Although interdisciplinary pedagogical strategies focus on problem-based learning, they are not limited to it, as they nurture a host of other valuable skills and attitudes. As a result of interdisciplinary experiences, students learn to distinguish the perspectives of different disciplines, purposefully connecting and integrating knowledge and skills from across disciplines to solve problems. As students synthesize and transfer knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, they become flexible thinkers who are comfortable with complexity and uncertainty, and they learn to understand the factors inherent in complex problems as well as grasping the universal nature and deep structure of science. This approach to problem-solving prepares students for their future as lifelong learners, while encouraging them to apply their capacity as integrative thinkers to solve problems in ethically and socially responsible ways. 1 Interdisciplinary studies challenge learners uniquely to think critically, communicate effectively, and work collaboratively with others.
With the breadth of expectations concerning interdisciplinary learning in mind, this book connects constructivist theory and practice. It examines the successful collaborative interdisciplinary studies at New York City College of Technology (City Tech), which is the designated college of technology of the City University of New York (CUNY). City Tech is dedicated to increasing participation, retention, and graduation rates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academic disciplines in an institution that is known for its extremely diverse student body, and places particular emphasis on students underrepresented in those fields. The implementation of constructivist theory complements interdisciplinary studies, as constructivist learning includes embedding learning in complex, realistic, and relevant settings. Constructivist learning promotes social negotiation, an integral part of learning, while supporting the consideration of multiple perspectives and the use of multiple modes of representation. As a result, students take ownership of their learning and gain self-awareness of the knowledge construction process. 2 This emphasis on theory is complemented by the specificity of experiences presented by the chapter authors of this book.
I am uniquely aware of the benefits of social negotiation in learning. A little over a decade ago, I was a student at City Tech in the Computer Systems Technology (CST) department, whose studies focused on computer programming. There was an average of three other female students in my classes. A couple of semesters into the two-and-a-half-year period that I was as an undergraduate, I enrolled in a learning community. This learning community merged a web programming course with a graphic arts course. As a student in these courses, I programmed the âback endâ of a webpageâthe computer code, connections between database and servers, and so forthâand then went to the next class to learn how to design an aesthetically pleasing âfront endââthat is, the part the user can see, such as drop-down menus. I am not sure how I managed to enroll in this learning community, but I benefitted immensely from the experience of learning how the different perspectives on the same task could be used to create a well-designed, functional website.
My experiences in this interdisciplinary learning community were foundational. Years later, after studying integrated digital media, educational communication, and technology in graduate school, I returned to City Tech as a tenure-track assistant professor. During my first semester, I gave the keynote address at the induction ceremony of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars at the college, a chapter that I charted as a student. The title of the speech was âOn the Need for Interdisciplinary Studies.â I spoke of my own interdisciplinary background, encouraging students to enroll in a few courses outside their major that piqued their interests. Although I was a computer programmer, I was drawn to English courses like Perspectives in Literature, as well as Mathematics and Physics courses. However, in reality, being able to enroll in such courses was not possible for most students. As City Tech is a STEM-focused institution that prepares students for careers in industry, most students who are enrolled in their desired majors begin taking courses in their major right way, and there is little, if any, room for electives. This meant that if a faculty member created an innovative interdisciplinary course, it would likely not gain the necessary enrollment to be offered (unless it was required as part of a degree program) because it would be a non-contributory fall-through course that financial aid would not cover. This is a significant hindrance, because the majority of students at the college depend on financial aid to pay for all or part of their education.
Notwithstanding, it was clear to me that creating interdisciplinary courses at City Tech would provide students with the opportunity to make connections between their major and general education courses. More importantly, these courses fostered the development of creative problem-solving. To do this, it was necessary to have practical information at the administrative level, 3 such as forming an interdisciplinary studies committee, the responsibilities of such a committee, governance issues, and developing an application process for interdisciplinary course designation. Equally important were pedagogical strategies for teams of teachers, as well as supportive tools, such as open-source technology and original case studies written by faculty to support interdisciplinary courses. 4
Building the Foundation for Interdisciplinary Studies
Shifting from my experience as a student frustrated by the apparent lack of connections between my required liberal arts courses and my technology career ambitions to my development into one who valued and had expertise in interdisciplinary studies, I took advantage of an opportunity to become involved in the Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) Facilitating Interdisciplinary Learning (FIDL) project, which began in 2007. I was a member of one of the 28 campus teams engaged in sharing the experience of building and sustaining interdisciplinary programs in science and mathematics. 5 I traveled around the country, participating in STEM-focused interdisciplinary workshops and think tanks. At the end of my first year as a faculty at City Tech, I was accepted to and completed the PKAL Summer Leadership Institute for STEM Faculty. This led me to taking on the charge by the founding director of PKAL, Jeanne L. Narum, to become a âpositive deviantâ on campus.
At the start of my second year, in fall 2009, I asked the dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, Pamela Brown, to create an Interdisciplinary Studies Committee and add it to the list of existing committees (all faculty of the school are placed on one committee; faculty can request to change committees). This committee was charged with pursuing opportunities to develop and help sustain interdisciplinary curricula. We researched the state of interdisciplinary courses and the use of the word âinterdisciplinaryâ at all colleges within CUNY. 6 That same year, the college received a million-dollar, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), The City Tech I 3 (Innovation through Institutional Integration) Incubator: Interdisciplinary Partnerships for Laboratory Integration. A year later, in fall 2010, we developed and administered an Institutional Review Board-approved faculty survey to track and record a baseline of interdisciplinary activities at City Tech. We used this survey to determine what types of workshops we should offer faculty. We co-sponsored a workshop series on creating, implementing, and assessing interdisciplinary STEM projects. By 2012, my role as a Co-Principal Investigator on the grant provided me the opportunity to call for the Interdisciplinary Studies Committee to become a college-wide Interdisciplinary Committee. As this was a new committee, no mechanisms were in place, and everything had to be done from scratch. I had to create policies with the help of committee members.
During this time, CUNY was in the process of revising the general education program, now requiring all colleges in the university system to have the same general education requirements. However, due to the unique nature of the colleges, it became necessary to include a âCollege Optionâ that consisted of three course requirements of each collegeâs choice. As a good number of members of the Interdisciplinary Committee were also on the college-wide General Education Committee at City Tech, we were able to push for the inclusion of an interdisciplinary course. Due, in part, to my efforts, as of fall 2013, all students graduating with a bachelorâs degree are required to take a team-taught interdisciplinary liberal arts and sciences course as part of their general education at the College.
After the College Option was approved, on November 5, 2013, it became necessary to promote an interdisciplinary campus culture and to formalize the process for interdisciplinary course designation, ensuring appropriate curriculum development and governance. At the time, the interdisciplinary course approval process was very complex, requiring multiple submissions to the same committee. The Collegeâs Interdisciplinary Committee is charged with helping faculty design and implement interdisciplinary pedagogy. In addition, it is a recommending body to the College Councilâs Curriculum Committee (in consultation with the Provost and the Associate Provost). As part of a comprehensive major curriculum change proposal designed to, in part, streamline the process for the submission of new course proposals, the Interdisciplinary Committee created relevant documents: âCriteria for an Interdisciplinary Course,â which includes the definition of interdisciplinary studies; âApplication for Interdisciplinary Course Designation;â âSubmitting an Interdisciplinary Course Proposal,â which described the process; and âSuggestions for Reimagining a Course as Interdisciplinary.â We also provided a list of four new Interdisciplinary Committee subcommittees (New Course, Existing Courses, Course Development, and Social Outreach), along with their duties.
After creating the mechanisms for interdisciplinary courses, our role still had to be approved by College Council. Gaining support was a difficult, hard-fought battle. For example, a large number of the Mathematics faculty and some members of the English Department, voting members of College Council, vowed to oppose this proposal. There was an Open Hearing to allow faculty the chance to ask questions or voice concerns. With the exception of one Mathematics faculty memberâwho was the then-chair of the College Councilâs Curriculum Committee and was required to be in attendanceâno other Mathematics faculty attended. Further along in the process, a Mathematics faculty member deliberately stalled the process by not placing the proposal on the agenda to be voted on by the entire Council (this can only be done once). In addition, members of the College Councilâs Executive Committee, which is composed of all the chairs of the standing committees (at the time, roughly half were Mathematics faculty), were led to believe that ours was a new committee with unknown membership and little background at the college. For this reason, when the proposal was finally put on the agenda, I included the names of all 21 committee members to show that the proposal had considerable support throughout the college. When those who were opposed to the proposal were challenged to state the reasons for their opposition, it became clear they had not read it. I then took a different tack by simply explaining the rationale for the main issue of contentionânamely, the team-teaching requirement and pointing out that no faculty member is required to teach an interdisciplinary course.
In this proposal, we had to provide justification for the need for interdisciplinary courses 7 and define interdisciplinary courses for City Tech. We characterized the courses in this way:
Although many academic disciplines, such as African-American Studies and Engineering, are inherently interdisciplinary, to be considered an interdisciplinary course at City Tech the course must be team-taught 8 by more than one faculty member from two or more departments in the College. An interdisciplinary course, by definition, has an interdisciplinary theme as its nucleus. In its essence, such a course brings the analytic methods of two or more academic disciplines to bear on a specific problem or question. Thus, a course in Music History is not likely to be considered interdisciplinary, but a course in Music History from an economistâs perspective might very well lead to such a course. The application of different methods and concepts is the key to assessing whether a course is or is not interdisciplinary. The term, interdisciplinary, is occasionally used to identify individual projects or assignments, but these, though possibly commendable, fall short in the necessary scope for learning experiences that demand in-depth exposure to the methodologies of distinct intellectual disciplines, and the creative application ...