduction to Creative Learning
What is creative learning, and why does it matter?
Apr 27 Projects
How can we create opportunities for meaningful making?
May 4 Passion
How do we help people connect learning to what they truly care about?
May 11 Peers
How do we support collaborative and community-based learning?
May 18 Play
How do we create the conditions for playful experimentation?
May 25 Creative Society
How do we bring creative learning into the world, and imagine the future of education together?

🌍 Languages

A multilingual community

LCL is designed so that language is as little of a barrier as possible.

Videos have subtitles in multiple languages, readings are translated by community volunteers, and the forum supports automatic translation, so you can read and write in your own language, and still be part of the global conversation.

Live sessions are hosted in English, but we create breakout rooms in multiple languages with the help of facilitators from the community, so you can discuss ideas with others who share your language.

There are also local community groups where you can connect with people who share your language and context.

🇬🇧 English 🇪🇸 Spanish 🇧🇷 Portuguese 🇮🇹 Italian 🇸🇦 Arabic 🇯🇵 Japanese + more

Who's it for?

For anyone who cares about learning and creativity

LCL is designed for adults: educators, parents, researchers, and anyone working with or thinking about learning. If any of these sound like you, you're in the right place.

👩‍🏫 Teachers & educators 👨‍👧 Parents 🏫 School administrators 🎨 Designers & makers 🧑‍💻 Developers 🌱 After-school facilitators 🔬 Researchers 🤔 Curious people

No prior experience needed. No grades, no assignments, no pressure.

We don't offer certificates, but if you need documentation of your participation for professional purposes, send us an email and we'll be happy to help.

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Any questions? Contact us!