Our Reflections

Marie McQuade: What a really lovely, collective and impactful project to be involved with. Thanks to Todd and Nathalie for their leadership in developing and driving this brilliant collaboration. For me, it was in some ways small scale, low-key and eminently achievable, in other ways, transformative, practice-changing and inspiring.

My favourite part of my work is working with people – meeting new people (students, colleagues, partners), learning from colleagues from all specialities, and connecting with them over student support, pedagogy, travel, interests and all the other normal life stuff that seeps into our work spaces. Working with Todd on our scholarship project exploring the first five minutes of class has been a joy on all of those levels. This experience has been profoundly enriching—not only have I grown as a writer, but I’ve also gained a friend and hopefully ongoing collaborator.

Together, we’ve exchanged insights about our teaching, learned about each other’s countries, engaged in international comparisons, and shared glimpses of our lives - our families, commutes, teaching, and everyday moments -  we decided early on to share some photographs from our working lives to further build our connection and that has brought a really meaningful extra layer to our work. Beyond the professional and personal growth this collaboration has brought, I’m excited about disseminating our work and building on the momentum we’ve built. With next steps already in train, I really look forward to taking our partnership even further in the future.

Definitely keen to be involved again next year - so much learning to bring from this first exploration of international collaborative scholarship!

Nathalie: It was challenging to keep up with participation. November is marking and teaching time for me, and I did not have much headspace to reflect and truly enjoy the togetherness of our collaborations. I agree with Carole a more regular check-in would have helped there. However, despite the lack of time; despite the hiccups of running this the first time; despite not quite knowing what we were doing, or where this was going, it was so worthwhile! I have met amazing colleagues, with whom there is potential and plans for further collaboration, and some of our writing has a phase two still ahead in form of a publication or two. 
My learning therefore is: even if you do not have much time; even if you are not entirely sure yet where you are going with your writing; it is such a positive experience and even confused writing can turn into something interesting, joyful and significant.  

Hannah: My involvement in the project was quite light. I enjoyed meeting colleagues from other units and institutions and hearing creative ideas stretched my perception of what could be possible in terms of learning approaches and environments. I found the process of pairing up and organising collaborations quite difficult but eventually worked with the River of Writing group asynchronously. The exercises were really interesting and cathartic and have put me in a better place in relation to my own writing and therefore my own scholarly practice around learning and teaching. 

Becca: How fun to sit down and talk with folks near and far about how science is to use Linnea’s word, imbued with creativity. The podcast format worked really well for us. I didn’t have the time for writing every day, but setting aside an hour to talk to folks? Yes, that really resonated, and I’m so glad to have connected with others. I hope we can continue the conversation next year. 

Alison: I really value this opportunity for cross-continent collaboration, it was so much fun to take part in an international project, meet new people and experiment with creative ideas together. When we started I was not entirely sure what we would produce, but it is lovely to see the different ideas and creative things which have emerged from the project.  

Sunita and I decided to record a short audio piece with a description each day, which gradually unfolded into a lovely portfolio of sounds, telling the story of our day in teaching, researching, reading, walking and general everyday living whilst in the midst of global news events.  Meeting on Zoom and discovering so many random things which we had in common was an added bonus- a bit of virtual collegiality is always nice!  It transpired that we both think through writing as well, so we are planning a bit of exploration about the sound experiment to see where that takes us.. I would definitely recommend that others take part next year, have a go and see where it takes you!

Carole: It was motivating  and inspiring, challenging in its one way at times and most of all reflective. Daily prompts and specific projects helped me, but I rather hit the ground running with one. That proved less collaborative (although still useful itself) and I’d have benefited from a more regular check in/ meeting but my schedule clashed and I didn’t like to ask people for more demands on their time. The time frame was good in some ways- a month can be manageable , but mainly if you’ve got something to write about- otherwise time is spent planning rather than writing- which then means another month or so perhaps? Depends on the type of project I guess. I think I'd recommend a few planning boot camps first (I know the aim was to have  those but different people showed up at different times and so that didn’t quite work for me.  I’m sure it must have felt like herding cats. 

Sunita: I loved the exercise of writing and listening each day with our colleague, Alison, from Glasgow.  I enjoyed learning about the sounds of the spaces she was in and the insight into her world that offered me many miles away.  I enjoyed tuning into the sounds of my own spaces that I am so accustomed to and it became a mindfulness practice each time.  Minus, my dogs barking like little nut jobs, it was nice to appreciate the sounds of my spaces and see how much they contribute to my well-being.  While I am usually inclined to write first, it was a lot of fun to engage in this practice by listening first instead.  Thank you to my writing partner, Alison, for that inspired idea! I want to see this live on next year for faculty to have this same opportunity to collaborate and create together!

Todd: I really enjoy finding people to collaborate with and this event, with these good people, was really rewarding. I think most of those who participated would say that.

The time difference, no funding, the lack of having organized an event like this, all played into the great challenge we had before us! And here we are, with these ideas to share. How wonderful!

For me, the work of writing most every day was a great hill to climb. I didn’t quite get there. But each week I spoke with Maire, and we spent time talking about our lives and our work. Then, after some time we spoke about the first five minutes and the value that can be found there. We talked about our colleagues and the great things they do in classrooms, and we wondered about our practices. We generated a lot of work, and it was an interesting challenge to shorten it for the Faculty Focus article. I hope our submission is accepted!

Getting the time to talk with a colleague from another country was so valuable. We created a bond that I think will last and I look forward to discovering ways we can collaborate in the future.

I am excited to try to do this again next year!