52 | COSERE the eyes of participating students from both disciplines; allowing Business students to see that there are historical precedents that can help to shape and inform solutions to modern economic issues, while the History students could benefit from witnessing the continuing contemporary relevancy of many of the topics they engage with. Whatever the topic and whatever the disciplines, the experience of affirming a subject’s relevancy in other areas is always rewarding and may inspire greater student engagement. In their interesting article on interdisciplinary (IDL) learning, Graham et. al do refer to the most common examples of IDL that are currently being practiced in education; namely, “school-timetabled IDL involving large-scale events for large groups (e.g. entire year groups) and classroom-based IDL, setting aside time for multiple disciplines to allow pupils to work on IDL projects within their normal daily timetable” (Graham et. al, 2023). They additionally suggest, however, that “IDL has particular importance and potential in engaging disengaged and disadvantaged learners. Building links with employers and local communities in IDL projects supports their progress into training and employment” (Graham et. al, 2023). In other words, the scope of interdisciplinary actions in education, per this team of experts, is not sufficiently broad at present. Instead, we should consider the notion of “interdisciplinary” to extend beyond our educational contexts and out into the world of work, allowing interdisciplinary cooperation wherein students could be engaged by local businesses, for example. The benefits of such activities are obvious, with students better equipped thereafter to engage with the many moving components of life, as well as building up a rudimentary network of contacts that may prove useful as they emerge into the world of work. From a staff perspective, benefits abound. As with collaborative lesson planning, interdisciplinary collaboration is one example of the collegiality that the COSERE project was created to encourage. How often do we pass peers who, although working in the same building, belong to another silo - realizing that we know very little about one another? From a simple networking perspective, then, interdisciplinary collaboration is beneficial. Additionally, and as suggested earlier, this experiential process can lead to marked improvements in topic knowledge for educators, as they must participate in an ongoing information exchange with their peers. Finally, as discussed, interdisciplinary collaboration can lead to better outcomes for students. This may just prove to be the cornerstone of a positive feedback loop in which students report higher levels of comprehension and satisfaction with their learning materials, teachers are thereby incentivized to continually innovate within the classroom and develop professionally as a consequence, and so on. Simply put, everyone wins.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzYwNDE=