OFFERING INTERDISCPLINARY COURSES: THE WHY, THE HOW AND THE WHAT

Students in their future workplace will likely face multifaceted challenges; as such, solutions require integration and collaboration across disciplines. An interdisciplinary instruction benefits students’ learning by exposing them to fundamental topics and perspectives that they would not have been able to obtain easily within their programs. Peer learning and interactions by students from different backgrounds provides further learning opportunities. The paper is a reflection of the experience of the four instructors involved in teaching an interdisciplinary course in the area of energy who were from four distinct Faculties over the period of 2010-2012. Planning well in advance is important to allow instructors from different backgrounds with varied traditions in teaching to develop a working rapport. Throughout the planning stages dedicated administrative support must be provided to facilitate attending to logistics of setting up the course within the university system. The right incentivise for the instructors should also be provided due to higher than normal time commitment. What was learnt that there is a need to provide both foundation material and more advanced perspectives simultaneously given the diverse background of students and topics in an interdisciplinary course. Also, it was found that instructors benefitted from teaching such a course by learning from traditions and methods in another discipline, and went on to improve other courses in their discipline both in content and teaching style. It was also found that lack of integration with “regular” programs, or “official” endorsing can dissuade some students from participating. Other lessons include issues around instructor team’s chemistry, course content design, e.g. the need for group projects to internalize the material, and the use of technology.