Toward a Possible Transdisciplinary World: Trans-Pandemic Forms of Learning

• In Event: COVID-19 and Mexican Elementary Education: Analysis, Alternatives, and Lessons Learned From the Pandemic

Abstract

In this presentation, I will discuss an innovative methodological transdisciplinary education tool to disrupt hierarchical-disciplinary style and non-affective STEAM virtual learning environments.
The related experiences of students, teachers, researchers, administrators, or peacekeepers from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to the present, are related to preparing educators to respond to the academic, ecological, and socio-affective needs of themselves and of students within an increasingly unpredictable, complex, damage, and intersectional context. It is, therefore, an invitation to redefine the role of learning and education paradigms, an exploration of well-being, and situated perspectives as a useful framework for suggesting concrete educational proposals.
Transdisciplinary education proposes a way in this direction, through opening the closed boundaries, and tackling real-life problems from different angles, problems that directly affect all those involved, that are beyond a simple academic or administrative practice, which requires a shift toward the collaborative, flexible, and integrated model of pluralist learning and situated education (Daneshpour y Kwegyir-Afful, 2021).
In response to this call, we designed and implemented a transdisciplinary STEAM course during the COVID-19 outbreak. To facilitate the affective and reflexive delivery of the new learning contents and authentically engage students in the virtual learning experience, a collaborative writing workshop was held on the experiences of ecological damage during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering the characteristics of three disciplines, STEAM (Neuroscience, Art and Culture), environmental education (considering Bruno Latour’s New Climate Regime), and collaborative writing.
The specific purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between the students’ perceived levels of collaborative learning and transdisciplinary learning in a virtual learning environment. Methodologically, we studied the relationship between these variables. The participants were 26 graduate students who took a one-year postgraduate diploma course in “Neuroscience, Art and Culture” and worked on the collaborative writing workshop. Data was collected from the Collaborative Learning, Social Presence, and Satisfaction (CLSS) questionnaire, edited book, and face-to-face interviews. The analysis of quantitative data indicated that student perceptions of collaborative learning have statistically positive relationships with perceptions of significant students’ transdisciplinary STEM knowledge improvement after completing the course. Interview data and edited book revealed that (a) collaborative writing workshop clear and concrete structure (we follow Yilmaz, et al. 2020, a guide to remote collaborative writing) (b) socioemotional support and attentive and shared listening, and (c) open and consensual channels of communication, were critical factors associated with student perceptions of collaborative and transdisciplinary learning.
I suggest transdisciplinary education research plays an important role in cultivating collaborative and socio-affective educational systems in the present, to better meet real-world solutions in the trans-COVID-19 era.

References
Daneshpour, H., & Kwegyir-Afful, E. (2021). Analysing Transdisciplinary Education: A Scoping Review. Science & Education, 1-28.
Yilmaz, et al. (2020). Remote Collaborative Writing: A Guide to Writing Within a Virtual Community of Practice. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 14(3), 256-259.

Author

• Ximena Andrea González-Grandón, Universidad Iberoamericana AC
  Presenting Author