In this extra post, Jenny Scoles, Maddie Kurchik and Clare Cullen introduce the Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Manifesto – 11 provocative principles that argue for a radical rethinking and reframing of ‘traditional’ education to support interdisciplinary learning and teaching practice. They explain how they created the manifesto and summarise each principle alongside a video, which brings the manifesto to life.
As one of the aims of the Principal’s Teaching Award Scheme (PTAS) funded project, ‘Crossing the Line’, we initially tasked ourselves with creating an Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Strategy to formally record some of our learning around this developing area. However, we soon found this format too constricting and prescriptive for what we felt interdisciplinary learning and teaching represented. Inspired by the Manifesto for Teaching Online (Bayne et al, 2016) by colleagues in the Centre for Research in Digital Education, we decided to try our hand at manifesto writing. Manifestos propose an imagined and desired future using provocative language, and are designed to open-up debate, not close it down (as is arguably the purpose of a formal ‘strategy’).
The creation of the manifesto itself was a messy and protracted process. First, we contemplated the themes emerging from our empirical data gathered during the inaugural first year of Edinburgh Futures Institute’s MA(hons) in Interdisciplinary Futures. This included two student focus groups and surveys, and two teaching team focus groups and surveys conducted at various time points throughout the first year of the project. These data gathering exercises aimed to explore how interdisciplinary teaching and learning were unfolding in practice. We then debated how these themes resonated with our own experiences through numerous discussions with the MA teaching team and wider PTAS-research team. Finally, we explored current interdisciplinary learning and teaching literature.
Using a manifesto format, we then articulated our thoughts in the following 11 key principles. Through our intentionally provocative language, we intended the manifesto to act as an offering: to see what resonates with other educators, students and practitioners; to spark discussion and debate; to serve an invitation to join in the unfolding discussions about what interdisciplinary learning and teaching should, or should not, be….
Below is an abridged version of the manifesto’s 11 Principles:
1. While interdisciplinarity cannot be singularly defined, general agreement can be achieved on its basic tenets: In fact, in collectively exploring differing conceptualisations of interdisciplinarity, members within a learning community can deepen their understandings of how others view and practise interdisciplinarity, thereby nurturing commonality and empathy.
2. The world’s inherent complexity ought to be honoured in learning environments: Whilst keeping things simple might be a useful starting point in learning, concealing the world’s messy liveliness with neat research methods, comfortable learning tasks and soothing conclusions only does a disservice to us all in the long run.
3. Power structures should be dismantled: Interdisciplinary teaching and learning better equips people to challenge oppressive and unjust power structures, and, in turn, the challenging of these power structures enriches interdisciplinary teaching and learning.
4. Participatory practice is vital for interdisciplinary learning: In co-creating and sustaining new shared spaces and cultures within and beyond the learning environment, we can promote accessibility, champion diversity and nurture democratic communities.
5. Existing academic institutional structures inhibit interdisciplinary teaching: Honest and critical interrogating of present physical, organisational and social structures is paramount if programme and course design are to embrace diverse ways of thinking and the interconnectedness of all learning.
6. The notion of expertise should be interrogated: Knowledge arises not from the teacher alone, but through co-creative and interactive processes between more than one individual. Understanding that a learner’s lived experience extends beyond their identity as a student allows the whole self to be valued.
7. Relational, affective and embodied pedagogy in the interdisciplinary classroom is an ethical imperative: Thinking and learning do not only happen in the brain. Inviting students to engage with their bodies, emotions and relationships creates space for their diverse ways of experiencing, thinking and learning about themselves and the world.
8. Students’ lived experiences and awareness of one’s own worldview can be more important than their disciplinary background: When interdisciplinary educators move beyond simply asking students “What discipline did, or do, you study?”, and instead question “How do you view and come to know the world?”, they permit the diverse types of knowledge, lived experiences, and ways of knowing that are needed to engage with our complex world.
9. Be wary of ‘anything goes’ relativism: This can happen if the provenance and purpose of information go uninterrogated. Students and educators must work together to create learning environments where freedom of speech is respected and the capacity to engage with evidence and to engage in respectful and critically informed debate, is actively nurtured.
10: Teaching should make space for clumsy and messy exploration: Rather than seeking a single, elegant solution to a proposed problem, we should value experimentation, tinkering, self-directed learning and learning from failure. These approaches will foster lifelong curiosity and a love of learning that transcends formal education.
11. Learning will be, at times, uncomfortable and necessarily slow: Therefore, educators must create safe and supportive spaces in which students can take intellectual risks and navigate interdisciplinarity’s non-linear learning journey.
You can read the full version of the manifesto here: Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Manifesto[pdf]. A peer-reviewed journal article is forthcoming.
And watch the video, created by Simon Dures, below (6 minutes):
This manifesto is a living document. It invites others to engage in conversations and debates about the future directions of interdisciplinary learning and teaching in Higher Education and beyond. Currently housed on the Toolkit for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching (TILT) website, we aim for it be taken up as an assessment or teaching activity, for example:
“…asking learners to decide which statements they agree with, which they are opposed to, and which they would want to rewrite. This will help groups decide what is important to them as they embark on an interdisciplinary learning journey. The document could be returned to at the end of a course or project, to see if the statements need to change.” [From TILT website]
Ultimately, in writing this manifesto, we seek to catalyse debate about and change in the ways that interdisciplinarity is conceptualised and practised. Crucially, none of these 11 principles is intended to be static. Rather, we hope they will unfold with and be shaped by others’ pioneering practices. We believe that interdisciplinary teaching is at an exciting juncture and will be enhanced by further explorations; this manifesto is just one marker in the shifting and ongoing discussions about interdisciplinary education.
Read more about how the Toolkit for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching was created here: Introducing the Toolkit for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching (TILT)
With many thanks to critical friends David Overend, David Jay, Victoria Tait and Mark Huxham who provided valuable feedback and editorial guidance on the creation of the manifesto.
Clare Cullen
Clare served as a research assistant for the PTAS project “Crossing the Lines” at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. As well as experience as an interdisciplinary secondary teacher, she has an MPhil in African Studies (University of Cambridge) and an MSc in Outdoor Environmental and Sustainability Education (University of Edinburgh). She is now Education Development Coordinator for Project Luangwa, an education and gender equality NGO in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley. In January 2025, she will embark on a part-time PhD at the University of Edinburgh to explore decolonising methodologies in third sector education in Zambia. Clare is passionate about transforming education for a more just and ecocentric world.
Maddie Kurchik
Maddie is a Research Fellow at Moray House School of Education and Sport where she works on the PTAS funded project: “Crossing the Line: Developing an Interdisciplinary Toolkit for Higher Education”. Her research interests include gender, technology, work, & pedagogy.
Jenny Scoles
Dr Jenny Scoles is the Chief Editor of Teaching Matters. She is an Academic Developer (Learning and Teaching Enhancement), and a Senior Fellow HEA, in the Institute for Academic Development, and provides pedagogical support for University course and programme design. She leads the University’s Learning & Teaching Conference, Board of Studies Network, and her research interests include student-staff co-creation, climate pedagogy, interdisciplinary learning & teaching, professional learning and sociomaterial methodologies.
