Collaboration opportunities for BYU students and faculty alike are increasing; the Harold B. Lee Library even plans to consolidate the juvenile section and add a collaborative space.
Planning for the project will continue throughout this semester, and construction for the new space is tentatively slated to begin during the summer, said library communications spokesman Roger Layton. The Lloyd Alexander conference room will also open for student collaboration in the afternoons.
Resources currently in place include the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), tucked behind the Harold B. Lee Library.
Taylor Halverson, a teaching and learning consultant for the CTL, explained that the center does much more than just sponsor collaboration.
“Though at the CTL we sponsor collaboration, we are actually a collaboration point,” Halverson said. “We are collaborative mediators for teaching and learning practices on campus.”
Ranging from tips on how to integrate Pinterest in the classroom to quotes from General Authorities, the Center for Teaching and Learning understands that faculty members cannot do this on their own.
Halverson said that collaboration and teamwork should not be anything new to faculty members and students. They already have been on multiple teams throughout their lives. Families and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are two such examples that he gave.
“The world’s problems cannot get solved by the lone genius, but they get solved on teams,” Halverson said. “One of the marks of being a human is the ability to positively interact with other humans and solve problems.”
Faculty members are not the only ones interested in making BYU a more collaborative, creative place. Students are answering the call and encouraging their peers to do the same.
Christian Fullmer, a 22-year old sophomore from Los Angeles is currently involved in a joint project between the McKay School of Education and Harold B. Lee Library. This semester, he is hard at work developing a platform similar to Learning Suite that encourages students, faculty and alumni to share their creative ideas and foster a collaborative environment. Fullmer understands that the best ideas come from collaboration.
“BYU would benefit a lot if we created a more collaborative culture here,” Fullmer said. “Innovation at its best comes from collaborative work, from calling on the skills, abilities, knowledge and strengths of all the different students.”
Students do not have to worry about not having enough sufficient opportunities to collaborate with one another. Aside from collaborating with their fellow peers in classes, students can apply for funding from The Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration and ORCA, and participate in the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology’s Innovation Academy.
