Collaborative Academic Workshops

Are We Speaking the Same Language? 💡 Insights on Interdisciplinary Science Communication A few years ago, I was asked to help scientists communicate with… each other. This surprised me a bit because I usually train researchers to engage with the public, high school students etc. But why help scientists communicate among themselves? The answer lies in the rise of interdisciplinary research: Today’s complex problems require knowledge from many different research fields, making effective communication within interdisciplinary research projects crucial. Despite limited literature on this, I took on the challenge and have since conducted numerous rewarding workshops. This autumn I moderated a workshop for Carlsberg Foundation Semper Ardens Accelerate grant holders and in later summer we had a productive ITEASc workshop in Middelfart, where PhD and master’s students developed and pitched interdisciplinary research projects. Here are some key takeaways for successful interdisciplinary research and scicomm from the workshops: 📣 Have a clear aim: Well-motivated research questions are essential. 📣 Start a dialogue, not a monologue: Listen to your audience (in this case: your peers). 📣 Be transparent: Share your uncertainties. 📣 Train in a safe environment: Positive feedback culture is important. 📣 Be playful and reflective - but hold on to your core scientific skills and projects. 📣 Have patience: Developing a common language takes time. As we learned from ITEASc keynote speaker Andreas Roepstorff, interdisciplinary work might even slow down publication rates. But we need better papers, not more papers. We need to listen more and talk/write less! So… how do we train this in a workshop? 1) We start with fun and safe activities to spark conversation. It might look chaotic in photos, but it’s well thought out :-) 2) We aim for clear end products, like poster presentations. 3) Everyone literally writes down their core scientific skills on a piece of paper and presents it to the others. Three trivial points? Yes, perhaps. But highly efficient! AND it’s fun. What more could you ask for? Here what participants said when evaluating the workshops: “The workshop was really enlightening. It provided a toolbox that I will for sure use in the future to establish collaborations and submit multidisciplinary proposals with colleagues with different backgrounds!” “It was a friendly and validating environment.” “The ice breaker gave me the feeling that this was well organised, this was something new, and this was going to be fun. It did wonders for networking throughout the day.” “Amazing ideas in 3h. I can only imagine what could we do with months!” “It significantly shaped me to a better science communicator :)”   What are your experiences – good or bad – with Interdisciplinary Science Communication?  

When Beijing’s Bureau of Education asked me to deliver a workshop on building hands-on, student centered science classrooms, this is what the room setup looked like. (See picture on far left) Hard to deliver a workshop on hands-on, student centered learning in a teacher led environment like this. But with 4 SIMPLE shifts, not only were we able to transform this learning environment, but more importantly, it supported participants in leading discussions, building prototypes, thinking creatively, collaborating fluidly, and re-imagining their own learning environments. So what did we do?! Simple. First we grouped tables and teamed participants according to similar roles. From Siloed - - - > Collaborative. Second, we eliminated the “front of the classroom.” Teaching and learning took place in stations, small discussion circles, via peers and purposefully placed prompts. From Teacher designed - - - > Co-Designed Learning Third, instead of leading with dry content, we led with an open ended prompt: “How will you bring what you learn about active, hands- on learning back to your campuses? From led by content - - - > led by inquiry. Finally, we gave them choice in the workshop output. Some designed projects and hands- on lessons, while others developed implementation plans. From worksheets - - -> interest-based, real world outcomes. The result? 50 radically transformed science classrooms with opportunities for students to take CONtROL of their learning. All because of a few SHIFTS in the environment. How might making a few SHIFTS like these transform learning in your context?! P.s. Thank you to the organizers of this fabulous workshop opportunity 🙏🏼 🙏🏼. #schoolleadership #educationalleadership #projectbasedlearning #studentcenteredlearning

📐 The Architecture of Collab Workshop Design 👉 Meeting-by-Meeting Here’s the set of “Prep Meetings” me & my colleagues use for designing & planning our workshops. Context: ▸ My typical workshop prep time is ~ 5 weeks. ▸ I work typically with 1 or 2 co-facilitators. ▸ More of my colleagues are ready to consult. BEFORE, I would: 👉 Schedule the workshop (5 weeks in the future), and then 👉 Would schedule the prep meetings from week to week on an “as needed” basis, meaning: “Oh, it’s time to start working on the agenda. Hey team, let’s meet on this!” Not optimal, because: ▸ Calendars get busy ▸ My attention can slip, and I can forget ▸ Scheduling “every now and then” is a distraction So I came up with this fix: 💡 Schedule ALL prep meetings in advance. Like I would schedule a training curriculum. Here are the meetings: 🔵 Weekly Meetings 🔵 ▸ Progress check-in with the client/workshop requestor (30 min) ▸ Progress check-in with co-facilitators (30 min) 🔵 One-Off Meetings 🔵 ▸ Workshop prep kick-off with co-facilitators, requestor (30 min) ▸ Individual interviews with participants (1 with each participant, 30 min) ▸ Creative moment (all co-facilitators throw ideas on what to do in the workshop: 30 min) ▸ 1st Draft of Agenda (with co-facilitators; 30 min) ▸ 2nd Draft of Agenda (with co-facilitators; 30 min) ▸ Agenda Peer Review (with 1-2 colleagues who are NOT my co-facilitators; 30 min) ▸ Final agenda walk-through (60 minutes) That’s it! Now I schedule all those meetings immediately after we schedule the workshop. It saves me a lot of focus, and creates a nice & steady cadence for our team prep work. — Want to know more? Let me know in the comments! I might give this topic space in a future post 😏