The Use of Song to Open an Educational Development Workshop: Exploratory Analysis and Reflections

Song has been used by faculty of many disciplines in their classrooms and, to a lesser extent, by educational developers in workshops. This paper shares and discusses a new song (about an instructor's evolving openness to alternatives to lecture‐only teaching) and its novel use to open an educational development workshop. Self‐reported participant data from an exploratory survey suggest that the song was most effective in reducing stress as well as in increasing motivation, morale, engagement, and connection. Practical implications and implementation considerations are discussed regarding the song as well as related creative work.