Navigating the Interdisciplinary Landscape in a Pseudo-Community of Practice: Crossing Boundaries or Building Roadblocks?

• In Event: Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: Integrative and Interdisciplinary Collaborations: Navigating Boundaries, Intersections, and Diversity

Abstract

While institutes of higher education in the United States and abroad continue to heed calls for increased interdisciplinary collaboration, research outlining effective methods of interdisciplinary collaboration is lacking. This paper addresses that gap by describing the ways in which a cross-campus team of content and pedagogy specialists in the STEM and literacy areas planned and implemented an interdisciplinary institute for in-service and preservice elementary teachers. This paper analyzes that team as a community of practice (COP) stalled in the pseudocommunity stage of community-making due to epistemological and logistical roadblocks and offers recommendations to enable university colleagues to move beyond the pseudocommunity and cross disciplinary boundaries.

Authors

• Stephanie Schroeder, University of Florida

• Elizabeth Bondy, University of Florida