Collaborative work (Oct 06.08 )

From Case Studies Wiki

The post is just replicated here to catch all the words for archive purposes, to read the post in its original form and see the links, photos, videos etc., go here: http://good.group.shef.ac.uk/blog/?p=319

Today I attended the first in the new Sheffield Research Leader’s Programme. This aims to provide a coherent framework of “skills training provision for research staff”. What’s the connection here to Learning and Teaching you ask? Well, I’m nosy. That’s always one reason why we attend these events, isn’t it?

Second, I’m just starting my Academic Fellowship for CILASS, and I wante to start thinking about the research community here and what links there are. I think the links between teaching and research are often articifical ones (particular when it comes to postgraduate supervision this becomes very blurred in my mind). Finally, I just wanted to see what kinds of transferable skills they might offer from a different perspective. It was worth attending. Marcin Szczerbi?ski and Ewa D?browska gave a presentation called “Collaboration practicalities” which I think has implications for Teaching teams or thinking about doing teaching-led research as well. Their points about the drawbacks of collborative work were particularly well made I think:

incompatible working styles (early/steady vs. last minute/spurtsy)

disagreements about priorities

communication (when you have time, face-to-face, via email etc.)

sharing credit and taskload

takes more time

Much of the Case Studies Project and the resulting case studies depend on being able to see how information and skills can transfer and be applied in new situations. I thought it was time that I got out of a purely teaching context and looked at some of what the research events had to offer. I’m glad I did.

Nadine Wills, LeTS