Interdisciplinary Learning
How might we (re)design my course/project to enable interdisciplinary learning? In this workshop, you will brainstorm ways for students to integrate knowledge and perspectives from multiple disciplines to solve complex, real-world challenges. Students draw on expertise from different fields and diverse backgrounds to develop innovative solutions.
Duration
60-90 min.
Materials
For live session: post-its, pens, printouts of worksheets. For online session: Miro template, charged laptop, internet.
People
2-6 people, 1 facilitator.
Preparation
It is recommended to have a basic understanding of constructive alignment prior to using this workshop. Learning objectives and assessment should be pre-defined.
Follow the steps of this workshop, to go from brainstorming on the topic of interdisciplinary learning, to prioritising and developing an action plan for the (re)design of your course/project.
The first activity of the method is called Interdisciplinary Learning Worksheet. At this stage, you are asked to choose a “set up”, amongst three options provided (monodisciplinary, interdisciplinary between 2 disciplines and interdisciplinary between more than 2 disciplines). If you choose monodisciplinary, no worries: you will still learn how to leverage interdisciplinary learning within one single discipline.
Instructions:
- Read the “How Might We… Question” in the yellow post-it.
- Choose your set up (1.1).
- Consider your own course and the set up you chose. Brainstorm ideas for learning activities and/or course setup that enable interdisciplinary learning, following the prompts (1.2).
- Brainstorm as many ideas as you can, prioritising quantity over quality at this stage.
Now that you have brainstormed a lot of ideas for interdisciplinarity within your curriculum, it is time to start prioritising.
Instructions:
- Analyse all the ideas you came up with in the previous activity from an Impact perspective (how much this idea will enable students to work in an interdisciplinary way?) and Implementability (how easy it is to implement this topic in my/our course?) and stick them in the corresponding quadrant.
- Use the symbols that you find on the canvas to characterise your ideas: is it something that you wish to implement in your course? Or not at all? Is it something that is already somewhat implemented but could be strengthened? Or is it something that could be implemented, but you are currently not?
Now that you have a clearer overview of which ideas have more potential than others to be implemented, it is time to create an action plan!
Instructions:
- Focus on the ideas (that you haven’t marked with “Don’t want to implement”) in the outlined quadrants of the 3×3 template. Which steps do I/we need to take in order to implement this in my/our course? Break down the steps in the blue timeline on the canvas.
- What people, skills, facilities, materials are needed in order to make this happen? Reflect and note it down in the corresponding sections, named “Resources needed”.
At this point, you have a complete overview of which ideas you can integrate in your course and a step-by-step how to guide. Well done!
Resources and downloads
You can access the PDF worksheet canvases through the download button: they are ready for print.
Hey, this Chiara, Education Designer at TU/e innovation Space. How can I help you?
This toolkit is meant to be constantly evolving and improving. Do you have any questions or feedback to make this better? Or do you need help with the toolkit? Get in touch!