The Dispatch
The evolution of interdisciplinary learning
Busier lives, algorithmic echo chambers and tight focus on a single discipline are at odds with students’ desire to engage with diverse topics. How can universities aid students in their goal to become interdisciplinary.
By Laura Lightfinch
Interdisciplinary learning has emerged as a vital approach to addressing both the complexity of modern world challenges and the need to equip students with versatile skills for the future.
Encouraging students to work across multidisciplinary teams and synthesize information from various fields of study enables complex problem-solving, teamwork, creativity and innovation – four skills that higher education and industry leaders say are vital for the future changemaker’s toolkit.
“There is not a single challenge today that is mono-disciplinary,” said Jason Blackstock, CEO and Founder of How to Change the World. “They are all highly intercultural, interdisciplinary and we cannot be the expert in everything.”
Speaking at the QS Higher Ed Summit: Europe 2024, he added: “The world is a lab right now and we have to prepare people to go into it with the mentality, resilience and motivation to keep experimenting.”
"“There is not a single challenge today that is mono-disciplinary."
Industry demands: why interdisciplinary skills matter
Interdisciplinary learning was a key theme across the QS Higher Ed Summit: Europe 2024, as many higher education leaders spoke about the importance of interconnectedness in the face of complex multidisciplinary challenges and providing students with the internships and work experiences to understand how teamwork plays a key role in problem-solving.
Martín Serrano, QS Director of Employability and Co-Founder of QS 1Mentor, said: “Work experience and internship opportunities are often the first time that students realize the interdisciplinary nature of work. A student from a finance background suddenly sees they have to work closely with the marketing team or the HR team, and so providing experiences for students to practice interdisciplinary working takes down those barriers of learning.”
Across the global higher education sector, discussions are beginning to shape the prioritisation of interdisciplinary teaching and learning, and a strengthening of experiential learning by moving beyond disciplinary silos.
Student perspectives on collaboration
Today’s youth are more siloed than previous generations due to online echo chambers and algorithms, making them more likely to build communities based on shared interests and less likely to be exposed to diverse perspectives and experiences. However, they are keen to get involved in solving multidisciplinary problems, illustrating a growing gap to be addressed.
Mack Marshall, Wonkhe SU’s Community and Policy Officer, and Jim Dickinson, Associate Editor at Wonkhe, looked to incoming student union leaders’ manifestos to better understand the challenges facing the wider student body.
Student union leaders’ manifestos highlight key areas of concern for students, by including intentions to make change within the areas students care about most. Manifestos from student leaders in the UK suggest that students want ‘more opportunities to come together outside of their immediate characteristics or course groups,’ with one manifesto including a motive to re-introduce a collaborative platform which allowed students from across the university to find others for interdisciplinary projects.
Challenges in implementing interdisciplinary models
“We believe that it’s fundamental for our students to be close to their employability possibilities while studying, so we focus on professional development and career advice,” said Dr Casilda Güell, Dean of OBS Business School in Spain. “We can see that there are emerging skills which are becoming vital for students to learn for the future. One of those skills is interdisciplinary collaboration, and universities must train students who can work across different fields of industry like technology, business, and marketing, for example.”
When it comes to embedding interdisciplinary models of teaching and learning into the higher education experience, however, there are challenges. Especially within postgraduate study, where students have less time to absorb the program content and manage assessments, timetables can be restrictive.
Once students have established the foundational knowledge required, the time and space for building more generalist skills can be difficult to find. Though, with the rise of AI and on-demand content, there is a shift in the way content can be transmitted to students.
Professor Nigel Healey is Vice-President of Global and Community Engagement at Ireland’s University of Limerick. Speaking at the summit, Professor Healey said: “In higher education, the emphasis has traditionally been on maximising value by tightly aligning content with programme requirements, often leaving little room for interdisciplinary exploration.
“The universities that have been successful in fostering interdisciplinary mindsets typically use problem-based learning, allowing students to understand that problems can be addressed through different disciplinary frameworks and that a single disciplinary lens is insufficient in a complex, interdependent world.”
Fostering interdisciplinary mindsets: best practices
Beyond the curriculum, work experience and internship opportunities can enable students to practice their skills in an interdisciplinary environment. QS 1Mentor’s Serrano said: “Students today need to have a very complete skillset to meet today’s industry needs. Working with people from different backgrounds and within different areas in a real workplace helps students to start realizing how skills from different subjects relate to one another in the real world.”
However, industrial placements and internships still require time in the curriculum, and support and encouragement from university faculty, to be actualised. Despite the difficulties, universities will need to understand the vital importance of interdisciplinary learning and embed initiatives to prepare students for the real-world challenges that lie ahead.
Martín added: “As the world is evolving so rapidly, we are going to see the barriers of siloed study come down so that students can work across various subject areas to develop the skills they need to meet industry demands.”