Pathways of Interdisciplinary Cognition

Abstract

In this article, I propose that at the juncture of disciplines, the mind is involved in at least 3 cognitive activities: overcoming internal monologism or monodisciplinarity, attaining provisional integration, and questioning the integration as necessarily partial. This claim is supported by interview data I collected primarily from faculty involved in the development and teaching of interdisciplinary courses in programs including the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics, Swarthmore College's Interpretation Theory, and the NEXA Program at San Francisco State University. I suggest that interdisciplinary thinking is fundamentally similar to dialogical exchanges occurring in language and in collaborative activities in which epistemological positions are bartered. Bakhtin's (1981) theory of dialogic understanding and subsequent linguistic theories of conceptual metaphor and blending serve as a constructive theoretical framework for the understanding of interdisciplinary cognition. Viewing disciplines broadly as languages, epistemologies, and collaborative practices helps uncover some underlying cognitive mechanisms that deserve further investigation.Are there educational institutions left in this country that do not engage in interdisciplinary work? Is the spread of interdisciplinary programs just a fad or a reflection of a changing pattern of knowledge production? If ubiquity of interdisciplinary learning and teaching is indicative of an important intellectual shift, what does it represent cognitively? What kind of cognitive process is involved in interdisciplinary work? Is it something unique and sui generis, or does interdisciplinary thought follow some basic cognitive pathways involved in other intellectual activities? These questions served as a staring point for this investigation.When one thinks of interdisciplinary insight, one typically thinks of it as an instantaneous flash of imagination that intuitively and inseparably blends ideas and creates a striking new synthesis. However, this image of different perspectives

Teaching and Learning in Interdisciplinary Higher Education: A Systematic Review

“…All relevant publications were written in English. Three publications-Boix Mansilla and Duraising (2007) and Nikitina (2005Nikitina ( , 2006)-concerned one particular research project on interdisciplinarity at Harvard University.…”

“…This resulted in: potential frameworks (seven out of 13), best practices (four out of 13), and essential conditions (two out of 13). To start with the proposed frameworks, these publications considered the following teaching and learning topics: an adaptation of Biggs and Collis' Structure of Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy to illustrate interdisciplinary learning (Ivanitskaya et al 2002), a proposed research agenda based on teaching and learning theories to encourage research in the field of interdisciplinary higher education (Lattuca et al 2004), a framework illustrating three major cognitive movements in interdisciplinary thought (Nikitina 2005), three strategies for interdisciplinary teaching (Nikitina 2006), four dimensions of a potential interdisciplinary pedagogy (Manathunga et al 2006), an empirically grounded framework for assessing students' interdisciplinary work (Boix Mansilla and Duraising 2007), and a framework for conceptualizing interdisciplinary classroom communication (Woods 2007). Second, best practices dealt with the relationship between disciplinary background and interdisciplinary education (Newell 1992), with the lack of adequate and appropriate methods for assessing interdisciplinary higher education programs (Field and Lee 1992), with the experiences of graduate students who pursued interdisciplinary studies (Graybill et al 2006), and a successful course approach (Eisen et al 2009).…”

“…In addition, there was slight evidence of the outcome-based approach as adopted in this review study. Three of the reviewed publications (Boix Mansilla and Duraising 2007;Nikitina 2005;Woods 2007) tend towards the outcome-based approach. Concerning the conceptualization of interdisciplinary thinking, Boix Mansilla and Duraising defined interdisciplinary thinking in a manner similar to that used in this review study.…”

“…It would be interesting to investigate if and how the operationalization of the learning outcome interdisciplinary thinking differs along interdisciplinary higher education curricula lines, between curricula with a focus on narrow and broad interdisciplinary thinking, and between educational contexts (Boix Mansilla and Duraising 2007;Nikitina 2005Nikitina , 2006.…”

Multidisciplinarity and 21st century communication design

“…A discipline can be defined as a branch or department of knowledge (either a science or an art) aimed at practice or exercise rather than as developing abstract theory traditionally associated with a doctrine. Nikitina [43] extends the notion of a discipline, describing three interrelated meanings: "(a) discipline as culture, referring to an academic or department affiliation or to a collaboration of people within the institutional structure; (b) discipline as epistemology, referring to the shared methodological tools and ways of knowing; and (c) discipline as language, referring to communication that uses a similar language or symbol system" (p. 393).…”