Designing transdisciplinarity: Exploring institutional drivers and barriers to collaborative transdisciplinary teaching

ABSTRACT

Employers increasingly desire new graduates to work across boundaries, in teams, and with developed soft skills, especially in public affairs. Likewise, students increasingly seek academic experiences for learning, practicing, and honing transferable, competency-based skills. This suggests instructors should explore alternative pedagogy engaging problem definition and transdisciplinary teamwork. We describe institutional drivers and barriers to collaborative transdisciplinarity in undergraduate teaching and the structure and processes involved in developing a co-taught studio-based capstone involving public affairs students and varied other unrelated majors. We describe the structure through which the “SuperStudio” (1) combines topic concentrations with a shared policy context allowing students to apply disciplinary knowledge to define transdisciplinary problems and (2) fosters collaborative teaching and strategic exploration of overarching issues like problem framing, equity, and effective communication. We then offer lessons learned regarding the drivers and barriers to such efforts, and advice from institutional decision-makers on designing such courses at other institutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Transdisciplinary
• problem-based learning
• alternative pedagogy
• team-teaching
• public affairs

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Joanie Banks-Hunt, Daron Williams, and Zachary Underwood for their efforts in collaboratively designing and co-teaching the course described in this paper, and to Amy Showalter for coordination and support in her TA role. An additional thank you to the students who engaged in the pilot course and contributed valuable feedback during the course development process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne-Lise Velez

Anne-Lise Velez is a collegiate associate professor in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies and Honors College, where she conducts transdisciplinary research. Dr. Velez teaches courses on policy, disaster response, and research methods in the Honors College, and works with colleagues in CAUS to teach design ethics. Her research broadly relates to management and decision-making at the intersection of the public and nonprofit sectors, especially around environmental and urban policy relating to community wellbeing, capacity, and sustainability. She held previous academic appointments as a postdoctoral associate for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at VT, and as a postdoctoral scholar for the School of Public and International Affairs at NC State University. Dr. Velez holds a PhD in Public Administration from NC State University, as well as master’s degrees in Public Administration and in Architecture from NC State, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Tech.

R. P. Hall

R. P. Hall is an Associate Professor in the Urban Affairs and Planning (UAP) program at Virginia Tech, the Associate Director of the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), and the Director of SPIA’s Undergraduate Programs. Dr. Hall has over two decades of academic and professional experience in applying the concept of sustainable development to infrastructure systems with a specific emphasis on transportation systems in developed regions, and rural water supply and sanitation systems in developing regions. He has published two significant coauthored works on “Sustainable Transportation: Indicators, Frameworks, and Performance Management” (2015) and “Technology, Globalization, and Sustainable Development: Transforming the Industrial State” (2018). Dr. Hall holds a PhD in Technology, Management, and Policy and two S.M. degrees in Technology and Policy and Civil and Environmental Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds an MEng in Civil Engineering from the University of Southampton.

S. N. Lewis

S. N. Lewis is a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Honors College at Virginia Tech. She holds a Ph.D. in Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology, which she has translated to curriculum development for honors students in a variety of ways. She is one of the pioneers of the college’s research-focused course offerings, which encourages students from all disciplines to practice higher-order thinking processes in their understanding and exploration of global challenges. Her dedication to access is reflected in her constant advocacy for and teaching of open access communication in these classes and through conference presentations. Her research interests include best practices for teaching use of computational tools for drug discovery and development, and pedagogical practices for engaging undergraduates in problem-solving and decision-making practices.