Layers of Learning

Wednesday and Thursday the Baylor Libraries and the Academy for Teaching and Learning co-sponsored a local site for the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) Fall Focus Session, entitled Flattening the Classroom: Building Collaborative Learning Environments. The format was eclectic, with an Adobe Connect session as the primary vehicle for delivery, but with an additional chat channel in the Ning community set up for the event, a lively Twitter conversation (#ELIFS09), and great local conversations, with as many as 30 teaching faculty, staff, librarians, and students present at any one time. The days were loosely structured, with ample time between session to engage with presenters in a virtual "parking lot," talk with each other locally, take a break, etc.

What strikes me as I look back on the two day event are the many layers of learning that were taking place.

• The event was about facilitating learning as teachers, instructional designers, librarians, through the collaborative learning environments, in both online and built spaces.
• Those of us participating were learning about the topic.
• Our sessions were taking place in a new learning space, the Garden Level Study Commons, which is still (and hopefully always will be) a work in progress.
• Those of us who had a hand in designing the space were learning about how the space, which is normally designed for small group study, worked for this kind of event. We intentionally chose to think about this space as a rough prototype, for these two days, of the type of space we hope to build as a "learning innovation studio" in the next phase of our renovation.
  
• Students in proximity to the session may have learned that this space is intended to be active, group space. I've got to work on signage to that effect, and send folks up to our new 24-hour quiet study space if that's what they are looking for. At one point in the second afternoon a student, from all the way across the room, made a very loud "Shhh," undoubtedly aimed at us. Now that's something...the students shushing the librarians!
  
• We learned about colleagues, some who we already thought we knew, and some whom we met for the first time: their skills, their interests, their style of work in groups.
  
• We learned with colleagues, in an unusual, mixed setting.
• We learned about some new tools for collaboration, and even learned (hands on!) some of them in the process of doing collaborative work (Etherpad, a foretaste, I think, of Google Wave)
• I learned by trial-and-error to "tweet" a workshop (sitting at the feet of the master, I might add).
• I learned that tweeting a workshop may be the best way to get followers for a fledgling Twitter account.
  
• I learned to have a little more respect for the for-profit higher ed. sector. Janet Salmons of Capella University offered one of the most thoughtful approaches to assessment that I've ever heard.

I have also been trying to apply this experience to my doctoral thesis topic. In particular, I've found myself thinking about the nice cross section of faculty who attended (theology; heath, physical education and recreation; social work; environmental studies; business; honors college; and more). What role do these individuals play within their departments? What are the characteristics of the "teaching and learning regimes"(Trowler, 2008) of their normal workgroups? In what ways did the event, with its levels of learning, expose or challenge the "moments" of these TLRs? Could the group assembled be considered a fledgling or potential TLR?