Overcoming Challenges to Interdisciplinary Teaching

Program Abstract: Introductory undergraduate science courses are typically siloed, limiting opportunities for students to integrate knowledge across disciplines. Tackling the challenge of interdisciplinarity requires innovation, collaboration, and resources. This workshop, developed by the National Science Foundation RCNUBE-funded (STEM)2 Network, is appropriate for instructors and administrators, addressing both large- and small-scale challenges to interdisciplinarity. Based on design thinking and emergent outcomes, participants collaborate using design thinking to address larger disciplinary or institutional scales and the Concept Overlap REsource (CORE) to encourage interdisciplinarity at classroom scale. The CORE is a collaborative online resource that aligns concepts articulated by each discipline as critical to include in its respective undergraduate courses. Participants will develop a novel solution to implement at their institutions, reimagining how to promote interdisciplinary teaching, identifying opportunities to be explicitly interdisciplinary in one of their courses, and being able to leverage the CORE to support interdisciplinary teaching at their institutions.