Pedagogy

Interdisciplinary material can be taught in the same ways as disciplinary material. Scholars of interdisciplinarity, though, have tended to encourage a more interactive and practice-based approach to teaching. Students are better able to connect diverse materials if engaged in a conversation. And the strategies for interdisciplinary integration outlined in Teaching Interdisciplinary Integration are best mastered if the student applies them while learning them.

There is a large and growing literature on the pedagogy of interdisciplinarity. Much of this occurs under the heading of the Scholarship of Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning (SOITL). A description of the Scholarship of Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning is found at: http://wwwp.oakland.edu/ais/resources/scholarship/

A very useful overview of interdisciplinary pedagogies can be found in:

Carolyn Haynes, ed. (2002) Innovations in Interdisciplinary Teaching. American Council on Education, Series on Higher Education Westport, CT: Oryx Press/Greenwood Press.

After an introductory overview of the field by Carolyn Haynes the book contains the following chapters:

• • Stan Bailis on curricular design

  • Jay Wentworth and James R. Davis on team teaching [See also Davis' book on the subject below]

  • Marcia Bundy Seabury on writing in interdisciplinary courses

  • Valerie Bystrom on learning communities

  • Robert M. Bender on technology-based teaching

  • Debra Humphreys on multicultural curriculum and teaching

  • Jeff Abell on performance-based teaching

  • Nancy M. Grace on applying feminist pedagogy

  • Christopher Myers and Carolyn Haynes on inquiry-based teaching

  • George Klein on study abroad

  • Roslyn Abt Schindler on the particular challenges of educating mature students in interdisciplinary programs

  • Virginia N. Gordon on advising

  • Michael Field and Don Stowe on assessment

  • Faith Gabelnick on administering quality teaching programs

There are many other useful sources on interdisciplinary pedagogy:

Davis, J. R. (1995). Interdisciplinary courses and team teaching: New arrangements for learning. Phoenix, AZ: American Council on Education and Oryx Press.

Deborah DeZure, "Interdisciplinary pedagogies in higher education," Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity" (2010), 372-86.

A host of practical advice on how students can research and write a senior paper is provided at:

http://wwwp.oakland.edu/ais/resources/researchmanual/

Bill Newell provides several Suggestions for Interdisciplinary Teaching

Tanya Augsburg and Tendai Chitewere, "Starting with worldviews: A five step preparatory approach to integrative interdisciplinary learning," Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies 31 (2013), 174-91, discusses how to teach "worldview" and thus disciplinary perspective, and outlines five techniques for doing so.

Angus McMurtry, "Reframing interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration through the lens of collaborative and sociomaterialtheories of learning," Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies 31 (2013), 75-98, notes that the literature on interdisciplinarity recognizes the value of collaboration, but nevertheless treats learning almost always as an individual process. New theories of learning stress group processes. McMurtry suggests that interdisciplinary pedagogy should be informed by these. Students will learn how to appreciate diverse perspectives interactively. [They will learn disciplinary narrowness collectively as well.] Tensions and contradictions drive learning.

Fabiana A. Cardetti & M. Carolina Orgnero (2013) Improving Teaching Practice Through Interdisciplinary Dialog, Studying Teacher Education: A journal of self-study of teacher education practices, 9:3, 251-266 provides an examination of the authors' shared interdisciplinary teaching practices.

C Golding, "The educational design of textbooks: a text for being interdisciplinary Higher Education Research & Development, 2014 explores how to write an interdisciplinary textbook.