Our Vision

This RTA Working Group is committed to transforming veterinary education by fostering collaboration across institutions and sharing high-quality instructional materials. Our goal is to promote faculty and academic staff success through research-based teaching practices that enhance student learning and expertise development.

Veterinary education faces both significant challenges and opportunities as the demand for skilled new graduates grows. Preparing students for the complex skills needed in veterinary practice requires a strong foundation in expertise development. Despite decades of research identifying how students learn and develop expertise, educators often face barriers such as limited time, training, and institutional support, preventing widespread adoption of these methods. To address this, educators must collaborate to implement evidence-based teaching strategies that ensure graduates are ready for the workforce.

The RTA Sharing Working Group aims to transform veterinary education by sharing high-quality, research-informed instructional materials and methods. By training faculty in evidence-based instructional approaches, fostering a collaborative culture among veterinary schools, and making resources more accessible, this initiative will improve teaching efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance student readiness for professional practice. Ultimately, the group seeks to advance veterinary education, expand research opportunities, and ensure students gain the expertise required for successful careers. Additionally, these research opportunities will contribute to faculty career advancement by providing platforms for scholarship, collaboration, and professional recognition.

Our Journey So Far

• 2023: Formation of the Sharing Interest Group and petition for Working Group approval by the RTA Steering Committee and Fellows.
• 2024: Launch of the Working Group, needs analysis, co-creation of a shared vision for curricular collaboration.
• 2025: Unveiling of the first sharing prototype.

In the fall of 2023, the Sharing Interest Group formed to explore RTA Fellow interest in the idea of sharing high-quality instructional material across member institutions. After several initial meetings, providing a forum for Fellows to express their individual and the community benefits of establishing guidelines and mechanisms to aid faculty and staff sharing across institutions, including receiving credit for such scholarly activity, the Interest Group requested and was granted approval by the RTA Steering Committee and Fellows to form an RTA Working Group.

Established in late 2023, the RTA Sharing Working Group launched last year’s activities during the 2024 Winter Meeting with our second meeting as a working group which now counts 43 Fellows from all seven member institutions. Throughout 2024, the group conducted a comprehensive needs analysis and co-created a shared vision for curricular collaboration. We are embracing a wide range of resources – from individual elements such as images, diagrams, animations, audio files, whole slide images, videos, books, asynchronous modular instructional content, instructional games, and assessments to complete instruction modules (from prework to assessment) using Problem Based Learning (PBL) and Team Based Learning Instructional modalities.

Looking ahead through 2025, the Working Group is set to unveil its first sharing prototype early in the year, featuring at least one example from each of the targeted content types. With this example we will begin exploring the administration and mechanics of creating a sharing library of high-quality educational content that can be accessed and used by the entire community, consistent with OER principles.

In our short history, we have several exciting accomplishments so far; our discussions over the past year contributed to the submission of a $400,000 Educational Research Grant to the Spencer Foundation—a collaborative effort between the University of Arizona, Colorado State University, and the RTA, which is currently under review. We are also planning to pursue an additional $2 million grant to support the creation of a comprehensive sharing library for RTA member schools.