Education – Page 2 – Integration and Implementation Insights

Fourteen knowledge translation competencies and how to improve yours

April 19, 2022August 13, 2019

By Genevieve Creighton and Gayle Scarrow

authors_genevieve-creighton_gayle-scarrow — 1. Genevieve Creighton (biography)
2. Gayle Scarrow (biography)

Knowledge translation encompasses all of the activities that aim to close the gap between research and implementation.

What knowledge, skills and attitudes (ie., competencies) are required to do knowledge translation? What do researchers need to know? How about those who are using evidence in their practice?

As the knowledge translation team at the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, we conducted a scoping review of the skills, knowledge and attitudes required for effective knowledge translation (Mallidou et al., 2018). We also gathered tools and resources to support knowledge translation learning.

Toolboxes as learning aids for dealing with complex problems

December 21, 2022February 6, 2019

By Stefan Hilser

How can toolboxes more effectively support those learning to deal with complex societal and environmental problems, especially novices such as PhD students and early career researchers?

In this blog post, I briefly describe four toolboxes and assess them for their potential to assist learning processes. My main aim is to open a discussion about the value of the four toolboxes and how they could better help novices.

Before describing the toolboxes, I outline the learning processes I have in mind, especially the perspective of legitimate peripheral participation.

Three “must have” steps to improve education for collaborative problem solving

August 4, 2022January 22, 2019

By Stephen M. Fiore

stephen-fiore_aug-2017 — Stephen M. Fiore (biography)

Many environmental, social, and public health problems require collaborative problem solving because they are too complex for an individual to work through alone. This requires a research and technical workforce that is better prepared for collaborative problem solving. How can this be supported by educational programs from kindergarten through college? How can we ensure that the next generation of researchers and engineers are able to effectively engage in team science?

Drawing from disciplines that study cognition, collaboration, and learning, colleagues and I (Graesser et al., 2018) make three key recommendations to improve research and education with a focus on instruction, opportunities to practice, and assessment.

Introducing interdisciplinary postgraduate degrees? Seven meta-considerations

May 3, 2021August 7, 2018

By Dena Fam, Scott Kelly, Tania Leimbach, Lesley Hitchens and Michelle Callen

dena-fam_feb-2018 — Dena Fam (biography)

What is required to plan, introduce and standardize interdisciplinary learning in higher education?

In a two-year process at the University of Technology Sydney we identified seven meta-considerations (Fam et al., 2018). These are based on a literature review of best practice of interdisciplinary programs internationally, as well as widespread consultation and engagement across the university. Each meta-consideration is illustrated by a word cloud and a key quotation from our consultations.

Linking learning and research through transdisciplinary competences

March 17, 2021July 10, 2018

By BinBin Pearce

What are the objectives of transdisciplinary learning? What are the key competences and how do they relate to both educational goals and transdisciplinary research goals? At Transdisciplinarity Lab (TdLab), our group answered these questions by observing and reflecting upon the six courses at Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD levels that we design and teach in the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

Six competence fields describe what we hope students can do with the help of our courses. A competence field contains a set of interconnected learning objectives for students. We use these competence fields as the basis for curriculum design.

Using the arts and design to build student creative collaboration capacity

September 29, 2021May 15, 2018

By Edgar Cardenas

How can undergraduate and graduate students be helped to build their interdisciplinary collaboration capacity? In particular, how do they build capacity between the arts and other disciplines?

In 2018, I co-facilitated the annual, 3-day Emerging Creatives Student Summit, an event for approximately 100 undergraduate and graduate students from 26 universities organized by the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities. Students’ majors ranged from the sciences, engineering, music, arts, and design.

The university campus as a transdisciplinary living laboratory

September 29, 2021May 1, 2018

By Dena Fam, Abby Mellick Lopes, Alexandra Crosby and Katie Ross

authors_dena-fam,_abby-mellick-lopes_alexandra-crosby_katie -ross — 1. Dena Fam (biography)
2. Abby Mellick Lopes (biography)
3. Alexandra Crosby (biography)
4. Katie Ross (biography)

How can transdisciplinary educators help students reflexively understand their position in the field of research? Often this means giving students the opportunity to go beyond being observers of social reality to experience themselves as potential agents of change.

To enable this opportunity, we developed a model for a ‘Transdisciplinary Living Lab’ (Fam et al., forthcoming).

Foundations of a translational health sciences doctoral program

August 24, 2021April 10, 2018

By Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano and Paige L. McDonald

gaetano-lotrecchiano — Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano (biography)

How can doctoral studies be developed to include innovation in practice and research, as well as systems and complexity thinking, along with transdisciplinarity? This blog post is based on our work introducing a PhD in Translational Health Sciences at George Washington University in the USA.

Innovation in Practice and Research

We suggest that innovation in practice and research is achieved by the integration of knowledge in three key foundational disciplines:

translational research
collaboration sciences
implementation science (Lotrecchiano et al., 2016).

Doing a transdisciplinary PhD? Four tips to convince the examiners about your data

November 12, 2020March 20, 2018

By Jane Palmer, Dena Fam, Tanzi Smith and Jenny Kent

author-mosaic_jane-palmer,_dena-fam_tanzi-smith_jenny-kent — 1. Jane Palmer (biography)
2. Dena Fam (biography)
3. Tanzi Smith (biography)
4. Jenny Kent (biography)

How can research writing best be crafted to present transdisciplinarity? How can doctoral candidates effectively communicate to examiners a clear understanding of ‘data’, what it is and how the thesis uses it convincingly?

The authors have all recently completed transdisciplinary doctorates in the field of sustainable futures and use this experience to highlight the challenges of crafting a convincing piece of research writing that also makes claims of transdisciplinarity (Palmer et al., 2018). We propose four strategies for working with data convincingly when undertaking transdisciplinary doctoral research.

Overcoming a paradox? Preparing students for transdisciplinary environments

June 24, 2020January 30, 2018

machiel -keestra_jan-2018 — Machiel Keestra (biography)

By Machiel Keestra

How can we adequately prepare and train students to navigate transdisciplinary environments? How can we develop hybrid spaces in our universities that are suitable for transdisciplinary education?

These questions were considered by a plenary panel, which I organised and chaired at the International Transdisciplinarity Conference 2017 at Leuphana University, Germany. Three major educational requirements were identified:

long-term collaborations with businesses, as well as non-governmental, governmental and community organisations
teaching particular dispositions and competencies
preparing students for intercultural endeavours.

Learning to tackle wicked problems through games / Aprendiendo a hacer frente a problemas perversos a través de los juegos/ Apprendre à affronter les problèmes sournois à travers les jeux

January 7, 2022April 11, 2017

By Claude Garcia, Anne Dray and Patrick Waeber

authors_claude-garcia_anne-dray_patrick-waeber — 1. Claude Garcia (biography)
2. Anne Dray (biography)
3. Patrick Waeber (biography)

A Spanish version and a French version of this post are available

Can we help the next generation of policy makers, business leaders and citizens to become creative, critical and independent thinkers? Can we make them aware of the nature of the problems they will be confronted with? Can we strengthen their capacity to foster and lead stakeholder processes to address these problems?

Ten lessons from a transdisciplinary PhD program in sustainable development

February 13, 2020March 9, 2017

By Marianne Penker

Should a doctoral student specialise in transdisciplinary sustainable development research? What are the opportunities and challenges associated with undertaking a program that requires research integration and implementation?

At the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna in Austria, teams of PhD-students and academic supervisors collaborated with representatives from regions, cities, public authorities, businesses or civil society to solve pressing and often wicked sustainability problems. We learnt the following ten lessons.