When I arrived in Washington, D.C. to attend the first APSA Conference on Teaching and Learning, I did not know what to expect. Although I have been a regular participant in the APSA Annual Meeting and attended many workshops on teaching and curricular development, this didn't seem to be the same. All of my contacts with the program committee and APSA had seemed more informal, specific, and intense. They had clear expectations of this small group of 40. Unlike the Annual Meeting, we would not be presenting our research for 15 minutes, answering questions from the audience, responding to the discussants' comments, and then spend the remainder of the conference as a passive observer. At the plenary session the expectations were made more explicit. We would spend more time in our groups of 10 or 15 throughout the weekend—but we would still only have approximately 15 minutes to formally present our work. Our curiosity was palpable, how would a group of academics spend the remainder of our time?