The Importance of Collaboration
Collaboration within the graduate community, though explicitly understood as being a large part of graduate studies, is in general largely ignored. I have had the pleasure of collaborating with a graduate colleague (based in Utah at the time) on a conference paper, which was a richly rewarding experience both academically and pedagogically. Collaborating, writing, editing, producing, performing a paper takes on a whole other level of understanding when done via the internet and the telephone. By the time we had discovered the wonderful world of simultaneous editing in Google docs, we had gone through the pleasure/pain of many emailed drafts, many MS Word comments.
It was an exercise in learning and adapting. I feel that graduate students, academics, teachers, pedagogs should collaborate more. Why? Because collaboration on an academic article, on a conference paper, on a piece of creative work, is very similar to the type of interaction that I feel should happen within the classroom. It is about a give and take, listening to what the other person is saying, taking into account their point of view, their specific methodological framework, their theoretical framework, and in the end both parties learn from each other.
Our conference paper was something that shared the same subject (the ethicality of the sensory) but within two different literary periods, the 18th and 19th century. Creating links and bridging understanding between our two periods caused us to both understand our own literary frame better but also the one that came before/after.
This morning I came across something that would allow me to collaborate with someone again. This time it would be creatively and not necessarily academically. The possibility for reciprocal ethical learning is nonetheless inherent in this project.
So this of course begs the question: What is this ethical learning that you speak of? What does an ethical classroom look like? What are the strategies for the promotion and maintenance of such a space? This of course will require another longer post, which I will write shortly, laying out the terms of my pedagogical philosophy and how it looks in action and performance.
It was an exercise in learning and adapting. I feel that graduate students, academics, teachers, pedagogs should collaborate more. Why? Because collaboration on an academic article, on a conference paper, on a piece of creative work, is very similar to the type of interaction that I feel should happen within the classroom. It is about a give and take, listening to what the other person is saying, taking into account their point of view, their specific methodological framework, their theoretical framework, and in the end both parties learn from each other.
Our conference paper was something that shared the same subject (the ethicality of the sensory) but within two different literary periods, the 18th and 19th century. Creating links and bridging understanding between our two periods caused us to both understand our own literary frame better but also the one that came before/after.
This morning I came across something that would allow me to collaborate with someone again. This time it would be creatively and not necessarily academically. The possibility for reciprocal ethical learning is nonetheless inherent in this project.
So this of course begs the question: What is this ethical learning that you speak of? What does an ethical classroom look like? What are the strategies for the promotion and maintenance of such a space? This of course will require another longer post, which I will write shortly, laying out the terms of my pedagogical philosophy and how it looks in action and performance.
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