Why

BMCC, like many community colleges, puts a strong institutional emphasis on teaching and learning, and on thinking and researching about teaching and learning. Before beginning this collaborative project, both of us had participated, separately and together, in cross-disciplinary BMCC faculty development initiatives. But until BMCC joined the Visible Knowledge Project in 2001, we had not had the opportunity to work on SoTL together in a focused and committed way. Through the VKP, we both saw what colleagues at other campuses were doing with digital storytelling, and began to think about how this tool could help with our own goals for our students. On parallel paths we developed projects — Joe with his Composition II class, in which students write about literature, and Rachel with her Introduction to Early Childhood Education class, in which students learn about historical, social, psychological, and practical approaches to teaching young children. We implemented these projects in our classes, and looked at the evidence of our students' learning, separately. But after we had started that process, we realized that we could do more than just look separately at our own students' learning. We could start looking together.