As someone who has been working at the intersection of learning, design, and technology for a few years now, I’ve noticed something that used to frustrate me: it’s hard to get new people involved in projects around teaching, learning, and technology.
At almost every event that I attend on-campus, I see the same faces and many of the same examples offered every time. All of these people and examples are wonderful, but they have also often left me wanting. Why meet up with the same people to share the same information over and over again?
I used to wonder: what is the point of trying to build new enthusiasm in and interest for innovative teaching and learning with technology if we are all just going to be talking to each other without bringing in any new perspectives? How could we ever provide “proof of concept” of our meetings and sharing if we could not see that we were reaching new people? Won’t our ideas stagnate if we are just talking to each other, but never bringing anyone new into the room?
“Yes” and “no” is the answer to all of these questions.
Yes, it’s hard for teaching and learning efforts to grow if we don’t actively recruit for and involve new voices. But no, I don’t think our ideas will stagnate even if the same people are in the same conversations for one simple reason: we need to change the goals of learning and technology initiatives away from scaling and towards community-building.
I get why scaling matters, of course. If a project doesn’t grow or if it doesn’t reach a lot of people, the project is not going to be sustainable. Stakeholders who hold institutional pursestrings won’t see the value in continuing to offer compensation or financial support to initiatives that don’t have impact. That’s, of course, the practical bottom line.
That said, if we are working as instructional designers, technologists, or learning specialists at our institutions and we are trying to have conversations or meetings about the future of teaching and learning, I don’t think we need to be frustrated about meeting this practical bottom line. When we get instructors, administrators, designers, and other specialists in a room together – even if they are the same groups of people – we can think more creatively about leveraging the talent and motivation that’s in that room towards considering how a community of practitioners can be formed to build projects together. Specifically, even if new people can’t be reached, the same groups of individuals might be able to work together to build more cohesive and coherent projects together.
If we move our goals for teaching and learning initiatives away from scale and more towards community, we have the potential to build more authentic collaborations. When I refer to “authentic” collaboration, I’m pointing to partnerships between stakeholders who have shared goals. Rather than trying to reach individuals whose goals may differ from those who seek out opportunities to innovate teaching and learning, why not build off of shared purpose and motivation to create something new with existing partners?
I’m not saying this doesn’t happen already. Rather, I’ve found it helpful to shift my mindset around change management and innovation by focusing not on how many people I impact every day, but rather, by focusing on the quality of the partnerships I’m forming and the deepened engagement I can sustain by meeting with the same enthusiastic, motivated individuals who want to be there doing the work of improving intersections between teaching, learning, and technology that I strive to build.
It’s almost the end of the academic year here, and so this post emerges from a spirit of maintaining energy to carry through the final push of wrapping up projects!