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.