Effective Practices and Assessment Strategies for Interdisciplinary Teaching

Summary

Georgia believes humanitarian issues are not just engineering problems. She emphasises the need to engage with professionals and stakeholders across disciplines and to introduce interdisciplinary education for exploiting “combinational expertise.”

As the Programme Director of the MSc Humanitarian Engineering at the School of Engineering, she is bringing together features of teaching and research from various Warwick disciplines for an innovative interdisciplinary cross-faculty programme. Due to the success of this interdisciplinary programme, she has also collaborated with and advised other universities on creating similar programmes.

Within this case study, she shares her assessment practice within the MSc programme and offers guidance on developing assessments for interdisciplinary teaching. She further provides recommendations on integrating interdisciplinarity within pedagogy, stressing the importance of careful planning for managing resources, engaging with students, and delivering similar programmes.

Students Say

According to Georgia, the feedback she has received is generally “very positive.” She shares that interdisciplinary teaching is “well received” not only by students but also by the industry. Furthermore, the MSc in Humanitarian Engineering was reviewed by engineering institutions and commented on as “one of the best courses at Warwick.” She further shares that interdisciplinary teaching brings value and delivers benefits for both students and industry, which she has observed herself.

Professor Georgia Kremmyda

Head of Teaching and Deputy Head of School
School of Engineering

Georgia leads the Warwick portfolio of engineering programmes and is responsible for managing all undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, degree apprenticeships, and various multidisciplinary and cross-university collaborative programmes involving approximately 100 teaching staff and 1,500 students. She also serves as the Chair of the Education and Student Experience workstream within the framework of the Warwick STEM Grand Challenge, driving the vision of STEM education at Warwick. Additionally, Georgia leads the Warwick Humanitarian Engineering initiative and co-leads the Warwick Global Research Priority in Sustainable Cities. She has directed numerous pedagogical projects, contributing to improving student experience and leading in curriculum development, administration, industry liaison, coordination, and the development of new courses.

See Georgia’s full bio here.

Highlights

According to Georgia, interdisciplinarity is not an “isolated contribution” but rather an “integration of disciplinary knowledge, skills, and behaviours around an issue.”

Interdisciplinary teaching requires “thinking around resources, planning and delivery in the classroom”.

Assignments should be “creative outside of the traditional norms of assessment.”

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Further Resources

Curious to learn more?

Please find information on MSc Humanitarian Engineering programme, Georgia’s further insights and recommendations below:

You can also contact Georgia: G.Kremmyda@warwick.ac.uk