On the Value of Making Space for Faculty Learning-Teaching Across Disciplines

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: Environmental Education SIG Poster Session

Abstract

Research about interdisciplinary collaborations often emphasizes the importance of participant cross-disciplinary learning. This paper explores the impact of instituting learning-teaching sessions in which faculty members of a graduate level environmental policy program taught their colleagues core concepts from their disciplinary expertises over the period of one year. Examination of pre-and-post surveys based on the session topics engaged a concept of learning-teaching, in which the processes are viewed as mutually implicative, and suggested that the sessions enriched collegiality through the sharing of teaching practices, disciplinary concepts and methods, and research experiences. The study finds that generating programmatic space to facilitate the work of cross-disciplinary learning, including making time to struggle with new material, is valuable toward cultivating interdisciplinary collaborations.

Authors

• Mary Chang, University of Hawaii - Manoa

• Gautam Sethi, Bard College

• Jennifer Phillips, Bard College