Loosing Content, Gaining Community

My colleagues gave me the space, time, and tools to explore and be inventive with new ways of teaching and learning.  I became the student, pressing beyond my comfort level to grow in a community of supportive colleagues.

I was so nervous during our first LAMP workshop.  Faculty dedicated to bringing the arts and media into their classrooms gathered around the table.  I feared they would soon find out creativity was not my strong suit. They did, but responded with reassurance and encouragement.  My colleagues gave me the space, time, and tools to explore and be inventive with new ways of teaching and learning.  I became the student, pressing beyond my comfort level to grow in a community of supportive colleagues.

When the new semester began, I asked my undergraduates to do the same thing as we probed the history of Duke student activism and legal change.  Compared to previous semesters, I covered less content about the U.S. legal system in the LAMP-supported course.  That gave time for students to dig into the archives, conduct oral histories, create webpages, write exhibit guides, and design museum panels. This was much harder than taking notes during lectures and memorizing Supreme Court cases for exams. 

Our class community expanded to include university archivists, exhibit and graphic designers, web developers, and media experts.  They taught us how to write about and share our research in creative ways, to reach a broader audience through images, text, sound, color, and texture.  Whether it was in a community of faculty or student peers, we all stretched to try something new in the reassuring presence of our fellow learners.

IMAGE CREDIT:  Jenifer Hamil-Luker

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jenifer Hamil-Luker