Winthrop Conference on Teaching and Learning

Interdisciplinary, Collaborative Teaching: What, How, and Why

West Center 219

It is very easy in academia to get stuck in our offices, stuck in our departments, and stuck in our own silos, as we are wont to say. Yet, from time to time, we manage to branch out and perhaps have an inspiring conversation with a colleague outside of our department. Suddenly, we realize how much overlap our fields have and perhaps, the ways in which we might share that with our students and with each other. Over the past three years, I have co-created and co-taught three different classes with faculty from other disciplines. In this session, I will share the different collaborative models we utilized for each class and discuss the pros and cons of each. More broadly, I will discuss current research on collaborative and interdisciplinary teaching. I will also discuss the general pros and cons of collaborative and interdisciplinary teaching.