Factors Facilitating and Hindering the Integration of Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
Interdisciplinarity is recognized by some academics as a key driver for building the future of higher education. It is seen as enabling purposeful fusion between teaching, research and working life, alongside enabling cognitive advancement through knowledge and skills-building in ways not possible or unlikely through a single discipline. However, whereas research has become increasingly interdisciplinary in the past two decades, undergraduate and graduate study has often been locked into traditional modes of curricular design and
teaching.
One key issue is how interdisciplinary teaching and learning can enhance key competence-building in systems thinking. Systems thinking involves seeing patterns in the inter-dependency of how one thing is related to, and influences another. It enables students to synthesize knowledge of different disciplines to cope with complexity in addressing real world challenges, and to nurture skills in situational adaptability.
Interdisciplinarity is now a leading strategic imperative for both schools and universities engaged with curricular change processes. For many than fifty years it has been viewed by some as offering an effective way for faculty to use existing expertise to adapt and re-design higher education curricula.
This presentation describes tailwinds and headwinds which facilitate and hinder the development of interdisciplinary programs in higher education.