Team Teaching an Interdisciplinary First-Year Seminar on Magic, Religion, and the Origins of Science: A ‘Pieces-to-Picture’ Approach

Interdisciplinary teaching has been advocated as a means to foster cooperation between traditionally separate fields and broaden students’ perspectives in the classroom. We explored the pedagogical difficulties of interdisciplinary team teaching through a first-year seminar in magic, religion, and t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Melati Nungsari, Maia Christine Dedrick, Shaily Patel
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Indiana University Office of Scholarly Publishing 2017-03-01
Series:Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Subjects:
Online Access:https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/josotl/article/view/19772
Description
Summary:Interdisciplinary teaching has been advocated as a means to foster cooperation between traditionally separate fields and broaden students’ perspectives in the classroom. We explored the pedagogical difficulties of interdisciplinary team teaching through a first-year seminar in magic, religion, and the origins of science. Although many accounts in the literature suggest a more cohesive approach to interdisciplinary teaching, we first introduced the separate fields, their methodologies, and limitations before combining the insights from all three fields to analyze case studies relating to the main themes of the course. In this case study, we reflect on how this ‘pieces-to-picture’ method reduced student confusion when confronted with several disciplines in our classroom.
ISSN:1527-9316