Author Archives: Colin Graham

Climate Change, Environment and Sustainability: Teaching Resources⤴

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The 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow is a critically important intergovernmental meeting of world leaders and scientists if irreversible climate change is to be avoided. It is also part of a much greater and broader long-term challenge of mitigating wider environmental degradation world-wide that threatens the sustainability not just of humanity but of all life on Earth. These challenges and related opportunities are all deeply interdisciplinary in nature.

Learning and teaching resources on these and related topics spanning most curriculum areas and many facets of climate, environment and sustainability have been collated from various sources in our recently updated resources page.


Featured Image © UK Met Office, University of Reading #showyourstripes CC-BY-4.0

Climate Change, Environment and Sustainability: Teaching Resources⤴

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The 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow is a critically important intergovernmental meeting of world leaders and scientists if irreversible climate change is to be avoided. It is also part of a much greater and broader long-term challenge of mitigating wider environmental degradation world-wide that threatens the sustainability not just of humanity but of … Continue reading “Climate Change, Environment and Sustainability: Teaching Resources”

What is IDL?⤴

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“The student who can begin in early life to think of things as connected…..has begun the life of learning”. Mark van Doren (poet, writer, critic) 1943.

Interdisciplinary learning (IDL) is a way of thinking and learning in which learners draw on knowledge, understanding and skills from two or more subjects in order to solve a problem or advance our understanding of a concept or idea that extends beyond the scope of any one subject. IDL enables the transfer and application of subject knowledge and language to other areas of learning and to new problems. It is not a substitute for subject-based learning – on the contrary, disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning are complementary and interlinked. IDL cannot exist separately from disciplines but is founded on strong disciplinary knowledge, understanding and skills. It should complement and enrich subject learning, facilitate learning across subject boundaries, and enable students to use their learning beyond the situation in which the learning occurred.

Featured image: Whitelee Wind Farm, nr Glasgow. CC BY-3.0 Author: BJ Mullan

The development of IDL requires breadth of subject knowledge and skills. That is why it is commonly developed collaboratively. The principles and practice of IDL as a way of thinking and learning apply across all areas of learning and teaching, including further and higher education.

IDL is often used (and misused) as a general term for various types of learning that involve the wider use, connection and application of disciplinary knowledge (‘making connections between subjects’), such as (for example) multidisciplinary-, project-based, inquiry-based – or problem-based learning. All have their place. 

Interdisciplinary learning and multidisciplinary learning are often confused. Simply linking discrete subjects with no immediate connection together around a theme is multidisciplinary, not interdisciplinary.

“Conflicting understandings of what IDL is” was recognised by teachers and educators at the RSE IDL conference as one of the major challenges of IDL implementation. This is why a concise working definition of IDL is important in providing a ‘benchmark’ for its development and practice, even although in practice there are many possible creative contexts, starting points and approaches to the development of IDL and some ‘fuzziness’ and latitude around this definition.

Pillars, lintels and foundations. Image © Colin Graham 2020 

A helpful metaphor for IDL is that of pillars, lintels and foundations. IDL should continue to be founded on deep and coherent pillars of subject knowledge, understanding and skills. Interdisciplinary learning will lack rigour and utility if not part of a structure in which the disciplines are the pillars, with the interdisciplinary working as the lintels. Without the disciplinary pillars, the interdisciplinary lintels will fall. The pillars and lintels are supported by foundations – competences, aptitudes, basic knowledge, skills and methods in and across all subjects, including literacy and numeracy.

There is an ever-increasing need for the integration of both specialist and broad knowledge in the modern workplace and in the wider world. Subject-specific knowledge is no longer the primary determinant of suitability in most graduate recruitment. However, IDL is not just about equipping students with more useful skills for the workplace; it is more broadly about providing students with experiences that foster a lifelong love for learning, creativity and community.

Click here to access the RSE IDL Conference Introduction paper (2019).

Click here to read more about disciplines.

The IDL Network⤴

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The IDL Network is one of several outcomes of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s (RSE) 2019 conference on “Interdisciplinary Learning: Creative Thinking for a Complex World. At the conference, a questionnaire was circulated to around 160 delegates, respondents to which (practitioners, school leaders and teacher educators) supported the establishment of a teacher forum, which the RSE has co-ordinated.

An overarching challenge to the implementation of IDL is the lack of a common understanding and clarity about what constitutes IDL. Improving our understanding of IDL and related approaches to connecting subject learning by various means within the education community is therefore a priority. The Network has been established as a website with the aim of forming and building a broad community of practice around IDL.

Featured image: Queensferry Crossing. CC BY-2.0. Author: Tony Hisgett.

Why is IDL Important?

The 21st Century world has proved to be an increasingly unpredictable place. Its global challenges are all complex. They can’t be properly understood within any one discipline or curriculum area, but require interdisciplinary thinking and working across the curriculum. These challenges include globalisation (of manufacture, technologies, goods and their supply chains, information flow and ideas), pandemic diseases, food and water, biodiversity, energy, climate change, environmental degradation, demographic change and more. All of these challenges have consequences for health, environment, employment, economic development and inequalities of income, resource and opportunity.

The ‘interconnectedness’ of the above challenges both to each other and to the many areas of knowledge and understanding (the disciplines) that underpin them is now clear. The long-term impacts will be particularly acute for those currently in our education systems. How do we prepare learners to thrive in this increasingly uncertain and unpredictable world?

The need for our education system to produce creative and curious learners, problem-solvers, collaborators and critical thinkers with rich experiences of both interdisciplinary and subject learning as a natural way of learning, thinking and working is clear and urgent. Problems and challenges of this magnitude can only be tackled and resolved through learning that draws on knowledge and understanding from more than one discipline. They require the capacity to recontextualise disciplinary knowledge when it is transferred from one discipline and applied to another in order to resolve problems, gain new insights and improve outcomes. A greater ethos of collaboration in learning and teaching will be a required.

Click here to read more about work, learning and community

What is IDL?⤴

from

“The student who can begin in early life to think of things as connected…..has begun the life of learning”. Mark van Doren (poet, writer, critic) 1943. Interdisciplinary learning (IDL) is a way of thinking and learning in which learners draw on knowledge, understanding and skills from two or more subjects in order to solve a … Continue reading “What is IDL?”

The IDL Network⤴

from

The IDL Network is one of several outcomes of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s (RSE) 2019 conference on “Interdisciplinary Learning: Creative Thinking for a Complex World”. At the conference, a questionnaire was circulated to around 160 delegates, respondents to which (practitioners, school leaders and teacher educators) supported the establishment of a teacher forum, which the … Continue reading “The IDL Network”

What is a discipline? – the importance of subject knowledge in IDL⤴

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When talking about IDL and its development, it’s helpful to remind ourselves what disciplines and school subjects are and why they are important in IDL. A discipline is a branch of learning or domain of knowledge that is characterised by distinct objects, concepts, principles, theories, skills, tools and applications. Established disciplines in schools, colleges, higher education and research institutions alike comprise groupings of ‘like-minded’ people with a shared language. Their boundaries are not always well defined. Disciplines give structure and rigour to the development of knowledge, and provide a reservoir of knowledge and skills that contribute economic, cultural and social value to the well being of society (RSE, Pillars and Lintels, 2017).

Discipline boundaries evolve with time as new disciplinary knowledge accrues. However, major new insights and understandings – and solutions to real-world problems – frequently emerge in the gaps between disciplinary boundaries – the interdisciplinary areas. 

Disciplines and school subjects are often conflated. In contrast to disciplines, school subjects are not ends in themselves but are a way of apportioning curriculum content from within and across an increasingly wide body of knowledge (Priestley, 2019). As a broad body of knowledge, the curriculum should embrace both subject knowledge and interdisciplinary knowledge (IDL) in a coherent way.


Featured image: Fruit bowl © Nick Hood 2020

Work, learning and community in the 21st century⤴

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Jobs in the 21st century are becoming project-driven and problem-driven rather than subject-driven, requiring teamwork that involves the collaborative engagement of specialists and generalists. Employers increasingly seek to employ those with breadth of knowledge and skills, including communication, interpersonal and technical skills, and the capacity to analyse problems from different perspectives. Subject-specific knowledge is no longer the primary determinant of suitability in most graduate recruitment. According to the Institute of Student Employers (an employment-led membership organisation) 82% of graduate recruiters in 2017 did not mind what degree subjects or qualifications candidates offered.

Higher-order skills will be essential to meet these and other complex challenges, with a rebalancing beyond narrowly focused specialists towards more flexible learners and workers with ongoing access to lifelong IDL and training. The OECD’s skills strategy identifies the need for higher order skills to thrive in an uncertain world, including problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking, team working, resilience and adaptability.

However, IDL is not just about equipping learners with more useful knowledge and skills for the workplace; it is more broadly about providing learners with experiences, knowledge and understandings that foster a lifelong love for learning, creativity, collaboration and community, and a deeper understanding of the world.

Read more about what the network will do in practice, and how you can contribute, on this page.

Featured image: National Library of Ireland, Dublin. © Colin Graham 2018 

What is a discipline? – the importance of subject knowledge in IDL⤴

from

When talking about IDL and its development, it’s helpful to remind ourselves what disciplines and school subjects are and why they are important in IDL. A discipline is a branch of learning or domain of knowledge that is characterised by distinct objects, concepts, principles, theories, skills, tools and applications. Established disciplines in schools, colleges, higher … Continue reading “What is a discipline? – the importance of subject knowledge in IDL”

Work, learning and community in the 21st century⤴

from

Jobs in the 21st century are becoming project-driven and problem-driven rather than subject-driven, requiring teamwork that involves the collaborative engagement of specialists and generalists. Employers increasingly seek to employ those with breadth of knowledge and skills, including communication, interpersonal and technical skills, and the capacity to analyse problems from different perspectives. Subject-specific knowledge is no … Continue reading “Work, learning and community in the 21st century”