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All disciplines
Students vary
Societal group challenge
Society linked
Case 7
The ECIU (European Consortium of Innovative Universities)
This multinational extracurricular offering facilitates multidisciplinary teams to work on societal challenges, often presented by governments, businesses and social organisations. Students apply their established knowledge and skills towards systemically defining the elements of problem, finding and analyzing relevant information, and designing and implementing a solution in real life. Important is that they use different perspectives, not only from their respective disciplines but also from involved stakeholders. Coaching sessions and ‘just in time’ learning help to facilitate the development process and interdisciplinary exchange.
The STRIPES involvement in this offering was limited to discussions on issues faced and a trail to enhance interdisciplinary appreciation among the students. The trail (workshops) took place over 2 occasions in an online format.
What we learned
- Interdisciplinary workshops may be better hosted by a trainer in combination with the coach to enhance continuity and continue momentum of ideas raised in the sessions – as opposed to an outsider presenting a one-off session.
- Working with students from multiple universities meant not only interdisciplinarity needs to be supported, perhaps intercultural support may be beneficial too
- After a first session it might be worthwhile to have a follow up session after a few weeks, to help the students reflect on their interdisciplinary cooperation so far and support them in taking a next step in this.
More Information
Related Publications
MacLeod, M. A. J. , Johnson, C. , Poortman, C. L. & Visscher, K. (2022)
Student motivation and disciplinary expertise in Challenge-Based Learning
