A place where questions can matter.
REAL Living Lab connects learning, community and real places. It brings evidence into dialogue with lived experience, community knowledge, systems and place — so what we notice can influence what happens next.
Real people. Real places. Evidence that can change what happens next.
Community members, learners, researchers and practitioners can shape the question, take part in trying something, notice what happens and influence the next iteration.
Knowledge grows in dialogue.
REAL begins with questions rather than predetermined answers. We listen to people, examine evidence, make assumptions visible and allow different sources of knowledge to challenge what we thought we knew.
Self
Reflection, experience, confidence, uncertainty and the knowledge a person already carries.
Others
Peers, families, practitioners and communities who see the question from another position.
Systems
Data, models, AI, instruments and feedback that can reveal patterns — and can also be wrong.
Place
Weather, ecology, materials, history and the local conditions that abstract models can overlook.
What came before
Knowledge carried through generations, culture, craft, story and repeated experience.
Socratic inquiry here is shared curiosity, not interrogation: What do you notice? What makes you think that? What would count as evidence? What might another person know that we do not? What would change your mind? What should happen next?
Annaghdown Community Garden
Growing, biodiversity, creativity, citizen observation and participation across generations.
REAL Learning
Students co-create and test better ways to learn mathematics, use AI responsibly and act on feedback.
Living records
Photos, measurements, student work and community feedback that can be questioned, compared and improved.
Dialogue With Self and System.
In learning analytics, dialogue becomes specific: the system mirrors evidence of a learner’s trajectory while the learner contributes reflection, confidence, intention and context. Neither account is complete on its own.
See
Make learning evidence visible to the learner rather than keeping the richest view behind a staff dashboard.
Reflect
Ask what the learner notices, believes and intends to do — including what the system cannot infer.
Act
Use the dialogue to support agency, equity and informed action rather than prediction for its own sake.
Return makes change visible. Share returns knowledge to the people and places that helped create it.