Andrews (1990) defines interdisciplinary
collaboration as occurring "when different professionals, possessing
unique knowledge, skills, organizational perspectives, and personal attributes,
engage in coordinated problem solving for a common purpose" (cited in
Berg-Weger & Schneider, 1998). This makes sense to me although it did some
work for me to get my head around the distinction between multidisciplinary collaboration
and interdisciplinary connections - multidisciplinary collaboration involves
the paralleled work of several disciplines but interdisciplinary practice may
include interprofessional interactions in which two or more disciplines
collaborate (The American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2016).
A useful conceptual model for interdisciplinary
collaboration is that of Mulligan and Kuban (2015).
The
interplay of the three elements in the diagram above, according to Mulligan and
Kuban, 2015 has a number of benefits. Interdisciplinary practice
allows individuals who are based in their practice discipline(s) to focus on
collaboration and participate in finding solutions to the increasingly complex
problems occurring in the world today by drawing on multiple perspectives,
practices and methodologies. This supports a study by Hardre et al (2013), who
found the benefits from an interdisciplinary learning community included
innovative thinking, metacognitive awareness and critical practice. Thinking about my own practice, I can see the potential
for more interdisciplinary connections through cross-curricular collaboration. I
think in secondary schools we can tend to operate within departmental siloes
and become very territorial – but this compartmentalised approach doesn’t
mirror the working world and we need to modelling for our students what authentic
and real collaboration looks like … so it’s not all plain sailing – there are challenges
… but we’ve made a start. I’m aiming to work more with HODs and teachers from
other departments to create interdisciplinary learning experiences for our
students e.g. looking at how we can use the work for NCEA assessments in more than
one curriculum area to cut down and spread the load for our already busy
akonga.
A future interdisciplinary connections goal
As HOD Humanities and being responsible for
the Social Studies programme at BHS, I have often wondered how our local
primary schools are teaching Social Studies and what we could learn from each
other. We teach Level 5 of the NZC, the primary teachers are responsible for
Levels 1-4, but often they receive less Social Science training than secondary school
subject specialists. Our students’ success in Social Studies depends on how
effectively we deliver our programmes at all 5 levels. I am sure it would be
beneficial to teachers and students if we could develop mutual understandings
of what our programmes are all about, what our students need and how we as teachers
can support each other as a professional collaboration entity. There is so much
we could learn from each other; I would especially be interested in how the
primary teachers integrate Social Studies into the rest of their programme, as
there is much we could learn from this. So I have set as an important
department goal for 2018 for us to establish an interdisciplinary connection
with the Year 8 teachers from our four local primary schools.
I have already
asked the Cross-Col leader to facilitate this.
Reference List:
American Association of Colleges of
Nursing.(2016). Interdisciplinary Education and Practice. Retrieved from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/publications/position/interdisciplinary-education-and-practice
Berg-Weger,
M., &. Schneider, F. D. (1998). Interdisciplinary
collaboration in social work education. Journal
of Social Work Education, 34, 97-107.
Hardré, P., Ling, C., Shehab, R. L., Nanny, M.,
Nollert, M., Refai, H., Ramsever, C., Herron, J. & Wollega, E. (2013).
Teachers in an Interdisciplinary Learning Community Engaging, Integrating, and
Strengthening K-12 Education. Journal of
Teacher Education, 64(5), 409-425.
Mulligan, L. & Kuban, A. . (2015). A
Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration. Retrieved from http://acrlog.org/2015/05/14/a-conceptual-model-for-interdisciplinary-collaboration
Mathison, S. & Freeman, M. (1997). THE LOGIC OF INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES.
Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf
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