Interdisciplinary Dialogue Becoming a Transdisciplinary Dialogue: English and English Education

• In Event: 61.046 - Uncovering Intellectual and Conceptual Underpinnings of Innovative and Nontraditional Contexts for Learning Across Disciplines

Abstract

Although interdisciplinary opportunities for learning are increasing in some areas in higher education, how faculty provide these opportunities to students for learning remains a challenge, particularly since the structure of institutions encourages individual and disciplinary achievement. If faculty are to create interdisciplinary spaces for students to learn, faculty would benefit by engaging in dialogic, reflexive and ethnographic practices in order to interact with their colleagues from other disciplines, particularly to gain understanding of the assumptions, theories and methodologies of each other’s discipline and how these inform instruction. A telling case of an interdisciplinary team teaching experience is presented to explore and suggest criteria for effective interdisciplinary collaboration.

Author

• W. Douglas Baker, Eastern Michigan University