Students’ beliefs and experiences of interdisciplinary learning

This study explored senior secondary students’ beliefs and experiences of learning an interdisciplinary curriculum, Liberal Studies, in Hong Kong. Through the analysis of focus-group interviews with 168 students, most of the students were found to enjoy or at least not resist interdisciplinary learning, and preferred to study real-world contemporary issues. More than half of the students, however, expressed their relative lack of confidence in interdisciplinary learning because of the difficulties they encountered in Independent Enquiry Studies and the public examination. The students were also found to have undertaken examination-oriented activities when the public examination approached. The study sheds light on the realization of interdisciplinary learning in secondary education in contexts where teacher-centred pedagogy and an accountability agenda remain influential.     

Students’ attitudes towards interdisciplinary education: a course on interdisciplinary aspects of science and engineering education

A course entitled ‘Science and Engineering Education: Interdisciplinary Aspects’ was designed to expose undergraduate students of science and engineering education to the attributes of interdisciplinary education which integrates science and engineering. The core of the course is an interdisciplinary lesson, which each student is supposed to teach his/her peers. Sixteen students at advanced stages of their studies attended the course. The research presented here used qualitative instruments to characterise students’ attitudes towards interdisciplinary learning and teaching of science and engineering. According to the findings, despite the significant challenge which characterises interdisciplinary teaching, a notable improvement was evident throughout the course in the percentage of students who expressed willingness to teach interdisciplinary classes in future.     

Teacher and student responses to interdisciplinary aspects of sustainability education: what do we really know?

That the value of interdisciplinarity in sustainability education is largely taken for granted reflects widely held views about the inherent complexity and uncertainty of sustainability issues and the need for holistic responses to them. Although there is an extensive literature on interdisciplinarity, there has been relatively little investigation of the ways in which teachers and learners deal with and respond to this central aspect of sustainability education. This paper presents data from two case studies of masters course in sustainability education, one in an English university and one in a Chinese university, and examines some of the contextual factors that support or limit their attempts to go beyond the bounded ways of thinking associated with more traditional academic disciplines. While some learners respond enthusiastically to interdisciplinarity, others experience forms of ‘cognitive dissonance’. Interdisciplinarity requires individual teachers to operate as members of teams and to find ways of promoting dialogue between different perspectives, discourses and methods of approaching problems. The key to interdisciplinarity is an open attitude, a willingness to learn and an ability to engage with different ways of thinking about issues we face in common.     

Becoming an interdisciplinary scientist: an analysis of students’ experiences in three computer science doctoral programmes

The aim of this study was to identify how and why doctoral students do interdisciplinary research. A mixed-methods approach utilising bibliometric analysis of the publications of 195 students identified those who had published interdisciplinary research. This objective measurement of the interdisciplinarity, applying the Rao-Stirling index to Web of Science and Scopus citations, allowed for a comparison of students’ interdisciplinary research outcomes from three different computer science programmes: a traditional programme, a multidisciplinary doctoral school and an interdisciplinary doctoral college. Applying a sociocultural approach, interviews with the 15 most interdisciplinary students were analysed to understand how dispositions and experiences of students and factors of the different programmes affect the circumstances and processes of becoming an interdisciplinary early career scientist. The data indicate that student motivations, previous skills and knowledge interacted with policies and programme structures including type of funding and supervisor expectations to play a crucial role in interdisciplinarity at the doctoral level. These factors can give rise to interdisciplinary research even in programmes without interdisciplinary focus and compromise the interdisciplinary goals of interdisciplinary programmes.     

An interdisciplinary analysis of microteaching evaluation forms: how peer feedback forms shape what constitutes “good teaching”

Microteaching, a standard method for developing teaching skills, places high importance on peer feedback, which is guided by post-session feedback forms. This paper focuses on how feedback forms can shape what becomes understood as important to teaching. A sample of 10 microteaching evaluation forms drawn from North American postsecondary education institutions were examined using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Through a mixed-methods, interdisciplinary approach combining quantitative form classification based on distinct teaching elements with qualitative analysis drawing on Foucauldian and post-structural feminisms, key challenges are identified in the way that peer feedback forms may shape perceptions of what constitutes “good teaching”. We interpret that the close attention paid to the management of the body and the disproportionate focus on presentation and style may foreclose other modes of teaching beyond a conventional lecture-based class. This leads to a discussion on the ways in which the evaluation forms can be enhanced to provide a more effective educational tool.     

Teaching ‘community engagement’ in engineering education for international development: Integration of an interdisciplinary social work curriculum

This article reviews the literature on challenges faced by engineering faculty in educating their students on community-engaged, sustainable technical solutions in developing countries. We review a number of approaches to increasing teaching modules on social and community components of international development education, from adding capstone courses and educational track seminars to integrating content from other disciplines, particularly the social sciences. After summarising recent pedagogical strategies to increase content on community-focused development, we present a case study of how one engineering programme incorporates social work students and faculty to infuse strategies for community engagement in designing and implementing student-led global engineering development projects. We outline how this interdisciplinary pedagogical approach teaches students from the two disciplines to work together in addressing power balances, economic and social issues and overall sustainability of international development projects.     

An interdisciplinary approach to environmental and sustainability education: developing geography students’ understandings of sustainable development using poetry

Education for sustainable development (ESD) persists as an important concept within international policy and yet, despite considerable debate, there remains a lack of consensus as to a pedagogy for ESD in schools. This paper presents findings from a study investigating how an interdisciplinary approach to ESD in England developed one class of 16- and 17-year-old geography students’ understandings of sustainability. The research used students’ drawings of sustainable cities alongside questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to explore their understanding of sustainable development within a constructivist, case study framework. The study found that the use of poetry within a geography lesson developed students’ appreciation of the social and economic dimensions of sustainability, although their focus persisted around the environmental. As such, it is argued that an interdisciplinary approach to ESD encourages students to engage more critically and affectively with the concept of sustainable development, thereby developing a more holistic appreciation of it.     

Scale for assessing undergraduates’ interdisciplinary competences related to the smart living industry

In this study, a scale was constructed to aid college educators in developing interdisciplinary courses for smart living industry–related talent cultivation. The scale, named the Undergraduate Student Interdisciplinary Competences for the Smart Living Industry (USIC_SLI) scale, was developed on the basis of a literature review and a two-phase expert survey. A pilot test was performed, and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to understand the scale’s reliability and validity. The final version of the scale comprises five subscales (i.e. communication, reflection, practice, technology values, and entrepreneurship) and 25 items. The Cronbach’s α of the scale was 0.92, and that of the subscales ranged from 0.82 to 0.89. Structural equation modelling revealed that the theoretical model and observation data of the scale were compatible, and the results indicated that the scale had appropriate validity and reliability.     

Evaluating STAR – a transformative learning framework: interdisciplinary action research in health training

Transformative learning aims to awaken students to issues of injustice, and to promote their critical analysis of assumptions, beliefs and values that lead to and sustain social inequities, so that they may become agents of social change. This paper introduces the Sensitise Take Action and Reflection (STAR) framework, which encapsulates transformative learning principles, as a tool for educators to enhance student health professionals’ capacity and preparedness to address health inequities they are likely to encounter in their future practice. Using an action research methodology within a three-cycle process, STAR was trialled and evaluated by an interdisciplinary team of health educators (n = 25) in an Australian university. Disciplines included: nursing, nutrition and dietetics, public health, occupational therapy and paramedic science. Data were gathered via individual interviews, focus group discussions and field notes, and were analysed inductively, with member-checking of emerging themes to ensure interpretive rigour. The results of this research suggest that STAR is easily understood by users, has relevance for health professional education, and holds promise for producing desired educational outcomes within and across health disciplines. Furthermore, this project could be considered a model for fostering inter-professional collaboration in health education, research and practice.     

Problem‐based learning and action research in postgraduate teaching: the interdisciplinary core

Rapid changes in the world due to the emergence of an information society, scientific and technological developments, and a growing capitalist global economy have made intercultural and inter-ethnic contacts a fairly ordinary phenomenon. However, paradoxically, cultural diversity has had to cope with powerful homogenising instruments of a globalised planet; consequently, cultural issues cannot be considered apart from power relations. In education, a recent phenomenon – the teacher research movement – has tried to fight against conservative and dominant forms of teaching and teacher education. In this article, it is argued that teacher research, as an international movement, has the potential to become a counter-hegemonic strategy to construct critical teacher education approaches in a globalised world.     

Three strategies for interdisciplinary teaching: contextualizing,conceptualizing, and problem‐centring

This paper distinguishes among contextualizing, conceptualizing, and problem‐centring as three basic approaches to interdisciplinary curriculum. This typology is based on the type of inquiry that takes place in the classroom. For example, if the guiding epistemology in the interdisciplinary work is that of the humanities, the mode of connecting disciplinary material is likely to be contextualizing, or embedding the facts and ideas in the cultural, historical, or ideological fabric. If the scientific method guides and sets the standard for integration, conceptualizing work typically takes place. Finally, if the spirit and mode of inquiry is that of the applied sciences or creative product‐development, the integrative process will take the form of problem‐based investigation of urgent or tangible issues. Using empirical data from exemplary university, pre‐university, and professional programmes in the US, I describe three integrative strategies and comment on their strengths. This basic typology provides alternative approaches to interdisciplinary material based on the purpose of the class inquiry. In the hands of a good instructor, several interdisciplinary strategies could be used together for mutual benefit.     

Of organelles and octagons: what do preservice secondary teachers learn from interdisciplinary teaching?

This study examined the impact of an interdisciplinary teaching project on the learning of preservice secondary teachers enrolled in a graduate-level, year-long teacher education program. Data were gathered from four successive cohorts of students. Principal data sources were questionnaires (N=131), field notes from classroom observations, and preservice teachers’ oral and written reflections on the project. The study provided evidence that preservice secondary teachers can successfully create and implement interdisciplinary curriculum and are quite positive about the experience. Through this project, preservice teachers learned from one another, learned about others’ subject areas, learned about students, and experienced the spectrum of rewards and challenges that come from working with others.     

Talk,planning and decision‐making in interdisciplinary teacher teams: a case study

A diverse range of social structures, for instance teacher teams, professional communities and teacher learning communities, are established to advance collaboration among teachers. In Norway, Interdisciplinary Teacher Teams (ITTs) have become a common way of organising teachers in schools, recommended in a national curriculum reform in 1997. This study explores the internal structure, social meaning and potential resources for learning and development inherent in the planning and coordination of work in ITT meetings. Most studies of teacher teams as well as teacher learning communities are based on teachers’ experiences, expressed in interviews or surveys. The focus of this study is not on what teachers say about teams, but on what teachers say in teams. While most studies have addressed within‐department, subject‐specific teams, this study focuses on interdisciplinary teams. Team‐talk in two ITTs in two different lower secondary schools in Norway has been videotaped and analysed. Four patterns of interaction have been identified – preserving individualism: renegotiating individual autonomy and personal responsibility; coordination: assuring the social organisation of work; cooperation: creating a shared object or enterprise; and sharing: clarifying pedagogical motives. The study illustrates patterns in team‐talk, conceptualises the processes of decision‐making that take place in these ITTs and identifies resources for learning and development inherent in certain forms of interaction. The study contributes to the research literature by both focusing on the details of the interaction in team meetings and analysing the dynamics of the group interaction in the perspective of the situatedness and the object‐orientation of team‐talk.     

Designing discipline-specific roles for interdisciplinary learning: two comparative cases in an afterschool STEM + L programme

The current K-12 educational system often does not engage students in interdisciplinary learning. To address this need, we developed an integrated STEM?+?L (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Digital Literacies) afterschool programme in which middle school students took discipline-specific roles (writer, scientist, artist, and engineer) and worked in small groups to produce multimodal science fictions. The study aims to investigate the effect of discipline-specific roles on students’ interdisciplinary and collaborative learning processes. Two groups were chosen as comparison cases because their final products indicated low and high levels in integrating science and literacy respectively. Analysing and visualising students’ individual role-changing patterns and examining their discourse in role-specific interactions revealed the following features for high-quality interdisciplinary learning: (1) Students need to be willing and able to enact not only expected roles, but also other roles; (2) Students need to develop awareness of their own and others’ role enactment; (3) Collaboration between students with different roles may follow a possible trajectory from solo-construction, to co-construction, to re-construction. This study also proposes instructional strategies related to the design of discipline-specific roles to facilitate interdisciplinary learning in STEM education.     

Introduction of a Scale of Psychological Predispositions of Kindergarten Teachers

In order to help the selection and training of teachers for kindergartens, a scale for diagnosis of the special psychological predispositions needed for kindergarten teachers has been developed. It consists of 130 items derived from a personality test and an ability test. By the use of stratified sampling strategy, 660 teachers from different kindergartens in Beijing were chosen to form a sample group in its development. The result of the test was displayed in the form of T-score and percentile respectively. After several times of practice, its reliability and validity have been verified.     

Cases of Science Professors’ Use of Nature of Science

Study provides qualitative analysis of data that answers the following research question: how college science faculty teach science and NOS and incorporate aspects of NOS and the history of science into their undergraduate courses? Study concentrates on four cases and more specifically on three introductory science classes and on four instructors who taught those courses. These instructors were chosen as case studies to explore in greater detail what occurs inside introductory science courses in one particular higher institution in the Northeastern United States. Participants’ teaching styles are presented through a combined and detailed presentation of interview data and classroom observations supported with examples from their classroom activities. Constant comparative approach was used in the process of organizing and analyzing data. Findings revealed that participants preferred to use the traditional teacher-centered lecturing as their teaching style and whose main concern was to cover more content, develop the problem solving skills of their students, and who wanted to teach the fundamental principles of their subjects without paying special importance to the NOS aspects. The study also revealed that other variables of teaching science, such as large class size, lack of management and organizational skills, teaching experience, and instructors’ concerns for students’ abilities and motivation are more important for these scientists then teaching for understanding of NOS.