Metacognition as a prerequisite for interdisciplinary integration

February 5, 2019February 19, 2019 Community Member Concepts Assumptions, Author - Machiel Keestra, Cognitive biases, Collaboration, Communication, Diversity, Expertise, Groupthink, Integration, Interdisciplinarity, Mental models, Mental representations, Metacognition, Productive disagreement, Science of team science, Teams

Community member post by Machiel Keestra

What’s needed to enable the integration of concepts, theories, methods, and results across disciplines? Why is communication among experts important, but not sufficient? Interdisciplinary experts must also meta-cognize: both individually and as a team they must monitor, evaluate and regulate their cognitive processes and mental representations. Without this, expertise will function suboptimally both for individuals and teams. Metacognition is not an easy task, though, and deserves more attention in both training and collaboration processes than it usually gets. Why is metacognition so challenging and how can it be facilitated? Continue reading →

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

January 22, 2019February 5, 2019 Community Member Education Assessment, Author - Stephen Fiore, Collaboration, Communication, Complexity, Higher education, Learning, Mental models, Participation, Reflexivity, Science of team science, Teams

Community member post 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. Across these is the need to attend to the core features of teamwork as identified in the broad research literature on groups and teams. Continue reading →

Embracing tension for energy and creativity in interdisciplinary research

January 15, 2019January 29, 2019 Community Member Concepts Author - Liz Clarke, Author - Rebecca Freeth, Collaboration, Complexity, Conflict, Creativity, Diversity, Epistemology, Interdisciplinarity, Knowledge, Mutual learning, Ontology, Productive disagreement, Reflexivity, Teams

Community member post by Liz Clarke and Rebecca Freeth

Tensions inevitably arise in inter- and transdisciplinary research. Dealing with these tensions and resulting conflicts is one of the hardest things to do. We are meant to avoid or get rid of conflict and tension, right? Wrong!

Tension and conflict are not only inevitable; they can be a source of positivity, emergence, creativity and deep learning. By tension we mean the pull between the seemingly contradictory parts of a paradox, such as parts and wholes, stability and chaos, and rationality and creativity. These tensions can foster interpersonal conflict, particularly when team members treat the apparent contradictions as if only one was ‘right’. Continue reading →

Grant proposal writing for teams: Avoiding Frankenstein’s monster

January 8, 2019January 22, 2019 Community Member Processes Author - Lauren Gee, Best practice, Collaboration, Communication, Science of team science, Teams, Terminology, Vision

Community member post by Lauren Gee

Writing a grant proposal as a team has many pluses—a plenitude of viewpoints, a wider wealth of knowledge to pull from, and a larger pool of resources to help edit and finalize the proposal. Too often, however, a team-written proposal turns out as “Frankenstein’s monster”: a mess of disparate parts, thrown onto the page. Agreement is missing throughout, with no consistency in terms of vocabulary, style, or even tense. So how can a team work together, from day one, to write a successful, cohesive proposal—how do we avoid Frankenstein’s monster? Continue reading →

Skilful conversations for integration

November 6, 2018November 20, 2018 Community Member Methods Advocacy, Author - Liz Clarke, Author - Rebecca Freeth, Best practice, Collaboration, Communication, Dialogue, Facilitation, Integration, Interdisciplinarity, Knowledge synthesis, Mutual learning, Participation, Productive disagreement, Transformation

Community member post by Rebecca Freeth and Liz Clarke

Interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle complex problems is challenging! In particular, interdisciplinary communication can be very difficult – how do we bridge the gulf of mutual incomprehension when we are working with people who think and talk so very differently from us? What skills are required when mutual incomprehension escalates into conflict, or thwarts decision making on important issues?

It is often at this point that collaborations lose momentum. In the absence of constructive or productive exchange, working relationships stagnate and people retreat to the places where they feel safest: Continue reading →

Conditions for co-creation

October 9, 2018January 3, 2019 Community Member Processes Author - Adrian Ely, Author - Andy Stirling, Author - Arnim Wiek, Author - Bob Dick, Author - Cristina Zurbriggen, Author - Doug Easterling, Author - Fiona Marshall, Author - Gabriele Bammer, Author - Gerald Midgley, Author - Jeff Foote, Author - Kit Macleod, Author - Machiel Keestra, Author - Maria Hepi, Author - Quassim Cassam, Author - Rawiri Smith, Best practice, Co-creation, Co-production, Collaboration, Communication, Cross-cultural, Dialogue, Diversity, Facilitation, Innovation, Participation, Power, Problem definition, Relationships, Stakeholders, Synthesis blog post, Systemic co-creation, Systems

Community member post by Gabriele Bammer

This is part of a series of occasional “synthesis blog posts” drawing together insights across blog posts on related topics.

What is required for effective co-creation, especially between researchers and stakeholders? In particular, what contributes to a productive environment for co-creation? And what considerations are relevant for deciding who to involve?

Twelve blog posts which have addressed these issues are discussed. Bringing those insights together provides a richer picture of how to achieve effective co-creation.

What makes a productive environment for co-creation?

A good starting point is to be working in an environment and organizational culture that support co-creation and to have sufficient financial, personnel and other resources, as pointed out by Kit Macleod and Arnim Wiek.

Dialogue-based processes are often an important part of co-creation and they need to be established as a generative space, focused on synergy, not conflict. Continue reading →

Integration and Implementation Insights

Research resources for understanding and acting on complex real-world problems

Collaboration

Metacognition as a prerequisite for interdisciplinary integration

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

Embracing tension for energy and creativity in interdisciplinary research

Grant proposal writing for teams: Avoiding Frankenstein’s monster

Skilful conversations for integration

Conditions for co-creation

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