Thematic Issues: Three Design Models to Address The Challenge of a New Interdisciplinary Course
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
The increasing complexity of societal challenges requires interdisciplinary approaches in education to cultivate critical thinking, adaptability, and a holistic understanding of global issues.In response, the Quebec college system's Social Science program introduced the Thematic Issues course (TI), a single-instructor course designed to engage students in interdisciplinary inquiry through instructor-selected themes and three prescribed social science disciplines.To navigate the challenges of teaching across disciplines in an unstructured framework, instructors formed a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) to collaboratively refine course design and instructional strategies.This paper examines three TI course models: the serial model, offering compartmentalized insights; the spiral model, promoting cumulative, integrated learning; and the jigsaw model emphasizes collaborative synthesis by combining specialized disciplinary perspectives into a cohesive understanding.By analyzing these models, this practice-centered study highlights the pedagogical affordances and constraints of single-teacher interdisciplinary instruction. ContextAs societal issues grow more complex, interdisciplinary education is increasingly recognized as a way to help learners make sense of them.Curricula must prepare students for real-world challenges by fostering critical thinking, adaptability, and transferable skills (Peiqi & Xionghu, 2003).This paper presents a practitioner-centered perspective on the development of a multidiscipline course aimed at fostering interdisciplinary thinking.The course was collaboratively designed through the efforts of nine instructors (practitioners) at a large urban college in Quebec, part of the province's unique 2-year post-secondary CEPEP system (1).These individuals were tasked with developing and teaching the first cohort of a 45-hour, third semester Social Science course called Thematic Issues (TI), which prepares students for a self-directed interdisciplinary project in their final (fourth) semester.As a core course within the program, the TI is offered in 20 sections annually, serving approximately 500 students.Operating as a Faculty Learning Community (FLC; to be defined shortly), the nine instructors brought expertise from six disciplines: psychology, anthropology, philosophy, religious studies, sociology, and business administration.These instructors had no experience working within an explicit theoretical framework to prepare for the design of the interdisciplinary course.Beginning in late May 2024, the instructors held initial meetings of the FLC before pausing for the summer, during which independent course planning took place.Bi-weekly meetings resumed in Fall 2024, leading to the course's first large scale offering that semester.This piloting phase is currently ongoing (Winter 2025) and will extend into Fall 2025.Early design decisions were driven by pragmatic reasoning and practitioner insights.However, one FLC member--the first author-was simultaneously involved in a research-practice partnership focused on interdisciplinary instruction, allowing for the integration of research-informed insights of this process.Inasmuch, her role is characterized as that of boundary spanner (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011), bridging theory to practice and enriching the FLC's pedagogical approach to interdisciplinary course design. The faculty learning communityDrawing on the Cox model of Faculty Learning Community (Cox, 2004), an FLC is a structured, collaborative group of educators who engage in an ongoing, scholarly, and collegial process to enhance teaching, learning and professional development (Richlin & Essington, 2004).This participatory approach offers several advantages including fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, enhancing teaching practices and building a supportive
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Prédiction distillée sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Apprise à partir de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Gemma. Le mode candidate est l'union des têtes enseignantes seuillées; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont ni des étiquettes humaines ni des étiquettes directes de modèles de pointe.
Scores Codex et Gemma par catégorie
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,003 | 0,001 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,000 | 0,002 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Communication savante | 0,000 | 0,001 |
| Science ouverte | 0,002 | 0,001 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; un appel candidat d’une seule tête enseignante, pas un consensus.
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