2024/03/14 by Yael Kali
Decision Sciences · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Innovative Education and Learning Practices #Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods #Interdisciplinary Research and Collaboration
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/10508406.2024.2354152
openalex publication_date 2024/03/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27
In this commentary, I offer my insights from the Special Issue-Beyond disciplinary engagement: researching the ecologies of interdisciplinary learning-which, in my view, reframes interdisciplinarity.In contrast to the cognitivist paradigm-where research is largely concerned with learning processes that lead to an individual's cognitive interdisciplinary learning outcome-in the ecological paradigm research is primarily concerned with the interdisciplinary learning processes that occur within groups.To address a concern regarding the usefulness of design principles in this framing, I use an approach for extending the applicability of design principles by augmenting them with designers' dilemmas and solutions in various contexts.Three main dilemmas are discussed: (1) How to ensure students have access to disciplinary knowledge and epistemic resources, as they embark on the interdisciplinary work?(2) How to support the fine-grained socio-material-cultural processes involved in interdisciplinary learning between diverse learners, levels and/or disciplinary expertise?(3) How to build on, but also push the boundaries of existing infrastructures to develop new routines, social networks, physical and digital infrastructures to accommodate interdisciplinary learning from K-12 through higher education?A synthesis of the studies' array of solutions is proposed as a preliminary roadmap for the design of ecologically-oriented interdisciplinary learning environments.