CircleIn app | Photo by Diana Jaber | The Wright State Guardian
CircleIn, an online studying platform, is now at Wright State University (WSU) to help students with remote learning. By allowing students to collaborate with each other in a controlled environment, CircleIn is an innovative approach to studying remotely with others.
What is CircleIn
CircleIn is a virtual space for students to engage with each other and study together, created by Gerald Meggett. By investing in CircleIn, WSU was able to bring it to Raiders as they navigate remote learning.
“We believe that there is incredible strength in knowledge sharing among peers,” said Meggett, Jr. CEO and Co-Founder of CircleIn on the CircleIn website.
Students use their WSU login information to register for CircleIn and can access any class that they are enrolled in.
“The idea is that for every course you are registered for at Wright State, there will be a version of that in the CircleIn app and you can talk to all the students in that class that join,” said Associate Vice Provost of Student Success Tim Littell.
Students can ask each other questions, upload and share notes, create flashcards and create smaller study groups. There is also a planner-like feature for students to create tasks for themselves.
Student Success Services is currently working on adding SI leaders to certain classes to add additional help. Although this process has been slowed down, students will soon be able to study with SI leaders through the app.
“CircleIn is still working through some issues on their end to give our SI leaders ‘expert’ access to their courses in CircleIn,” said Director of Academic Support David Bringhurst.
The more students help each other and engage with the students in their classes, the more points that they earn. Students can then trade in points for gift cards to various stores and restaurants.
CircleIn at Wright State
With remote learning, less students were using the tutoring services available to them.
“When we looked at the data in the fall, tutoring appointments were down by nearly a third. Which concerned me greatly because that meant that students who were otherwise getting help weren’t getting help through tutoring,” Littell said.
Looking for ways to engage students in tutoring and academic help, Littell and others brought CircleIn to WSU, hoping to give them a better way of studying with others.
“What we liked about it is that we know that many of us are depending on technology, and so this was a way to do that and to get students to talk to one another,” Littell said.
Currently, there are almost 600 students at WSU registered for and using CircleIn. While most classes that students are registered for on CircleIn at WSU are lab and science courses, Littell says that students in any course and any major can benefit from the collaboration element of CircleIn.
Future use of CircleIn
Because this is the first semester that CircleIn has been available to WSU students, there is not a lot of feedback about what students think of the online studying platform. However, Littell says that at the end of the semester Student Success Services will determine the effectiveness at WSU.
Littell says that the two main things that he will be looking at the end of the semester are the engagement and the outcome of the students that participated.
“Did they go on to be successful in the course they were registered for,” Littell said. “Did they go on to be in good standing at the end of the term? Did they go on to re-enroll?”
