Collaboration

Collaboration in Course Design

What does it take to be collaborative as an adult worker? This question is plaguing me.  I think that you have to be willing to step out of your 'expert' status and be willing to risk making mistakes in public.  Some of us willingly do this, others not so much.  I think this may be hardwired in our personality. I've always been interested in everything. I tend to be a generalist and a nosey rosey as my mom would put it. I want to know what my colleagues are working on. I want to know what a faculty member teaches and what they like about it.

When I design a course for/with someone, I like to watch them teach so I can see what their personality is like. There are people who are gifted orators. They should never - or rarely - be put in a situation where this is not part of their teaching tool kit.  There are others (and I think I'm one of these) who prefer to dispatch a minimum of information verbally and then do something. It's probably how I ended up being a computer trainer/instructional technologist. To teach computers, you have to do something.  Many other fields are that way. Math, Science, Writing, Reading - oh maybe many of the academics are 'do' fields. So why is it people who like to do science or math or reading feel the need to talk about it instead of doing it when they teach?

This is where collaboration comes in. That's the type of question I like to ask faculty - why, if you like to do x, do you spend most of your time talking about it instead of doing it? At a big research university where the focus is research, faculty get to do their topic while grad students lecture or supervise lab type sections. I try to get them to think out of the box of the type of teaching they experienced as a student where it was lecture, test, lecture. What other ways can your students learn about your topic of study? What made you love the field? Who are you? How does that influence what you teach? Are you more about writing about your field after long library or primary source research? Do you take primary sources and turn them into a story to tell? Do you like standing up in front of people and telling that story? I love to watch their face light up as they talk about their field. I know nothing about nanoscience but I can listen to that scientist for hours - my wheels spinning to translate what she's saying into teaching methods. That synergy of two people who love what they do, produces powerful teaching and learning opportunities.

To do this involves risk. I have to be willing to be an ignorant person in science while the learned professor of science needs to be a novice teacher or course designer even though they may have taught for years. This can be painful for some, yet they are willing to try. I admire those folks greatly. Collaboration equals risk and risk can lead to rewards - hopefully the reward is a wonderful learning experience for their students and the satisfaction of sharing what they love to do!