Interdisciplinary Pedagogy

Quality interdisciplinary education depends not just on teaching the write skills and material, but also on using appropriate pedagogical strategies. 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://www.units.muohio.edu/aisorg/Resources/SOITLSection.shtml

Key resources are:

Carolyn Haynes, ed. (2002) Innovations in Interdisciplinary Teaching. American Council on Education, Series on Higher Education Westport, CT: Oryx Press/Greenwood Press. [See Brief Chapter Synopses from Haynes (2002)]

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://www.units.muohio.edu/aisorg/Resources/ResearchManual.pdf

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.