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Showing posts from April, 2022

Striving for collaborative community in Science (reflection on topic 3)

  In this weeks topic 3 we have been trying to understand values and differences of learning networks and communities. I like the simple explanation of Henry Mintzberg when he says:  ”If you want to understand the difference between a network and a community, ask your Facebook friends to help paint your house.”  ( https://hbr.org/2015/10/we-need-both-networks-and-communities ). This is very fitting for social media and I agree we need both networks and communities , but how does it relate to my professional (scientific) life and which do I belong to? Past years have shown, that collaboration and international mobility make science stronger. Collaborations bring together researchers with diverse scientific backgrounds and perspectives to address perplexing questions and solve complex problems that benefit from an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approach. The most important ingredients for me to make collaborations work is trust and commitment , to produce research that is
  Openness and sharing in my own practice. Should I worry about ‘giving away’ my intellectual property?      I love lecturing. I never thought I would say that, as it has been a long sometimes frustrating journey. Maybe some of you can also relate to Aoife Monks when she says “My early career anxiety to cover as much as possible often led to students’ feeling overloaded, unable to process the material or grasp why it mattered. ” ( https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/top-tips-how-make-your-lectures-interesting ).  I look back and am proud that I have developed my teaching skills; my goal is now to give lectures that give learners space to engage, to reflect, to think. I cover far less and rather basic concepts but engage them more, getting the impression that they actually learn something. I like the personal contact to my students, building relations and seeing immediate reactions through body language (and voice).  But then the pandemic happened and within the last 2-