Author

Ph.D Student, Tarbiat Modarres University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Different developments including technological growth and increased human problems made interdisciplinary cooperation inevitable. On the other hand, traditional attitude to academic fields and specialization has prevented higher education from creating necessary capacities to confront those development and face new challenges. Therefore, one of the necessities of higher education is to foster interdisciplinary skills in both educational and research fields. This paper reviews concepts of educational courses and interdisciplinary in higher education with emphasis on the need to foster interdisciplinary thinking as prerequisite of all kinds of interdisciplinary activities. Then “issue-based learning’ has been described because this new educational method enjoys many capacities to promote interdisciplinary skills. In conclusion, a special model of issue-based learning called “interdisciplinary problem solving model” has been briefly explained as an applied model for educational courses.

Keywords

Andreasen, N. C., & Brown T. L. (2005). Facilitating Interdisciplinary research. Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering, & Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Washington, D. C.: The National Academies Press.
Becher, T. (1989). Academic Tribes and Cultures. Milton Keynes: Open University.
Buchbinder, S. B., Alt, P. M., Eskow, K., Forbes, W., Hester, E., Struck, M., & Talor, D.  (2005). Creating Learning Prisms with and Interdisciplinary Case study workshop. Innovative Higher Education, 29(4), 257-274.
Dahlgren, M., A., & Dahlgren, L. O. (2002). Portraits of PBL: Student’s experiences of the characteristics of problem-based learning in physiotherapy. Computer Engineering and Psychology, Instructional Science, 30(2), 111-127.
Durant, W. (1366/1987). Tārix-e falsafe [Story of philosophy] (A. Zaryāb, Trans.). Tehran, Iran: Enqelāb-e Eslāmi.
Knowlton, D. S. (2003). Preparing students for educated living: Virtues of problem-based learning across the higher education curriculum. New Direction Teaching and Learning, 95, 5-12. doi: 10.1002/tl.107
Martin, D., & Devlin, M. (2007). Interdisciplinary higher education: Implications for teaching and learning. Center for the Study of Higher Education. Melbourne: The University of Melbourne.
McLaughlin, T. H. (2007). Beyond the reflective teacher. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 31(1), 9-25. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.1999.tb00371.x
Mertens, D. M. (2005). Research and evaluation in education and psychology (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Nasr, S. H. (1387/2008). Ensān va Tarbiyat: Bohrān-e Ma’navi-ye Ensān-e Motajadded [Man and nature: The spiritual crisis in modern man] (A. Gavāhi, Trans.). Tehran, Iran: Daftar-e Našr-e Farhang-e Eslāmi.
Newsletter, Wendy, C. (2006). Fostering integrative solving in biomedical engineering: The PBL approach. Annals of Biomedical engineering, 34(2), 217-225.  doi: 10.1007/s10439-005-9034-z
Oberg, G. (2008). Facilitating interdisciplinary work: Using quality assessment to create common ground, Higher Education, 57(4), 405-415.
Sawa, R. J. (2005). Foundation of interdisciplinarity: A lonergan perspective. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 8(1), 53-61.
Sharachchandra, L., & Norgaard, R. B. (2005). Practicing interdisciplinary. Bio Science, 55(11), 967-976.  doi: 10.1641/0006-3568(2005)055[0967
Squires, G. (1992). Interdisciplinarity in higher education in the United Kingdom. European Journal of Education, 27(3), 201-210. doi: 10.2307/1503449
Wolf, D. (2000). The unity of knowledge: An interdisciplinary project. Retrieved from: http://www.dieterwolf.net/pdf/Unity_of_Knowledge_1.pdf
CAPTCHA Image