I spent most of the day today in conversations with colleagues from the UK, Australia, and the US working on the beginnings of an international organizations of historians working on the scholarship of teaching and learning in our field. The cabal consisted of David Pace and Keith Erekson (Indiana), Sean Brawley (New South Wales), Alan Booth (Exeter), and Geoff Timmons (Central Lancashire). Our meeting took place on the margins of the annual meeting of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning here in Washington–an appropriate venue since our goal is to become an affiliate of the ISSOTL.
What might such an organization accomplish? We agreed yesterday to three goals–fostering community, building capacity, and promoting the work of those doing the scholarship of teaching and learning in history on an international scale. We also agreed to start recruiting other members for a steering committee for our nascent organization (if you want to be recruited, let me know), as well as an advisory board.
But the big first step will the be the establishment of a web presence. The good folks at IU have already made a start with a very basic web page which, with the assistance of some of a Word Press plugin developed at CHNM, will become more of an open community site.
I’ll write more about this as more news is available. In the meantime, drop me an email if you’d like to sign on as a charter member–no membership fees!