This book investigates interdisciplinary programs in higher education in general, and connecting technology specifically, so as to promote interdisciplinary understanding¹ in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields through a focus on how these developing programs function by examining the ways in which interdisciplinary teaching and learning can work in multiple fields. STEM-related interdisciplinary understanding is particularly vital among students majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, who often perceive that courses in their majors are not related to the general education (i.e., liberal arts and sciences) courses required for their degree. This separation prevents the transfer of skills between their general education courses and their degree pursuits.

The false dichotomy is particularly unfortunate, because solving the daunting challenges of the twenty-first century—such as drug-resistant bacteria, the scarcity of natural resources, and climate change—requires global citizens armed with robust, complex abilities who can integrate interdisciplinary concepts with bold technologies. Perhaps the most promising way to promote the sort of thinking in which our learners transfer knowledge between courses, across disciplines, and among research fields is through interdisciplinary studies, which have been found to facilitate problem solving in numerous studies.² Thus, when developing the professional and technical writing degree program at New York City College of Technology (City Tech) of the City University of New York, I wanted to make sure that students were engaged in interdisciplinary writing as problem solving.³ As part of this program, to provide depth in a content area, students must complete a series of courses in a single professional, scientific, or technical discipline, which account for at least 15 % of their required courses. Students who transfer from other programs (e.g., from an Associate in Arts in Communication Studies or an Associate in Applied Science in Health Information Technology) and those with different backgrounds, such as in educational technology, support the interdisciplinary nature of the program and provide a robust exchange of ideas.

My seven-year journey while creating this interdisciplinary professional and technical writing undergraduate degree program included overcoming the challenges of framing this program and negotiating pedagogical and political terrain of the various specializations. Now, this new program and its specializations (currently, Architectural Technology, Biology, Chemistry, Communication Design, Computer Science, Public Health, Economics, Psychology, and Social Science) reveal how an interdisciplinary program can work. While I was creating the program, deciding on the courses to be included in each specialization meant meeting with department Chairs and Discipline Coordinators—for instance, because Economics, Psychology, and Social Science are all housed in the Social Science Department, I had to meet with that Chair and Discipline Coordinators. Before the meetings, I found it invaluable to explain the intent of the specialization and providing a tentative list of courses that took into account prerequisites and the level of difficulty for students who were not majoring in the specialization; the meetings were then framed around a discussion of suggested changes. My task was made somewhat easier because our Public Health specialization is itself interdisciplinary, including courses in government, public policy, health, and human services.

City Tech’s Bachelor of Science in Professional and Technical Writing program prepares students to communicate clearly and effectively using a variety of tools and media. Students learn how to translate complex, industry-specific information into lay terminology or another industry-specific discourse. In order to meet the needs of industry, the program allows students to look across disciplinary boundaries, bringing together information and skills from a variety of fields into a new base for learning, designing, and writing. The structure of this degree ensures that students who graduate from this program (a) master industry standard applications for professional and technical writing and related technologies, (b) acquire expertise in a professional studies-related, science-related, or technology-related discipline that will give them an edge in the marketplace, and (c) enter a rapidly shifting workplace prepared to negotiate new forms of media with sophistication and confidence. The program provides students with both a hands-on experience using a range of tools as well as an understanding of the theories underlying the use of those tools. Graduates master industry standards for both professional and technical writing, as well as related technologies.⁴

Some of the overarching concepts informing the interdisciplinary approach to learning are discussed in Chap. 2. Melissa Layne and Phil Ice examine the elements of the emerging platform and analytic technologies, emphasizing their potential impact on the three Community of Inquiry (CoI) presences: teaching, social, and cognitive. Attention is given to technologies that may have positive or negative impacts on collaborative, constructivist interdisciplinary learning models.

In Chap. 3, Priya Sharma and Kevin P. Furlong report on a multiyear collaborative research effort between the geosciences and education, focusing on the design and evaluation of modules that engage undergraduate students in science reasoning skills. They discuss their design-based research approach to constructing active learning modules to engage students in a large general education undergraduate course in natural hazards, as well as their approach to integrating mobile devices in an upper-level undergraduate course on the same topic. Overall, the chapter identifies the features of interdisciplinary courses that support scientific reasoning, student collaboration, and technology-enhanced learning in an undergraduate classroom.

In Chap. 4, Kimberly A. Lawless, Scott W. Brown, and Mark A. Boyer continue the exploration of collaboration, problem solving, and reasoning in an interdisciplinary context. They point out that across several independent surveys of businesses and potential employers, the most commonly cited skills that industry requires in newly graduated college students include the abilities to solve complex, multidisciplinary problems, work successfully in teams, exhibit effective oral and written communication skills, and practice good interpersonal skills. However, industry leaders point out that many students who obtain their postsecondary degrees do not possess these skills, and as such are not fully prepared to successfully participate in the twenty-first century workforce.⁵ To address this need, they designed the GlobalEd 2 (GE2) program, which engages classrooms of students in online, simulated negotiations of international agreements on issues of global concern, such as water scarcity and climate change. Their GE2 program is an interdisciplinary problem-based curriculum targeting students’ global awareness, scientific literacies, and twenty-first century workforce skills. Their results over the past 15 years using various iterations of GE2 have been implemented in classrooms, ranging from middle school through college, demonstrate the positive impact of GE2 along a number of dimensions including writing, argumentation, science knowledge, and social-perspective taking. This chapter provides an overview of GE2, its design principles, and discusses the data from a recent implementation with college freshmen, specifically focusing on gains with respect to self-efficacy across multiple domains.

While Lawless, Brown, and Boyer explain how interdisciplinary courses can make students better citizens of the world, Elaine Correa explains how these courses can make students better citizens in their communities. She discusses how the integration of interdisciplinary studies with service learning can invoke meaningful, engaging, and sustainable learning with technology for students beyond the classroom. Service learning provides learners with opportunities to explore the real needs of a community, connecting content knowledge with prior experiences from both the classroom and life. Grounded in Dewey’s notion of “learning by doing,”⁶ service learning necessitates deep reflection as students merge theory with practice. In Chap. 5, she explains how an interdisciplinary studies approach to service learning offers space wherein the adage still applies for students today, “Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand.”

It is with this adage in mind that The City Tech I ³ (Innovation through Institutional Integration) Incubator: Interdisciplinary Partnerships for Laboratory Integration, a program supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was created, integrating research and education with a focus on inquiry as a means of learning and the development a global workforce by expanding industry partnerships to provide real life application of STEM learning. This project is a catalyst for transforming laboratory curricula and teaching across STEM departments by establishing innovations that will invigorate courses and lead to a greater integration of STEM projects across the college. Several multiyear projects totaling more than three million dollars benefitted from this program, generating ongoing and broad-reaching changes across STEM programs and student services. This chapter explores the program features that contributed to the faculty’s understanding and teaching of STEM and the nature of policies, procedures, and partnerships that supported the effectiveness of the program. It highlights transformative approaches to recruitment, teaching, mentoring, supervision, and communication and collaboration within and across laboratories. Innovations in these areas were intentionally spread from one lab to another and intentionally institutionalized within the college and laboratory culture. This chapter also contributes to the dialogue on best institutional approaches focused on attracting, retaining, and preparing a diverse student population in STEM fields. The cross-institutional strategies, faculty development, and initiatives described in the article provide real life examples of what works towards these goals and what sustains and multiplies these efforts. More than a dozen NSF projects at City Tech were leveraged to enhance cross-institutional communication and collaboration, provide synchronicity in goals and strategies, and ensure continuity of the goals of the program.