Transdisciplinarity Practice in Higher Education (original) (raw)
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A Transdisciplinary Collaboration and Innovation Education Model and Experience
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As the interconnectedness of the world grows, the need to prepare college students capable of addressing complexity likewise grows. In this context, the University of Dayton has developed and tested a transdisciplinary model for education. This model links multiple classes from different disciplines via a common theme and within a common space. It also employs an educational model premised on the following trajectory: disciplinary content development / transdisciplinary observation (empathy); transdisciplinary disruption leading to “A-Ha” observations which transform the disciplinary directions; and lastly transdisciplinary informed design and research. Central to this model is a 3,500 square foot common space used only by the classes participating in the experience. In this space classes share their reflections and content with other classes via both personal linkages and analog communications. The other classes respond to these from their disciplinary and personal perspectives. Th...
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How can academicians who desire a sustainable future successfully participate in transdisciplinary projects? Transcending our hidden thought patterns is required. Paradoxically, the disciplinary specialization that enabled the industrial era and its metaphors now function to undermine our ability to recognize and participate in the transformational learning that is needed. In this paper, we offer a post-industrial era metaphor for transdisciplinarity-that of complex dynamic system-that has helped us to work through the unexpected experiences encountered in the process of transformative learning. These insights are based on an ongoing transdisciplinary research collaboration (2008-present) using action research methods; we focus on the faculty experience. Accepting the metaphors of complex systems, we describe the systemic conditions that
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THE NEED FOR TRANSDISCIPLINARITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION
A viable education can only be an integral education of the human being. Transdisciplinary education is founded on the inexhaustible richness of the scientific spirit which is based on questioning, and of the refusal of all a priori answers and all certitude contradictory to the facts. At the same time, it revalues the role of the deeply rooted intuition, of the imaginary, of sensitivity, and of the body in the transmission of knowledge. It is only in this way that the society of the twenty-first century can reconcile effectivity and respect for the potentiality of every human being. The transdisciplinary approach will be an indispensable complement to the disciplinary approach, because it will mean the emergence of continually connected beings, who are able to adapt themselves to the changing exigencies of professional life, and who are endowed with a permanent flexibility which is always oriented towards the actualization of their interior potentialities. If the University intends to be a valid actor in sustainable development it has first to recognize the emergence of a new type of knowledge: transdisciplinary knowledge. The new production of knowledge implies a necessary multidimensional opening of the process of learning: towards civil society; towards cyber-space-time; towards the aim of universality; towards a redefinition of the values governing its own existence.
The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 2019
.. while multidisciplinarity studies a topic not in one but several disciplines at the same time, whereas interdisciplinarity is concerned with the links and the transfer of knowledge, methods, concepts and models from one discipline to another, transdisciplinarity, is concerned with what is between the disciplines, across the disciplines and beyond the disciplines, within the dynamics of the simultaneous action of several layers of reality. (p. 128) Although interdisciplinarity harmonises knowledge from diverse disciplines into one comprehensible whole (Choi & Pak 2006), multi-disciplinarity uses knowledge from diverse disciplines but remains confined within one boundary. According to Jones (2009), the advantage of interdisciplinarity is the enhancement of student understanding and communication skills, while the disadvantage is integration confusion and the time-consuming curriculum preparation. When it comes to multi-disciplinarity, Naturejobs (2017) outlines its advantages as being able to combine the expertise of one's field with other fields and create a varied team, which may lead to creative and impactful research resulting in innovative solutions. Naturejobs (2017) further explained that multi-disciplinarity allows people to work on projects that involve more than The world is currently grappling with a myriad of challenges such as unemployment, poverty, inequality, violent crimes and HIV and AIDS. These challenges exist on multiple levels and are viewed from different perspectives by scholars coming from diverse disciplines, hence they demand to be tackled using a transdisciplinary approach. As part of the University of Fort Hare's radical reconstruction of its intellectual project, the Centre for Transdisciplinary Studies (CTS) was established to facilitate and promote a wider intellectual engagement and research amongst academics and students across different disciplines. This research thus seeks to reconceptualise CTS' objectives through exploring the academics' understanding of transdisciplinarity, its role, transformative potential and challenges at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa. The research was conducted through qualitative semi-structured interviews with the university's academic staff members representing faculties of health, law, social sciences and humanities, management and commerce, science and agriculture, education and the Teaching and Learning Centre. Data were analysed by thematic data analysis. The findings of the study concluded that there was no consensus amongst academics on the definition of transdisciplinarity. Academics defined it as either the merging or collaboration of disciplines. Some used the term interchangeably with interdisciplinarity and multi-disciplinarity. The findings positioned the role of CTS as that of raising transdisciplinary awareness and coordinating transdisciplinary activities across different disciplines in the university. The potential of transdisciplinarity includes collaborative research, teaching and learning and dialogue across the university. Challenges of transdisciplinarity proved to be first understanding the concept itself, foundations of mono-disciplinarity which promote departmental isolations, disciplinary comfort zones, heterogeneity of the university and academics' busy schedules. In spite of the challenges of transdisciplinarity, participants indicated a willingness to engage in transdisciplinary activities.
Overcoming a paradox? Preparing students for transdisciplinary environments
Integration and Implementation Insights, 2018
How can we adequately prepare and train students to navigate transdisciplinary environments? How can we develop hybrid spaces in our universities that are suitable for transdisciplinary education? These questions were considered by a plenary panel, which I organised and chaired at the International Transdisciplinarity Conference 2017 at Leuphana University, Germany. Three major educational requirements were identified: • long-term collaborations with businesses, as well as non-governmental, governmental and community organisations • teaching particular dispositions and competencies • preparing students for intercultural endeavours. Panellists Marcel Bursztyn (University of Brasilia), Dena Fam (University of Technology Sydney), Christian Pohl (ETH Zürich), Esther Meyer (Leuphana University of Lüneburg) and Daniel Lang (Leuphana University of Lüneburg), together with a large international audience, offered valuable suggestions concerning these requirements.
06/29 -Transdisciplinary Curriculum: Educational Philosophy and Rationale
Higher education is one of the most important arenas in which the transdisciplinary (TD) approach should be applied (Güvenen, 2016). Fortunately, educational institutions are "evolving [so they can] answer the demand for transdisciplinary skills" (Güvenen, 2016, p. 75). In concert, "educators are recognizing the vital significance of designing a transdisciplinary curriculum" (Smyth, 2017, p. 64). Indeed, it is a growing phenomenon in higher education as evidenced by several recent initiatives (
We conclude with some personal reflections on the nature of our transdisciplinary journey, and to review where it has led us as well as some of the challenges and constraints we've encountered. The three of us involved in editing this book represent a triumvirate from disparate disciplines who came together not only as a consequence of our common interest in sustainability, but through sharing a deeper concern that something was not quite right in terms of how the university's disparate disciplines hung together in dealing with sustainability issues; and not just in our university alone, but across higher education more generally. Each of us felt that the academy of disciplines was not addressing the scale or complexity of the intellectual and existential challenge confronting our own society and the wider world. Essentially, amid the silo-ised constraints of the university (should that be 'multiversity'?) that the whole was not greater than the sum of the parts. More broadly, within a world of increasing ecological degradation, social upheaval and economic inequality we were making relatively feeble attempts to address the 'grand challenges' around (un)sustainability. Recognising that such challenges constitute a complex nexus of problems, issues and required expertise, it was evident that our respective disciplines were never going to be capable of addressing these alone. Indeed, in our view it was the very silo-isation of our academic functions of teaching and research that was not just part-but at the very root-of the problem itself. Thus we were both primed and receptive to an open and ongoing dialogue and 'conversations', undertaken in good faith and humility, with the intention of gaining new insights from other disciplinary perspectives and sources of knowledge in order to be better equipped to develop appropriate questions on sustainability related issues. This was the starting point for our journey. It is one which began with a workshop and continued with a very successful conference on 'Transdisciplinary Conversations on Transitions to Sustainability', in addition to a number of disparate initiatives across the university (see Chapter 1 for details). While the chapters within this book, as well as associated initiatives and efforts at various levels across University College Cork represent only initial steps on a transdisciplinary journey, we feel our experience is instructive. In this final chapter we wish to draw out some broader possibilities and opportunities not just for our own institution but for the contemporary university more generally. We will also reflect on some of the challenges and constraints posed by such an approach. In rejecting the narrow silo-isation that the dominant modern university construct imposes, a transdisciplinary approach to knowledge generation and construction offers a tantalising range of opportunities and possibilities. One manifestation of a transdisciplinary approach and ethos is the recognition of the inherent (and indeed necessary) value of experiential knowledge outside the walls of the university to complement expert knowledge within. A transdisciplinary approach also inherently recognises the deep interconnectedness that we all are a product of, and hence by extension, a recognition of the reciprocal and recursive interpenetrating relationship that the university and its environs, specifically broader society, necessarily share with each other. While we are aware that there have been initiatives to build genuinely collaborative research partnerships, too often society is regarded as the 'subject' and the 'beneficiary' of academic research. One recent initiative, however, illustrates the way in which individual academics can place their experience, expertise and energies at the service of civil society which can, in turn,