Reflections on the Staff Hub: A Conversation Between Cathy and Jenna
Prof. Catherine Hale
Jenna Nilson
Jenna: I'll start by asking you a bit more about how you came to teach and be interested in interdisciplinary work.
Catherine: I think for me it was almost how it came about rather than something that I designed. My academic background is in Law and because I was teaching Healthcare Ethics and Law in a medical school, I was still doing my subject discipline, but it became apparent that I needed to think about it in a different way to engage my student audience. Disciplines tend to have ways of thinking about things. Being able to bring that different lens and that different perspective made them see their own discipline and their own and their own learning in a slightly different way. So for me, what an interdisciplinary perspective can give you is if we're looking at a real life problem, it's not only going to be a real life problem in the legal world or the medical world, it's going to be a problem for the people involved. So having as many different disciplinary aspects as you can about real world problems is going to give you a better understanding of the problem, ways of thinking about it and coming up with effective solutions in the real world. I don't know if any of that resonates in any way.
Jenna: Yeah, it really does. I think that's what these conversations that I've been having with everyone about the case studies in the Staff Hub have been about is the different perspective taking that interdisciplinary work gives you. Interdisciplinary teaching and learning helps you to think about problems more holistically. In the real world, things aren't siloed into different disciplines. You have to be able to approach them from different angles. You touched on what interdisciplinarity is, do you have anything to add to that? It’s something that I have asked all of the other case study contributors.
Catherine: I think it's about having those different strands. If you can imagine a rope with different coloured strands and those different disciplines were different colours. It's about blending all of those together so that they're all intertwined and that the disciplines have an understanding about how they sit with the other disciplines. It's really quite sophisticated.
Jenna: Do you want to talk then about the Staff Hub and how you came to the idea for this?
Catherine: Jo and I had a discussion about what we could do to help people, what can we do to support staff. If they want to look at something or try to build something, whether it's a lecture or a module, there's a group of people and there's a space that they can go to. There’s a home for interdisciplinarity because it's a key part of the university strategy. That was the aim of the hub. It was to have resources to support interdisciplinarity, and to help staff to deliver that in terms of teaching and learning. And then that would obviously benefit the students.
Jenna: I hope that people will be able to interact with it and find it useful because I think that was something that came up a lot. How do you connect with other people who are interested in interdisciplinarity? So finding places for that to happen and seeing examples I think is really useful.
Catherine: Can I ask you in terms of doing the interviews? What have been the key themes that have come out?
Jenna: One of the themes that people have touched on is that interdisciplinary teaching and learning is trying to take a topic that's really big and hard to tackle, and approach it in different ways to solve problems. That aspect of problem solving really came across. And then also what was fascinating to me, because I identified with this a lot in my own teaching practise, is centering students’ knowledge. What a lot of people said is that you're not necessarily the one who holds all the expertise. Because you're trying to engage different disciplines, you have to take a step back as the knowledge holder in the space and say, OK, well, students are bringing their own expertise and their own knowledge to the classroom. Not even just their academic knowledge, but their personal experiences, ways that they have engaged in the outside world. Students come to university, and they have all these wonderful experiences that they bring with them. That's something that came across in the interviews is the way that students are placed front and centre in interdisciplinary teaching practises. And in terms of assessments, students are showcasing their skills. I think it can be quite challenging to create assessments that are fair and balanced. And I think the way to get around that is to let students come up with their own projects.
Catherine: That's really interesting because we know that certain disciplines traditionally have had preference for particular types of assessments. I think as you say, an interdisciplinary approach, it challenges that view, doesn't it? I particularly like what you're saying about effectively students talking about and being able to bring their own lived experience to create that learning for themselves and others. That links quite nicely to one of the principle education theories that underpins higher education in terms of when you're learning as an adult and you're teaching adults, people are coming with a whole load of experiences. If you had to sum up what was the main message from all of the interviews, what would you say it is that you'd learnt?
Jenna: I think it takes a lot of creativity. What's underpinning a lot of this is that you as a teacher must be creative because you have to think outside of the box. It’s thinking about how you're going to bring in and engage with other disciplines. How am I going to bring another lecturer from another discipline and present some aspects of their work in the class, and then have students take what they were saying and engage with that in an interesting way? It takes a lot of creativity to be able to do that. I also think then you’re asking students themselves to be creative. That's particularly why when I spoke with Nikita about her experience as a student working with interdisciplinary approaches, it was exciting to hear how creativity for her came to the forefront. And I suppose it highlighted and showcased how I think about my PhD now as an interdisciplinary PhD. Through having these conversations, that was something that was really great.
Catherine: Is there anything else about your experience doing all of these interviews that you're taking away with you?
Jenna: Another thing that came through is how excited people are. That just goes to show how important it is to have this interdisciplinary work because it is exciting not only on a student level, but also for teachers as well. It enriches your own teaching practise. There is a lot of motivation to keep doing this work and a lot of motivation to want others to know about it too.
Catherine: I think it can bring real dynamism to a topic. I completely agree, Jenna.
Jenna: How do you hope staff members engage with the Staff Hub?
Catherine: We don't want it to die here, so we hope that other people will be able to come and bring their interdisciplinary perspective. I think it really mattered that it was co-created with you and the other students, so I know it was the Staff Hub, but the staff and students, they are one community. We're just slightly different perspectives on two sides of the same coin. We are intermingled. So whatever benefits the staff in terms of interdisciplinarity work is directly going to benefit the students.
Jenna: I obviously think that it's going be an amazing resource for staff to have. And I want to say that it’s not only looking at the case studies, but all of the other work that went into it too with the other student co-creators, Sujaya and Bilal, was also great. In terms of going further beyond the Staff Hub, I think maybe a future project is organising some sort of main event during Welcome Week that brings staff and students together around the opportunities that there are in interdisciplinarity. Several case study contributors mentioned similar ideas. Not all students come to university having the same backgrounds or the same opportunities, and so trying to engage students who might not be aware of what can be out there for them is also important.
Catherine: In terms of being a student and having had interdisciplinary teaching and learning, if you wanted to give one message to academic staff across Warwick, what would it be?
Jenna: I think what has helped me across my experiences as a student and being able to come to this point where I'm doing a PhD that is interdisciplinary is that I was encouraged to take risks and to pursue what I was interested in. I think that was echoed in several of the other interviews with students that I had, is that it's invaluable to have teachers who encourage students to pursue what they're interested in and be interested in them. I would say that giving that support to your students is key.
Catherine: That's great to know. Thank you very much.
Jenna: Thank you.