How might working together with other faculty in your discipline in a curriculum creating workshop affect your teaching?

As an example, we've been working together for a couple of days to produce new content and modify existing content for specific areas in biology using many different sources of scientific data and resources. What was challenging, interesting, or beneficial about this? What's next for you?

Previously Amee Godwin wrote:

As an example, we've been working together for a couple of days to produce new content and modify existing content for specific areas in biology using many different sources of scientific data and resources. What was challenging, interesting, or beneficial about this? What's next for you?

I find it challenging to get started sometimes.  It really helps to hear what others are thinking about, to see how they are proceeding, and have people to ask questions of.    What is surprising is the depth of personality, interests and knowledge that people reveal in just such a short time. The face to face interactions, under pressure of time and with the desire to produce meaningful materials within a supportive structure, were key. I am not sure I would have been willing to commit the amount of energy in an entirely online situation.  Margaret

Margaret,

You make an important point about the intensive, more personal f2f setting becoming a motivator to continue on with the collaboration. The physical meetings can only involve a select few at this point; yet, the hope is to scale this model to a wide audience of teachers and learners: where people work together deeply and are able to continue to offer and take feedback and input when they are not together in the same space.

We need other types of motivators - ways to transfer the small group setting so we can still feel a part of something, a personal connection, and easy-to-use tools to produce some quality results.

I thought it was great in the workshop that people can jump across multiple projects and not get attached to the idea of ownership. Being a contributor has a lot of draw to it, to push for quality and creativity.

Amee