Lessons learned: Faculty developer and engineer working as faculty development colleagues

Abstract

In working together to deliver discipline‐specific workshops, we have had to focus on communicating effectively with each other. We have come to recognize that our biggest obstacle has been divergent ways of thinking and speaking, due to different disciplinary cultures. The metaphor we now use to conceptualize our relationship and deal more effectively with our miscommunications is ‘bridging cultures’ and ‘crossing borders’. We have learned a great deal from trying to make crossing borders more explicit in our work together; our learnings form the basis of this paper.