Linking learning and research through transdisciplinary competences

July 10, 2018August 1, 2018 Community Member Education Author - BinBin Pearce, Bloom's taxonomy, Boundary object, Co-production, Collaboration, Communication, Dispositions, Framing, Higher education, Problem definition, Reflexivity, Skills, Stakeholders, Transdisciplinarity, Values

Community member post 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. Continue reading →

Using the arts and design to build student creative collaboration capacity

May 15, 2018May 29, 2018 Community Member Education Art, Author - Edgar Cardenas, Collaboration, Creativity, Design thinking, Dispositions, Diversity, Facilitation, Feedback, Higher education, Interdisciplinarity, Iteration, Problem definition, Teams

Community member post 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 aim of the summit is to give students an opportunity to collaborate on projects that incorporate creativity and the arts. Continue reading →

Leading large transdisciplinary projects

May 8, 2018May 22, 2018 Community Member Processes Author - Lois Wright Morton, Author - Sanford Eigenbrode, Author - Timothy Martin, Collaboration, Communication, Dispositions, Leadership, Skills, Teams, Transdisciplinarity

Community member post by Sanford D. Eigenbrode, Lois Wright Morton, and Timothy Martin

What’s required to lead exceptionally large projects involving many dozens of participants from various scientific disciplines (including biophysical, social, and economic), multiple stakeholders, and efforts spanning a gamut from discovery to implementation? Such projects are common when investigating social-ecological systems which are inherently complex and large in spatial and temporal scales. Problems are commonly multifaceted, with incomplete or apparently contradictory knowledge, stakeholders with divergent positions, and large economic or social consequences.

Leaders of such very large projects confront unique challenges in addition to those inherent to directing interdisciplinary efforts: Continue reading →

Overcoming a paradox? Preparing students for transdisciplinary environments

January 30, 2018February 13, 2018 Community Member Education Author - Machiel Keestra, Best practice, Collaboration, Cross-cultural, Dispositions, Intercultural, Time, Transdisciplinarity, Values

machiel -keestra_jan-2018 — Machiel Keestra (biography)

Community member post 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.

Continue reading →

Transkillery! What skills are needed to be a boundary crosser?

March 14, 2017May 31, 2017 Community Member Concepts Author - Dana Cordell, Author - Dena Fam, Author - Tanzi Smith, Boundaries, Communication, Creativity, Dispositions, Facilitation, Higher education, Reflexivity, Skills, Synthesis, Transdisciplinarity, Trust, Uncertainty

Community member post by Dena Fam, Tanzi Smith and Dana Cordell

What skills and dispositions are required by researchers and practitioners in transdisciplinary research and practice in crossing boundaries, sectors and paradigms?

The insights here come from interviews with 14 internationally recognized transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners, chosen from a diverse range of research and practice-based perspectives.

Here we focus on:

1) skills for specific tasks such as facilitation of a meeting, crafting a well-written report, and communicating effectively across disciplines; and,

2) dispositions, attitudes, orientations and temperaments of an effective researcher/practitioner, i.e., as a way of being.

Six categories of skills and dispositions

The core skills and dispositions of an exceptional transdisciplinary researcher/practitioner can be grouped into six categories, illustrated in the figure below. Continue reading →

Integration and Implementation Insights

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

Dispositions

Linking learning and research through transdisciplinary competences

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Using the arts and design to build student creative collaboration capacity

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Leading large transdisciplinary projects

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Overcoming a paradox? Preparing students for transdisciplinary environments

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Transkillery! What skills are needed to be a boundary crosser?

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