Weinberg, A; Harding, C --- "Interdisciplinary Teaching and Collaboration in Higher Education: A Concept Whose Time Has Come" [2004] LegEdDig 37; (2004) 13(1) Legal Education Digest 6

Interdisciplinary Teaching and Collaboration in Higher Education: A Concept Whose Time Has Come

A Weinberg & C Harding

[1993] LegEdDig 38; (2004) 13(1) Legal Education Digest 6

14 Washington U J Law & Policy 2004, pp 15–48

The modern teacher of law should be a student of sociology, economics and politics as well. This person should know not only what the courts decide and the principles by which they decide, but quite as much the circumstances and conditions, social and economic, to which these principles are to be applied.

In recent years, the idea of ‘interdisciplinary’ teaching and scholarship has become increasingly popular, heralded as a means to dismantle the walls around academic disciplines, and praised by university presidents for the intellectual and administrative benefits that flow from interdepartmental collaboration. Although the views shared here are specifically those of two faculty members involved in interdisciplinary coursework, they have attempted to ground the discussion in the relevant research literature and in the experiences of students and other faculty engaged in these efforts with them. It is their objective to describe their experiences as a way to stimulate further discussion and to increase, not only the commitment to interdisciplinary higher education, but also the effectiveness of its implementation.

Scholarly literature related to the value of interdisciplinary education has recently expanded to include excellent review articles reflecting the generalised assumption that interdisciplinary education, at least in theory, is a shared value among university academicians. While practitioners and academicians today view interdisciplinary teaching and collaboration as a fairly recent phenomenon, American legal educators postulated about the importance of interdisciplinary understanding and the challenges faced when seeking knowledge and information outside the law.

Not all legal-education commentators have shared these views on the value of integrating interdisciplinary perspectives into a law school curriculum. Over the years, law schools have attempted different means to weave the expertise of other disciplines into legal education, including: (1) adding social scientists to the law school faculty; (2) supporting collaboration among teachers from different university departments; and (3) involving students from different disciplines in joint seminars offered by more than one department. In addition, some schools experimented with a four-year legal degree, offering a three-year legal curriculum with an additional year of non-legal courses.

As interdisciplinary teaching becomes more widespread, most commentators identify similar broad-based goals: (1) creating an atmosphere of mutual respect and appreciation for the relevant disciplines, thus enhancing and encouraging team work; (2) developing knowledge and understanding of another discipline, without necessarily mastering it; (3) enhancing communication among the disciplines in a learning environment that tends to be less adversarial than a work environment, thereby increasing understanding and decreasing inter-professional animosity; (4) achieving effective communication among disciplines by learning different vocabulary; and (5) learning other disciplines’ rules, beliefs and ethical principles.

One area, however, that at times is overlooked in discussions of interdisciplinary higher education is the cognitive and social significance of interdisciplinary thinking for students, faculty and professionals. It is important for professionals-in-training to respect and learn from each other’s professions and academic disciplines, with teaching being committed toward the development of the level of human cognition that stimulates thought about an issue from all viewpoints, taking into account varied and, as yet, unthought possibilities.

Several organising assumptions guided and, in some cases, emerged from the authors’ interdisciplinary efforts, three of which are discussed: (1) interdisciplinary teaching facilitates the application of academic knowledge to professional practice; (2) expert and ethical thinking in the helping professions requires interdisciplinary insights; and (3) developing and participating in interdisciplinary coursework require reorganising the ways we think about and evaluate our own discipline and the disciplines with which we interact.

Most of us who engage in interdisciplinary education probably have as one of our goals the improvement of ‘knowledge applied to practice’. Others have described more specifically the benefits of applying knowledge to practice and to the specific role that interdisciplinary education can play in this application. Interdisciplinary education has the potential to actively engage professionals-in-training with this necessary preparation in ethical collaboration. However, in real life, attempts at interdisciplinary education are often piecemeal and temporary. Attempts to break down discipline-specific barriers sometimes run the risk of alienating, rather than integrating, disciplines.

Given the recognition that decisions must be made even in these complex and often unpredictable situations, how can professionals from various disciplines work together to best make these decisions? ‘Metadisciplinary work’ is defined as focusing on the meaning of disciplines, reflecting on their potential to influence our thoughts and actions, and attempting to objectively evaluate their strengths and limitations, particularly within the context of our own professional activities. To do this, we must mentally step outside our own ways of thinking about things and critically examine our own assumptions and biases. In interdisciplinary courses, we do this self-reflective, metadisciplinary work in the company of others, often transforming the way we think about our own knowledge and skills, as well as transforming our views about other professions.

This transforming, metadisciplinary work can help professionals-in-training to ‘break the code’ of their own discipline and to encourage the lifelong application of knowledge in a productive, generative way. The special context of interdisciplinary education can foster diverse ways of thinking and talking about disciplines and provide opportunities for thoughtful, collaborative practice. Interdisciplinary education at its best can enable professionals to learn about and evaluate their own discipline-specific knowledge base within a collaborative, interdisciplinary team, while respecting and acknowledging the limits and strengths of their own and the other disciplines involved. Although it may be difficult to define the process, the authors have observed and experienced this transforming aspect of interdisciplinary education. While their students have not used the term ‘metadisciplinary work’, some of their evaluative comments reflect their own personal and professional transformations.

One of the first challenges faced in planning for interdisciplinary higher education is interpreting what each of us means by ‘interdisciplinary’ education. A more complex level of interdisciplinary education occurs when the process of course planning and development itself becomes interdisciplinary, involving a team of faculty from diverse disciplines in the planning and teaching processes, and enrolling students from diverse professions and disciplines in interdisciplinary coursework offered across departments and, at times, both within and outside the university.

This pattern of interdisciplinary education happens regularly, for example, in law schools where any study of the law is about the law of ‘something’. There are, however, challenges as well as advantages to this form of what we call ‘in-house’ interdisciplinary education. In the authors’ experience, both challenges and advantages have tended to fall into three categories: (1) time and structure, (2) dissemination of knowledge, and (3) student concerns.

There are, of course, difficulties associated with implementing this more complex form of interdisciplinary education. These challenges include: (1) occasional difficulty experienced by the guest expert in conveying information in a way that reduces student frustration with the complexity of issues, particularly when students are required to examine them outside the framework of their chosen profession; (2) occasionally high levels of discomfort among guest faculty or professionals when challenged by students or faculty unfamiliar with (and perhaps biased against or disrespectful of) their area of expertise or experience; (3) students’ frequent perception of guest lecturers’ content as less relevant or unimportant for purposes of study or an exam; (4) the time-consuming quality of coordination between the guest expert and the course instructor, which is sometimes frustrating to all involved; (5) the possibility that shared discussion between the guest expert and course instructor may reach a level of knowledge or expertise that excludes the students; and (6) the fact that the guest expert’s presentation may be a ‘one-shot deal’ with little integration or follow-up throughout the rest of the students’ educational experience.

Although the commitment to interdisciplinary education must be a serious one, its implementation must be enjoyable and applicable to one’s own goals and expectations. Making students uncomfortable with their own way of looking at issues and ideas may be a first step towards stimulating developmental change. If, however, students are going to leave the interdisciplinary learning experience with a commitment to diversity and respect for others with whom they are interacting, then the interdisciplinary education must be carefully constructed to move from a stimulating disequilibrium to a state of stability and flexibility that enables both the maintenance of one’s own perspective and a respect for others’ perspectives and abilities. The planning process should regularly include both serious and enjoyable ways to further the interdisciplinary agenda.