Thematic Interdisciplinary Courses

General Education programs often contain courses that address questions or problems which are examined by multiple disciplines. Often these courses are merely multidisciplinary: different disciplinary points of view are outlined but no concerted effort is made to understand why these may differ nor integrate them. We have suggested in Teaching the Conflicts that this approach is problematic.

But if students and instructors have familiarity with interdisciplinary strategies for evaluation and integration -- see Teaching Interdisciplinary Integration -- these courses can be made both more interesting and informative and less frustrating. These integrative strategies can then be applied in these thematic courses, reinforcing knowledge of the strategies themselves while also giving students a more coherent and comprehensive understanding of the theme or question being addressed. Students will learn, that is, how to integrate differing insights.

As noted elsewhere these interdisciplinary strategies can be taught in a course or courses dedicated to these or as part of thematic interdisciplinary courses. (See Designing a General Education Curriculum) In either case it is straightforward for instructors of thematic courses to master these integrative strategies.

Interdisciplinary Course Syllabi

The Association for Interdisciplinary Studies maintains a peer-reviewed collection of syllabi at http://wwwp.oakland.edu/ais/resources/syllabi/ The purpose of this collection is to guide instructors as to what a good interdisciplinary syllabus should look like.

Here are the key criteria from this syllabi project:

• Materials should reveal a self-consciousness about how the course draws on multiple disciplinary perspectives.

• Materials should reveal a self-consciousness about how the course helps students integrate those perspectives. This conscious integration will be key, since so many courses juxtapose without integration or ask students somehow to integrate what course design and pedagogy have not.

• Materials should be explicit about learning outcomes for students, including issues of interdisciplinary learning.

• Materials should be explicit about how progress toward these outcomes will be evaluated.

We provide links to a handful of other resources on course design at http://wwwp.oakland.edu/ais/resources/syllabi/ including

Association for Integrative Studies and Institute in Integrative Studies. (1996). Guide to interdisciplinary syllabus preparation. Journal of General Education, 45, 170-173.

Several articles in Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies over the years have described approaches to particular thematic courses. Robert Pecorella develops a course on the urban immigrant experience in volume 34 (2016). Marilyn Tayler described a course on Arab citizens of Israel in volume 32 (2014). William Abbott and Kathryn A. Nantz describe a team-taught course that blended economics and history in volume 30 (2012). Jennifer Manthei and Jonathan Isler describe a team-taught course that blends anthropology and sociology in volume 29 (2011). Also in that volume, Barbara Cosens and colleagues describe a graduate-level course on water resources. There are many further examples in earlier volumes. Each of these papers provides general advice about thematic interdisciplinary courses as well as specific advice about a particular theme.