Materials from Interdisciplinary Education at UCPH
Materials developed as part of the project – activities, reports, course design, literature reviews, articles etc.
Some links to documents might has been deactivated. Please contact us if you are interested in materials and you can't find the relevant document on the website.
Further information: Christine Holm,
Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen
Work with selected questions to enhance the teacher’s reflection on his or her own discipline.
Use reflection questions in individual exercises to let the teachers reflect on their own discipline, professional practice, values and rationales. The exercise works well in the beginning of a collaboration process to facilitate an individual reflection as well as a dialogue amongst the teachers, where they can compare and put into perspective their answers to the reflection questions.
Visualize different understandings and interpretations of a course or an education by developing a cartographic representation.
Use cartographic representation as a mean to visualize and communicate the knowledge and disciplines related to a crossdisciplinary course or education. Drawing on inspirational elements from topographical maps you can create a common platform for dialogue and communication across disciplines in connection to the development or re-design of cross-disciplinary courses and programs.
Topographic mapping is suitable for supporting collaboration between teachers of different disciplines, where the map is used to illustrate how each of the teachers understand and relate to a joint teaching project. When developing the map it may turn out that the teachers relate to the teaching project quite differently in terms of e.g. which subjects they are interested in or perhaps are unaware of - which this exercise should help to visualize.
Enhance cross-disciplinary dialogue through association exercises based on the interpretations of either a topic or various photos.
Association exercises can be used to uncover and discuss differences and similarities between the teachers’ preconceptions. The underlying idea is that the topic or photos elicit different thought associations by the teachers, which can give an insight into the different disciplinary and cultural backgrounds of the teachers. These insights can help to make it clear that people rarely understand and interpret subjects in the same manner. The exercise works well in the beginning of a collaboration process to facilitate a dialogue and develop a shared language about values and disciplinary rationales in the teacher team. In addition, it can enable a better awareness of the limitations and blind angles of the different disciplines represented amongst the teachers.
By Mads Goddiksen, 2017
Peer reviewed paper
The aim of interdisciplinary practice is generally to solve interdisciplinary problems. An important aim for interdisciplinary teaching is therefore to prepare students for the practice of solving interdisciplinary problems. When considering course contents and methods for teaching and evaluation in interdisciplinary courses, it is therefore valuable to have some understanding of what characterizes an interdisciplinary problem, and what it means to solve one, as this is one of the main teaching objectives. In this paper I aim to provide this basic understanding. I start out by introducing the concept of an interdisciplinary problem as a problem where the solution is constrained by standards of quality and relevance from multiple disciplines. I further discuss the concept of a discipline as a community of researchers sharing a technical jargon and standards of relevance and quality. I then introduce the concept of an integrated solution to an interdisciplinary problem as a solution that is acceptable according to all relevant standards of relevance and quality. I argue that a partial aim of interdisciplinary teaching is to aid the students overcome the linguistic differences across disciplines and to prepare them for the methodological and philosophical issues that arise in interdisciplinary problem solving due to differing standards of quality and relevance. In this respect interdisciplinary courses share an aim with the philosophy of science courses that are mandatory at Danish universities, and I encourage teachers to cultivate this underexploited potential for cross-fertilization.
Download pdf:
The Theory of Interdisciplinarity An Introduction for Educators
Anita Kildebæk Nielsen og Dina Nielsen, 2017
I denne analyse er barriererne helt overordnet inddelt i de to temaer administration og økonomi. Det er ikke ensbetydende med, at de to temaer skal forstås som uafhængige af hinanden. De økonomiske og administrative strukturer spiller ind i forhold til hinanden, i nogle tilfælde er de afledt af hinanden. Kortlægningen har illustreret, hvordan barriererne på forskellige måder afgrænser muligheder for det tværdisciplinære undervisningsrum og uddannelsessamarbejder.
Få af de uddannelser, som har deltaget i interviewrunden udtrykker, at det egentlig kører uden de større problemer. Nogle af uddannelserne er relativt nye og har derfor fokus på opstart uden at endnu have det store volumen, som på sigt kan medføre nogle af de samme barrierer som andre mere etablerede uddannelser oplever. Flertallet af uddannelsessamarbejderne, som har deltaget i interviews, oplever dog udfordringer af administrativ eller økonomisk karakter, som sætter barrierer for undervisningen eller den form for tværdisciplinaritet, som er intentionen med uddannelserne.
På baggrund af kortlægningen er det muligt at tentativt kategorisere tre typer af tværfakultære uddannelsessamarbejder set fra en administrativ kontekst:
- Tilkøb af undervisning/underviser på andet fakultet til specifikt fag.
- Hvert fakultet leverer fagelementer til et fast studieforløb (jf. samarbejdskontrakt). Administrationen er forankret på ét fakultet, studienævnet for uddannelsen går på tværs af fakulteter og specialet er forankret på de ansvarlige institutter.
- Der er ikke en prædefineret fastlagt fagpakke eller et fastlagt studieforløb med prædefinerede fagelementer. I denne model indgår valgfrie elementer, som principielt kan tages på hele KU. For specialet gælder tilsvarende valgfrihed, hvor den studerende ikke er bundet til de samarbejdende institutter eller fakulteter. Det beror på en faglig godkendelse fra studielederens side.
How it all began
The tool CoNavigator – is a very direct result of the “Interdisciplinary education” project. As a PhD enrolled in this project, Lindvig has been studying the ways in which interdisciplinary research projects translates their research into educational activities (e.g. PhD programmes, undergraduate courses, summer schools). In one of the cases she studies, Hillersdal, a social anthropologist, was exploring how politically mobilized interdisciplinarity was translated into practice. At the end of a two year field study on these educational activities, Lindvig was approached by one of the course administrators and asked to step in and contribute to a summer school arranged by the research project. In order to make this happen, Lindvig teamed up with Hillersdal and Earle, who as a partner at the think tank Braintrust, was used to creating and developing interdisciplinary tools and processes.
The tool is inspired by a more lengthy workshop format (Braintrust Labs). The idea has been to boil the format down, from two days to just three hours, adding our knowledge and experience on interdisciplinary teaching and collaboration and thereby changing it into something that could be implemented in an interdisciplinary course. This required it to be easy to explain to students coming from all types of disciplines and backgrounds. Furthermore, it had to create links between modules which had already been put in place, and a range of faculties at different levels of teaching.
The tool has since then been tested in various settings and has proven to be a good way of breaking the ice and create meaningful conversations around an overall topic. Though the tool originally was developed for interdisciplinary courses, it is versatile and flexible enough to also be used as a kick-off activity for shorter seminars or even longer educational programmes.
In the process of developing this tool we have been greatly inspired by the idea of a Visual Lingua Franca, defined as visual languages systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing the same mother tongue. In the process we have also drawn on works by Szostak, the Toolbox-project, the Interdisciplinary studies project, Ground Zero as well as the td-net’s toolbox to name only a few. Furthermore a number of students and groups of colleagues have helped us test the tool in various rounds (a special thanks to the Edinburgh team including Catherine Lyall and Laura Meagher).
The project has produced 10 tool sets ready for use. If you would like to get an introduction to the tool or maybe include it in your interdisciplinary activity, please contact Katrine.lindvig@ind.ku.dk.
Article
Lindvig, K; Hillersdal, L ; Earle, D (2017). Interdisciplinary Tool Helps Fast-Track Interdisciplinary Learning and Collaboration. Integrative Pathways, vol. 39 (2).
Links for YouTube videos:
Marie Ahlberg Andersen og Morten Hillgaard Bülow, 2016
Denne rapport indgår som en del af KU 2016: Tværfaglig og tværfakultær uddannelse, hvor udviklingen af et ’Gender Certificate’ indgår som delprojekt C.
Tværfakultære og innovative kompetencer inden for området ’køn og krop’ efterspørges i dag i stigende grad. I Danmark, Europa og globalt indgår ’køn og krop’ i centrale konflikter og problemfelter i forhold til eksempelvis kulturmøder, krops- og sundhedsteknologier, samt nye etiske og demokratiske udfordringer. Samtidig er der et stort og udækket behov for disse kompetencer i både offentlige og private institutioner og virksomheder. Gender Certificate-ordningen imødekommer dette behov for tværgående viden og kompetencer, som er på forkant med både lokale og globale udviklinger.
Evaluation report in Danish from "Koordinationen for Kønsforskning", subproject C, 2016
By Werner Schäfke and Katrine Meldgaard Kjær, 2016.
A didactic tool paper for module managers of ‘Fagets Videnskabsteori’ at the University of Copenhagen.
In this didactic tool paper you can find advice on how to address interdisciplinarity in the courses on a discipline’s theory of science (Fagets videnskabsteori) in order to enable students to look beyond boundaries of their own discipline and understand it in relation to other ones.
Interdisciplinarity and similar terms such as transdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity are used in a wide variety of meanings. In this didactic tool paper you will find definitions of types of interdisciplinarity and their benefits. You will also find a checklist in form of questions for reflections for addressing interdisciplinarity in a course on a discipline’s theory of science in order to enhance student’s interdisciplinary outlooks. These questions are centered about the themes: Ontology, methodology and epistemology. Furthermore, you will find recommendations on how to work with and research on objects in an interdisciplinary way.
By Rie Hjørnegaard Malm, Lene Møller Madsen, Lars Ulriksen & Andreas de Neergaard, 2016
Report in Danish. Published in: IND's skriftserie nr. 47. 2016.
Undersøgelsen af studerendes første år på Naturressourcer satte fokus på de forskellige måder studerende oplever det første studieår på, og hvilken betydning uddannelsens tværfaglige identitet og struktur har.
Resultaterne viser at for nogle studerende er den store diversitet i fagligheder en gave, og for nogle studerende er det en udfordring at finde sin plads på uddannelsen. Nogle søger en snæver faglig identitet i udbuddet, mens andre søger den tværfaglige integration. Fremadrettet har rapporten følgende opmærksomhedspunkter til uddannelsen i Naturressourcer som andre uddannelser ligeledes kan have gavn af at gennemtænke:
Hvordan uddannelsen præsenterer sig for potentielle studerende
Den måde uddannelsen præsenterer sig for nye studerende på har stor betydning, for både deres motivation for at vælge, for den måde de opfatter uddannelsen og i for deres overvejelser om at forlade uddannelsen. Derfor kan det være gavnligt at genbesøge de budskaber uddannelsen giver i de forskellige informationsformater og skabe sammenhæng til det de studerende møder på uddannelsen.
Hvordan uddannelsen skaber en faglig kultur og identitet
De studerende oplever at de har fælles interesser og et sammenfaldende værdisæt på uddannelsen. At iværksætte initiativer, der kan skabe en stærkere fælles faglig identitet som naturressourcestuderende, er en måde at styrke både de faglige og sociale tilhørsforhold til uddannelsen.
Hvordan uddannelsen opfatter sig som tværfaglig
De forskellige opfattelser af hvordan tværfagligheden udmønter sig på uddannelsen har konsekvenser i forhold til hvordan de studerende skaber mening gennem uddannelsen. Derfor vil en større opmærksomhed på begrundelserne for de forskellige kurser og sammenhængen mellem dem være en væsentlig diskussion at tage op på uddannelsen.
Hvordan uddannelsen skaber større fastholdelse
Fælles for de tre foregående opmærksomhedspunkter er at de handler om at gøre ubevidste ideer eller holdninger tydelige for både undervisere og studerende. Et mål for uddannelsen kan være at forsøge i højere grad at skabe overensstemmelse mellem hvordan uddannelsen præsenterer sig, den faglige og sociale kultur og uddannelsens faglige elementer. Det vil kunne imødekomme nogle af problemstillingerne og højst sandsynligt gøre det enklere for de studerende at se sig selv i uddannelsen og dermed mindske frafaldet.
Buy printed version from Lulu.com:
Find link at IND's skriftserie nr. 47. 2016.
By Katrine Lindvig og Lars Ulriksen, 2016
Didactical tool paper in Danish.
Formålet med dette værktøjspapir er at give et fælles grundlag for diskussioner og udvikling af tværfaglige uddannelser på Københavns Universitet. Som det vil vise sig hen gennem papiret, er sprogbrugen knyttet til tværfaglighed langt fra entydig, og den kompliceres yderligere af en sammenblanding af danske og engelske begreber. Der vil derfor være variationer med hensyn til, hvordan bestemte ord og begreber bliver forstået i forskellige sammenhænge. Vores ambition med værktøjspapiret er derfor ikke at give en endelig definition eller afklaring, men at papiret kan give et fælles grundlag for samtaler om tværfaglige uddannelser, når man planlægger, gennemfører og evaluerer uddannelserne.
By Katrine Lindvig og Lars Ulriksen, 2016
Peer reviewed paper in Danish.
Formålet med denne artikel er at give undervisere, som er involveret i tværfaglige uddannelser og undervisning, et grundlag for at kunne reflektere over og diskutere følgende: Hvad sker der med tværfagligheden i undervisningen, og hvordan hænger det sammen med de didaktiske valg i planlægning og udførelse? I artiklen sammenholder og præsenterer forfatterne først de mest udbredte betegnelser for tværfaglighed. Ved hjælp af en case bestående af et tværfagligt kursus, udbudt over flere gange og med forskelligt design, peger forfatterne herefter på nogle af de udfordringer, der er forbundet med at praktisere tværfaglig undervisning. Artiklen konkluderer, at centrale didaktiske overvejelser om stofudvælgelse, arbejdsformer, eksamensformer samt deltagerforudsætninger og forventninger har afgørende betydning for realiseringen af den tilstræbte tværfaglighed.
Abstract in English:
This paper looks at questions relevant to the increasing number of teachers involved in interdisciplinary courses at university level. In particular it considers the link between the intended and the realized interdisciplinarity in teaching and how this is related to the didactical planning. Drawing on one case - an interdisciplinary master course offered three times and each time with a new design - the authors highlight some of the challenges associated with interdisciplinary teaching practice. Based on this case, the authors conclude that balancing teacher expectations with possible course outcomes, selecting and organizing course content as well as examination type, all have a massive impact on whether the intended interdisciplinarity is realized over the duration of the course.
Published in Dansk Universitetspædagogisk Tidsskrift, Årg. 11, Nr. 20 (2016)
Presentation at the University Education Day on September 22, 2015. Preliminary results from the project.
Robin Engelhardt's poster for the conference Our Common Future during Climate Change, 7th-10th July, 2015 in Paris.
Abstract: Climate change education is inherently interdisciplinary. It requires teachers to possess a broad range of competencies and to apply a variety of teaching methods, bringing into play the skills and knowledge of the whole classroom. If one defines interdisciplinary learning as the ability to know and coordinate a growing number of perspectives, it becomes the teacher’s primary task to support students in their explorative and coordinative efforts. Preliminary findings from a research project at the University of Copenhagen highlights several barriers as well as opportunities. In general, there is weak institutional support for interdisciplinary teaching, and a lack of teacher coordination among topics covered in the curricula. At its worst, teaching becomes a kind of ‘serial disciplinarity’ where modularly formatted perspectives produce mutually incomprehensible monologues. At its best, lead instructors use a variety of inductive teaching methods and provide an impartial overview of the conceptual schemes involved.
Robin Engelhardt's presentation from the DUN conference May 6, 2015. Robin presents experiences from two master's programs from the University of Copenhagen. The presentation focuses on the teacher's perspective. Teacher-archetypes are referred to in interdisciplinary programs as well as challenges, problems and potentials in these.
Tværfaglighed skal læres - Erfaringer fra to kandidatuddannelser på KU
Presentation with preliminary results from the frameworkproject by Katrine Lindvig, Robin Engelhardt and Rie Hjørnegaard Malm. From the framework project's internal seminar on April 16, 2015.
Katrine Lindvig, 2014
En oversigt med udvalgte og kommenterede artikler om tværfaglighed fra det litteraturreview, som Katrine Lindvig har gennemført i forbindelse med sit ph.d.-studium.
By Katrine Meldgaard Kjær, 2014.
A mapping of the mandatory philosophy of science course is key in the examination of the state of interdisciplinarity at UCPH for two central reasons: first and foremost, as will be outlined below, one of the explicitly stated aims with the introduction of a mandatory course for all Danish university students on the philosophy of science - or Fagets Videnskabsteori, as it is called in Danish ‐ was to foster cross-disciplinary understanding and outlook, and to provide BA students with a broader perspective on their respective disciplines. However, at the same time, the course was also required to be based from this discipline, hence the course name Fagets Videnskabsteori (the discipline’s philosophy of science). With the former aim in mind, this course can thus potentially work as a kind of ground zero for interdisciplinary education at UCPH, a space where students can be introduced to and guided in interdisciplinary work and research, and, not least, how this works together with disciplinary work and research. But how are these courses actually navigating between disciplinarity and interdisciplinairty? What kinds of perspectives are they passing on to students? And what kinds (if any) of tools are these courses providing the students with regarding interdisciplinary work and research? Second, as this is the only course that is obligatory for all Bachelor’s programs at Danish universities, it represents a unique chance to compare and contrast how the different departments are approaching the question of how disciplinary and interdisciplinary work interact.
This mapping of 13 courses of “Fagets videnskabsteori” shows that the approaches to the courses in the philosophy of science at UCPH are both many and multi-faceted. Hopefully future planners of courses of “Fagets videnskabsteori” can use the mapping in relation to what to consider when seeking to integrate an element of reflection on interdisciplinary issues and/or interdisciplinarity into a given course.
Henriette Tolstrup Holmegaard, Rie Hjørnegaard Malm og Lene Møller Madsen, 2014
Rapporten formidler de studerendes perspektiv på første studieår på den tværfaglige uddannelse ”nanoscience”, og bidrager med input, der kan bruges fremadrettet for uddannelsen. Undersøgelsen har fokus på de studerendes oplevelser, som er centrale i relation til at forstå frafald og i arbejdet med at fastholde studerende.
Matilde Lykkebo Petersen, 2014
Rapport fra Koordinationen for Kønsforskning, delprojekt C
Som en del af KU’s rammeprojekt om tværfaglighed, der blandt andet har som mål at ”bidrage til en begrebsafklaring på tværs af KU af nøglebegreber om tværfaglighed” og ”at identificere vigtige komponenter i tværvidenskabens videnskabsteori, der kan anvendes i planlægning og gennemførelse af tværfaglig undervisning og uddannelse”1, indgår der i denne rapport overvejelser over, hvordan kønsstudier hænger sammen med tværvidenskabelighed, og herunder, hvordan centrale elementer i kønsforskningens videnstradition og videnskabsteori kan anvendes i forhold til udviklingen af tværfaglige undervisningstilbud. Her tænkes både konkret på Gender Certificate og på muligheden for en bredere anvendelse af kønsforskningens nøglebegreber i forhold til tværfaglig uddannelse.
Download pdf: Køn på tværs af fagligheder, 2014
Contact
If you would like to know more about the project, please contact us for further information:
Jens Dolin, project manager
Christine Holm, consultant