When I’ve been helping review the literature on interdisciplinary higher education with colleagues on a recent research project, one thing that struck me was how rarely authors explain clearly what they mean by interdisciplinary learning and how they support teachers and students to achieve that. The most common approach is to say something general about synthesis of disciplines to achieve new learning. This is useful up to a point but it does not get at the nature of the understanding and misunderstandings that can occur in interdisciplinary learning spaces. It also does not account for how interdisciplinary learning can involve friction, antagonism or subordination as well as synthesis.

That set me wondering what exercises could be set for students (or teachers) to dig into interdisciplinary understanding more deeply. Here I’ve thought about the literature on boundaries, writing on language and (mis) communication, the notion of threshold concepts, and discussions on the nature of interdisciplinarity. I’ve also considered the importance of openness and hospitality for successful interdisciplinary work. (There’s a list of references at the end if you’re interested). On that basis, here’s a simple exercise that could be done in a workshop with students and/or teachers.

The workshop would start by explaining to participants how important yet challenging it can be to collaborate across boundaries and asking them to approach the task in the spirit of openness to new and maybe uncomfortable ideas. You might also want to ask participants to generate some ground rules for working together. Explain that crossed wires and misunderstanding are common in these kinds of discussion and ask participants to work in the spirit of gradually achieving more mutually shared understanding.

Then ask participants to work in pairs giving each other the answers to the following questions. The participant who is not speaking should aim to listen attentively without interupting.

1. Tell your partner about one important thinker from your subject area, why are they so important?
2. What is one concept from your discipline that, once you understand it, transforms your understanding of the world?
3. Do you use the word ‘evidence’ in your discipline? What would you mean by good evidence?
4. Do you use the word ‘argument’ in your discipline? What makes for a good argument?
5. What is the most recent assessment that you have completed (or marked). What do you think makes for an excellent piece of academic work in your area?
6. What is an important unanswered question in your discipline? Why is it difficult to answer?
7. What is frowned on or taboo in your discipline? What would draw disapproval from your peers?

This can then be followed by merging pairs into groups of four to discuss what they learned from the exercise. You can then draw out and comment on contributions from each group in a plenary discussion.

If you want more like this for your institution, have a look at my consultancy page.

References

Barry, A. and Born, G. (Eds.) (2013). Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the social and natural sciences: Routledge.

Derrida, J. (2005). The principle of hospitality. Parallax, 11:1, 6-9, DOI: 10.1080/1353464052000321056 An interview with Dominique Dhombres for Le Monde, December 2, 1997. Translated by Ashley Thompson.

Imperiale, M., Phipps, A. and Fassetta, G. (2021). On online practices of hospitality in higher education. Studies in Philosophy and Education 40, 629-648.

McCune, V., Scoles, J., Boyd, S., Cross, A., Higgins, P. and Tauritz, R. (2023). Academic identities and teaching wicked problems: how to ‘shoot a fog’ in a complex landscape, Higher Education Research & Development, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2023.221518

Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge (2): Epistemological Considerations and a Conceptual Framework for Teaching and Learning. Higher Education, 49(3), 373–388. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25068074

Northedge, A. (2003). Enabling participation in academic discourse. Teaching in Higher Education, 8(2), 169–180.

Northedge, A., & McArthur, J. (2009). Guiding students into a discipline: the significance of the teacher. In C. Kreber (Ed.), The University and its disciplines: Teaching and learning within and beyond disciplinary boundaries (pp. 107–118). New York and London: Routledge.

Oudenampsen, J., Das, E., Blijlevens, N., and van de Pol, M. (2024). The State of the Empirical Evidence for Interdisciplinary Learning Outcomes in Higher Education: A Systematic Review The Review of Higher Education, 47: 4, 467-518 https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2024.a930107

Phipps, A. and Barnett, R. (2007). Academic hospitality. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 6(3), 237-254.

Star, S. (2010). This is Not a Boundary Object: Reflections on the Origin of a Concept. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 35(5), 601-617.

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