Postgraduate Course: Interdisciplinary Futures (fusion online) (EFIE11024)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | Through seminars, presentations, and teamwork, students will develop the critical and creative skills necessary to becoming interdisciplinary thinkers. They will build a practical understanding of an array of disciplinary perspectives and approaches and will frame them in the context of a 'wicked problem' (a pressing problem of global importance that is multifaceted and therefore difficult to solve). |
| Course description |
The first semester shared course 'Interdisciplinary Futures' will introduce students to interdisciplinary reflections and practices. The course will be based on practical case studies of interdisciplinary work across the arts and sciences.
Students will be invited, in teams of peers drawn from different programmes, to reflect on ways of knowing in the context of disciplinarity, with this reflection being supported by selected readings and academic presentations. In teams, students will apply their new skills to a design challenge (for example, to design sustainable alternatives to products or systems)
Over the five weeks, students will: consider perspectives on ways of knowing; present reflections on life-wide learning; consider research, creativity, and knowledge creation in different disciplinary contexts; be invited to take an intersectional approach to innovation through an introduction to design thinking; and share the outcomes of a multi-disciplinary team challenge with the wider group.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - On-Site Fusion Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute will teach this course in a way that enables online and on-campus students to study together. This approach (our 'fusion' teaching model) offers students flexible and inclusive ways to study, and the ability to choose whether to be on-campus or online at the level of the individual course. It also opens up ways for diverse groups of students to study together regardless of geographical location. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities. Students should be aware that:
- Classrooms used in this course will have additional technology in place: students might not be able to sit in areas away from microphones or outside the field of view of all cameras.
- Unless the lecturer or tutor indicates otherwise you should assume the session is being recorded.
As part of your course, you will need access to a personal computing device. Unless otherwise stated activities will be web browser based and as a minimum we recommend a device with a physical keyboard and screen that can access the internet.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2023/24, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
| Course Start Date |
18/09/2023 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 3,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 8,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 4,
Formative Assessment Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
81 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Summative Assessment:
The course will be assessed by means of the following components:
1) Illustrated Intellectual Biography (25%)
One-page illustrated intellectual biography (individual) [worth 25% of the overall mark]
2) 1000 Word Documentation of Final Group Project (75%)
A documentation of the final group project (in groups, 1000 words) [worth 75% of the overall mark] |
| Feedback |
Oral formative feedback will be provided in-class through discussions of activities.
Summative feedback will be provided in written form after assignments are handed in. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Interrogate different disciplinary approaches to research and creativity.
- Apply interdisciplinary perspective-taking.
- Demonstrate competence in core skills including independent research, planning and writing, and group collaboration.
- Apply knowledge, skills, and understanding through a reflective synthesis of the ideas discussed and experienced on the course.
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Reading List
Indicative Reading List
Barry, A. and G. Born (eds.). 2013. Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the social and natural sciences, Oxon: Routledge.
Bassot, Barbara. The Reflective Practice Guide: an Interdisciplinary Approach to Critical Reflection. Routledge, 2016.
Callard, F. and D. Fitzgerald. 2015. Rethinking interdisciplinarity across the social sciences and neurosciences, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Frodeman, R., J. T. Klein and R. C. Dos Santos Pacheco (eds.). 2017. The Oxford handbook of interdisciplinarity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frodeman, R. 2014. Sustainable knowledge: A theory of interdisciplinarity, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gaver, William. What Should We Expect from Research through Design? Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2207676.2208538.
Green, J.L. and W.D. Baker (eds.). 2019. Interdisciplinary and intercultural programmes in higher education: Exploring challenges in designing and teaching. Oxon: Routledge.
Lury, Celia, and Nina Wakeford. Inventive Methods: The Happening of the Social. Edited by Nina Wakeford and Celia Lury, Routledge, 2012, pp. xiii-xiii, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203854921.
Nicolescu, Basarab. Methodology of Transdisciplinarity. World Futures, vol. 70, no. 3-4, Routledge, 2014, pp. 186-99, https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2014.934631.
Repko, Allen F. Case Studies in Interdisciplinary Research Allen F. Repko, William H. Newell, Rick Szostak. Edited by William H. Newell and Rick Szostak, SAGE, 2012.
Repko, Allen F. Introduction to Interdisciplinary Studies. Allen F. Repko, University of Texas at Arlington (Retired), Rick Szostak, University of Alberta, Canada, Michelle Phillips Buchberger, Miami University of Ohio. Edited by Rick Szostak and Michelle Phillips Buchberger, Third edition., SAGE, 2020.
Schön, Donald A. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books, 2008.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The course develops graduate skills in research, enquiry, and communication (SCQF 1 and 4), in creative practice (SCQF 2).
By working in groups, they will develop autonomy, accountability, and skills in working with others effectively (SCQF 3 and 5). |
| Keywords | EFI,Edinburgh Futures Institute,Postgraduate,Level 11,Interdisciplinary,Creative Skills |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Uta Hinrichs
Tel: (0131 6)51 5615
Email: uhinrich@exseed.ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Abby Gleave
Tel: (0131 6)51 1337
Email: abby.gleave@ed.ac.uk |
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