Preparing Students for Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Team Research: Case Studies and Models from the Graduate and Undergraduate Level

The challenges of team science in the 21st century call on educators to equip future researchers and practitioners with the skills they need to communicate and collaborate effectively across disciplinary boundaries. This panel will explain pedagogical techniques and strategies for providing students with these skills. Some presentations focus on direct student training, while other presentations discuss navigating institutional structures to set up team science programs. Much of the work here draws on the research and interventions of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI).

Building Undergraduate SciTS Programs: Lessons from PPE

Graham Hubbs, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Politics and Philosophy, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA

Undergraduate education represents a next frontier for SciTS. As the SciTS community develops strategies for implementing its interdisciplinarity into undergraduate curricula and training, it can benefit from the lessons learned in establishing undergraduate programs in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). PPE has exploded in the past decade—there are scores of programs across the country that are popular with students and administrators alike. PPE programs leverage existing resources within universities to provide integrated interdisciplinary opportunities for students. This presentation will explain standard procedures for setting up and running a PPE program and will explore ways in which these procedures can serve as a blueprint for setting up similar programs to advance SciTS pedagogy at the undergraduate level.

Cultivating Interdisciplinary Competencies at the Graduate Level: An Ethics-based Curriculum for Environmental Team Science

Marisa A. Rinkus, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Associate, Center for Interdisciplinarity, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

For interdisciplinary teams to participate effectively across disciplinary and values-based boundaries, they need opportunities to understand the impacts of their methodologies and expertise, and to practice productive dialogue that integrates different disciplinary languages and training. This presentation will introduce participants to the NSF-funded “Values and Responsibility in Interdisciplinary Environmental Science” curriculum. Our curriculum, building on the results of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative, focuses on four ethically-relevant themes that are a consistent part of interdisciplinary environmental science research contexts: 1) risk and uncertainty, 2) expertise, 3) non-human impacts, and 4) policy constraints. These themes provide a foundation for meaningful discussion of the roles played by values and responsibility in interdisciplinary environmental science contexts, in particular research and policy, and provide useful grounding as graduate learners transition to become professionals in the field. This presentation will also discuss how a curriculum of this nature can help prepare graduate students for a future in team science.

Having the Difficult Conversations: Using Facilitated Dialogue to Develop Values-Oriented Skills

Chet McLeskey, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Associate, Center for Interdisciplinarity, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

There is a growing recognition of the role that values play in collaborative work, but the skills and experience needed to reflect upon and discuss those values are often overlooked. Training graduate students to be successful in whatever endeavors lay before them involves the ability to examine, express, and defend the values that drive their work. We at C4I are working to expand responsible conduct of research training to include opportunities for the sort of reflection and discussion that facilities these value-oriented skills. One way we are doing this is by modifying the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative’s model for guided discussions to include pedagogical aspects that challenge participants’ views and encourage discussion of the values they deem most important in their work. Using a combination of prompts designed to provoke dialogue and careful/purposeful facilitation participants reflect on their own views and learn how their views relate to those of others in the group.

SciTS Presentation: Preparing Students for Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Team Research: Case Studies and Models from the Graduate and Undergraduate Level