Designing and Researching Innovative and Emerging Interdisciplinary Curriculum in an Undergraduate Education Initiative

• In Event: 56.058 - The Discursive Construction of Learning Opportunities: Developing an Interdisciplinary/Interprofessional Ethnographic Research Agenda for Postsecondary Education

Abstract

Objective or Purpose

This study examines an ethnographic research process in which internal (embedded) ethnographers in a public university constructed records of a developing interdisciplinary initiative that integrated concepts of Long Term and Futures Thinking (LTFT) (5-20,000 years in past and future) with coursework within an Organizational Communication department. External ethnographers then undertook an analysis of the phases and processes involved in developing the conceptual integration of these two fields.

Objectives were to identify:
1. The design team’s logic of design in integrating the LTFT concepts with required content for 8 Organizational Communication Courses over a two year period leading to the 8th course as their “best course to date.”
2. What external ethnographers needed do and understand to uncover processes involved in integrating external disciplinary concepts with established course content in Organizational Communication.

Methodology

Guided by an Interactional Ethnographic logic-of-inquiry (Castanheira, Crawford, Green & Dixon, 2001), my external ethnographic team analyzed archived records of eight courses to identify how, in and through discourse (spoken and written)-in-use (e.g., Bloome & Clark, 2006; and Baker, Green, Skukauskaite, 2008), the instructional team developed ways of engaging students in exploring the relationship of LTFT and Organizational Communication Theories in each course. The following questions guided the (re)construction of the development and design processes:
● How and in what ways did the instructor and project consultant conceptualize (re)formulations of the courses?
● What resources and cycles of activities were used to make present to the
students what counts as long term and futures thinking?

These questions were explored through analysis intertextual references (Bloome & Egan-Robertson, 1993) made by multiple actors involved in designing this initiative that were inscribed in multiple sources of record collected by the embedded ethnographers over a two-year period.

Sources of Records for Data Analyses (15)

Records collected included those archived by the professor and those created by the external ethnographers. Records collected and analyzed included: Archived and constructed records collected by the Internal and external ethnography Team --
300 email exchanges between the professor, project consultant, and principal investigators; video records of collaborative meetings between the two research teams and LTFT team (2- 2hr meetings) and course sessions; fieldnotes of 4 collaborative meetings between the research teams; video Records of Interview Sessions -- 2 hr each -- Google Hangouts with professor, consultant, and face-to-face interviews with each collectively and individually; and transcripts of an audio recorded 2-hr interview of the Principal Investigator of the LTFT Project.

Findings

This collaborative ethnographic research made visible the instructional team’s logic of design in order for students to interrelate concepts of LTFT and organizational theories. It also revealed the decisions and actions undertaken by the external ethnographers in order to locate and develop additional records needed to construct warranted accounts of factors that supported and/or constrained the developing initiative.

Scholarly Significance

This study provides processes for integrating new areas of study into a traditional discipline in an undergraduate program. It provides a telling case of ways internal and external ethnographers, with a shared theoretical framework, can collaborate on research in university contexts.

Authors

• Monaliza Maximo Chian, Hueneme School District

• Stephanie Renee Couch, Masschusetts Institute of Technology