Effective Practices and Assessment Strategies for Interdisciplinary Teaching
Introduction
For Georgia, interdisciplinarity means “the contribution on a topic or issue from different disciplines.” According to her, interdisciplinarity is not an “isolated contribution” but rather an “integration of disciplinary knowledge, skills, and behaviours around an issue.”
Teaching engineering-related topics in an interdisciplinary context, Georgia shares that her experience in interdisciplinary teaching is very “engaging and creative.” Although she is very passionate about interdisciplinary teaching, she acknowledges that it is not easy because it is “challenging for both lecturers and students”. Lecturers need to have the proper mindset to operate in an “interdisciplinary spectrum”, while students need to be prepared to be challenged and work outside their disciplinary boundaries, which, according to Georgia, is “difficult”. However, she shares that this is also interesting because a student is challenged and needs to become “very creative” in order to operate in an interdisciplinary context. Embracing this challenge, she wants her engineering students to develop their technical expertise but also complement it with other aspects that a traditional engineer wouldn't have if they weren't exposed to interdisciplinary teaching.
Professor Georgia Kremmyda
Principles of Practice
A Holistic Approach for Assignments
Within the MSc Humanitarian Engineering programme, Georgia shares that her students were asked to undertake a technical assignment requiring them to incorporate ideas from “so many other disciplines” to solve the assignment from a holistic perspective. The students were tasked with designing a refugee camp, considering social, environmental, health and safety, and financial requirements and specifications. Although they were given initial guidance on how to design a refugee camp, students often developed completely different solutions compared to their peers. Georgia highlights that the students would step out of their engineering domain and incorporate insights from other disciplines before finalising their solutions. They would also consider project management and delivery, community engagement, and the expectations of different stakeholders at the project's conclusion. Ultimately, the students were required to creatively present their design solutions using audio-visual tools. This practice demonstrates how students can engage in interdisciplinary learning through an assignment.
Moving Forward
Key Aspects of Effective Interdisciplinary Teaching
According to Georgia, interdisciplinary teaching requires “thinking around resources, planning and delivery in the classroom.” She recommends that anyone looking to introduce interdisciplinarity into their teaching should plan their resources carefully, as “interdisciplinary teaching and learning requires lots of resources which go beyond what traditional disciplinary teaching could involve.” Therefore, they need to be mindful of the time required to prepare and deliver interdisciplinary teaching and learning. Furthermore, strategic planning is necessary to ensure that different themes and disciplines are integrated effectively to address a topic of study. Lastly, Georgia advises that teaching staff must also plan how they will assess students within this interdisciplinary approach and facilitate their engagement in interdisciplinary learning.
Designing Effective Assessments
Georgia advises that assignments should be open-ended, but she acknowledges that designing such assignments is not straightforward, as it depends on “what you are assessing and at what level you're assessing the learner, whether it is undergraduate or postgraduate level.” She asserts that to assess effectively in an interdisciplinary manner, an open-ended assessment is necessary to allow the learner “to show that they are competent enough in the interdisciplinary context.”
Additionally, she recommends that assignments should be “creative outside of the traditional norms of assessment.” Her research on identifying the most impactful and effective assessment methods has revealed that traditional assessments, such as exams, essays, lab reports, and technical reports, are less effective compared to a “portfolio” of presentations and critical essays or creative writing. Presentations enable students to become “really articulate” on the topic, while critical essays and creative writing offer an opportunity for students to engage in a critical evaluation of the subject matter. Georgia notes that while traditional assessments are good for examining disciplinary knowledge, they are less effective for interdisciplinary assessments. Therefore, open-ended, creative assessments that allow learners to set their own topics and explore them in their preferred direction are the most impactful and effective for conducting interdisciplinary evaluations.
