How We Started

Sometime in early 2024, I saw a social media post with a mention of “Creative Pedagogy” from Sarah Honeychurch at the University of Glasgow. She referenced a colleague there in Glasgow and mentioned some writing about “playful pedagogies.” I took a look and found Nathalie Tasler had written much about these things. So of course, I emailed Nathalie and asked if she was interested in chatting about her ideas. Well, some months later we had met over Zoom several times and after much ideation, we planned out some collaborative writing event between my colleagues here in Washington and some there in Glasgow.

We had interest from over 25 faculty and staff between the two institutions. We ended up with 18 participating throughout the month. There was a big presidential election in the US in November and in Glasgow, it was marking time. Still, we used the #acwrimo (Academic Writing Month) as an existing structure to base our timeframe. 

Through the month we created long blog posts, PowerPoints, Padlets, Postcards, and we shared images with one another, sounds with one another, and met online in large and small groups. We submitted book proposals and trade journal articles! We found new tools, new ways of working across an ocean, new ways of being in a classroom, and new friends. 

Part of our goal here was to share our work. Another equally valuable part of this effort is to help others find a way to do something similar between two universities, colleges, or schools. It started with a link on Twitter and a cold-call email to someone at another university. That was all it took, along with some willingness to spend time trying to figure out how we could best present the idea to our respective universities. 

We started small and our hope it that we can do this again next year. We will have this amazing experience to share and we have learned much about presenting the structure and possible outcomes to do it again. 

Here are some tips for trying this yourself!