TL;DR

Check out the Workflows 2.0 and the EA UC Berkeley Projects Page & provide any feedback if you wish. Feel free to use them as a helpful addition to your group’s repertoire of community-building activities. I believe project-based learning is more effective than reading groups at getting students to become highly engaged EAs. This is the second update about these and you can find the first post here.  

Contents:

1. Epistemics & Disclaimer
2. What is a workflow?
3. What are the stages of a workflow?
4. Transitioning to project-based learning
5. Some info about how other groups are using the Workflows/Projects
6. Next steps
7. Acknowledgments

Epistemics & Disclaimer:

• I am a university group organizer so my community-building experience within EA is somewhat limited to university groups. 
• I believe this project-based learning model could also be applied to other groups however it may need to be modified. 

What is a workflow?

An alternative and self-paced version of an intro Effective Altruism reading group that lets someone jump straight to the area that they are interested in & get the basics of it while also providing the option to meet with group organizers, get personalized feedback & suggestions as to how to get involved with projects. The long-term goal is for these is for them to be made available to every university group as an easily accessible and comprehensive option.

What are the stages of a workflow?

1. Fill out the intake form provided by your group (eg EA UC Berkeley Intake Form). 
2. Complete the Introduction to EA readings
3. Explore at least four different cause areas from the workflow database
4. Complete the workflow for your cause area of choice
5. Read the project guidelines
6. Meet with your group organizer to discuss projects & next steps

Transitioning to project-based learning

• EA UC Berkeley is using the Workflows as a supplement for our Spring 2023 Projects to get people who are new to EA caught up on the relevant readings and resources thus creating a pipeline of projects → workflows to learn about EA
• We currently have 17 students signed up for participating in projects (14 of them are EA UC Berkeley Students) 
• We are also just generally advertising them if people also want to go the opposite way workflows to learn about EA → projects
• However, I have generally found that once you get a person interested in a project they are much more likely to do the relevant “intro to EA” and cause-specific reading in order to fulfill their desire to actively contribute to the project. 
• This model also allows people to get to work on an EA-related project around 8 to 10 weeks faster than if they were doing the regular route of reading group → project, as the reading happens alongside the project. 

Some info about how other groups are using the Workflows/Projects

• Audrey Rapport from EA  UMD is using the workflows & projects and they are staffing some of the Solar4Africa Projects this semester. 
• Reed Trende from EA WashU is using some of the workflows with their students 
• Yashvardhan Sharma from EA Minerva is using some of the workflows with their students 
• Harrison Gietz from EA LSU  is using some of the workflows with their students 
• There could be more people as these have been shared on the EA Groups Slack, but some people may have the 1.0 version and not the latest one. 

Next Steps

• We have 14 UC Berkeley students doing projects this semester and 15 people completing the introductory reading group fellowship, this allows for a direct comparison between the two models to be made. I expect to make an update on this at the end of the semester. 
• Other university groups are using the workflows so I will also compile data from them on how it went in order to make any improvements necessary. 
• If any other groups choose to use the workflows please reach out to me via email (sofya.lebedeva@berkeley.edu) so that we can set up a time to chat or so that I can answer any questions that you may have. 
   

Acknowledgments

• Carolyn Qian for providing help during the ideation phase and reviewing almost every draft of this project & write-up. 
• Miranda Zhang for making the career planning program which was an inspiration for this 
• Aris Richardson working on the ideation process of this and providing edits to an earlier version of the workflows
• Karthik Tadepalli for making the Global Development workflow
• Nathaniel Li & Owen Murphy for making the AI Safety Workflow
• Garrett Ehinger for helping with various readings & finding leads for the Animal Welfare Workflow
• Julian Guidote from EA x Law McGill for his encouragement in sharing these widely
• Harrison Gietz from LSU for sharing the Workflows 2.0 with their university group
• Muhammed Bakr for providing his comments on this draft
• If I missed anyone just ping me :)