The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education Branches from the Same Tree (2018) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 What Is Integration?
3 What Is Integration?
Pages 57-82
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 57... ...
Is the use of poetry or song assignments in a science course integrative if literature or music theory faculty are not involved? What makes a course with equal parts sculpture and engineering more or less integrative than a course focused on engineering design?
|
From page 58... ...
Rather, "integration" in the context of the higher education scholarship may refer broadly to educational experiences that help students integrate or bring together ideas. THE DISCIPLINARY CONTEXT Integration of teaching and learning in higher education inevitably takes place within the context of disciplinary pedagogies, content, and epistemologies.
|
From page 59... ...
It is much as if we tried to understand and teach the geography of the 48 contiguous states of the United States by handing out maps of the 48 states, but never took the trouble to assemble a map of the country. It is important to note that the purpose of this report is not to prescribe that institutions move away from disciplinary studies or, in the other extreme, to integrate all human knowledge within the educational experience of an individual student -- that would be impossible -- but rather to offer new insight into the impact of an approach to education that seeks to help students understand how the knowledge they have accumulated is connected.
|
From page 60... ...
) A traditional liberal arts education included these humanistic disciplines as well as training in politics and abstract mathematics (Hirt, 2006; Lucas, 1994; Roche, 2013)
|
From page 61... ...
. It includes specialized engineering fields that focus on specific aspects of technology or the natural world, such as electrical, mechanical, chemical, civil, environmental, computer, biomedical, aerospace, and systems engineering.
|
From page 62... ...
Notably, the attributes of communication, teamwork, and ethical decision making (as well as the even broader attributes of critical thinking, applying knowledge in real-world settings, and lifelong learning) are increasingly considered core to the engineering disciplines, along with a greater acknowledgment of the responsibility of engineering to respond to human needs (e.g., The Engineering Grand Challenges,2 National Academy of Engineering, 2008)
|
From page 63... ...
o utilize informatics, such as using electronic data, communicating T electronically, and understanding security protections Medical fields teach how to analyze, conduct research on mechanics of the human body, examine relationships between bodies and environments, and make connections between disease and wellness. These definitions highlight the unique aspects of each discipline and illustrate how the different disciplines consider and make use of different forms of evidence.
|
From page 64... ...
. Although interdisciplinary approaches are more integrated than multidisciplinary approaches, transdisciplinary research strategies require "not only the integration of discipline-specific approaches, but also the extension of these approaches to generate fundamentally new conceptual frameworks, hypotheses, theories, models, and methodological applications that transcend their disciplinary origins, with the aim of accelerating innovation and advances in scientific knowledge" (Hall et al., 2012, p.
|
From page 65... ...
Music in the Liberal Arts was an introductory course for undergraduates offered at a small liberal arts college to fulfill distribution requirements in the humanities. The goal of the course was to help students understand music from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
|
From page 66... ...
In-Course Integration In-course integration occurs when concepts and pedagogies from the arts and humanities are integrated into already established STEMM courses, or vice versa, or when new interdisciplinary courses are developed as part of a larger, unintegrated curriculum. Box 3-2 describes examples of various forms of in-course integration.
|
From page 67... ...
Because she wants to demonstrate to students that they are not alone in living in a time of change and uncertainty, she wants to introduce history, a humanities discipline, to her science course. To deepen her students' perspec tive on scientific change, she brings in a historian to help students understand the field of biology as it has developed over time.
|
From page 68... ...
The integration of the arts and humanities into STEMM courses may inspire improved understanding of STEMM concepts, greater contextualization of STEMM subjects, new STEMM hypotheses and research questions, and enhanced innovation in STEMM. It may also support the development of twenty first–century skills in students, such as critical
|
From page 69... ...
Consider the transdisciplinary case: as new knowledge is produced in the spaces between disciplines, it can give rise to new areas of study. Many established fields arose from these transdisciplinary interactions, including women's and gender studies, cultural studies, area studies, public and global health, robotics, and human–computer interaction, to name a few.
|
From page 70... ...
The integration of STEMM content and pedagogies into the courses of students pursuing a major or career in the arts and humanities can also take place in many different ways and for many different reasons. Among the courses we review in this report are those that strive to integrate STEMM with the goal of promoting greater scientific and technological literacy among humanities and arts majors, those that aim to harness STEMM tools to promote advances in artistic and humanistic scholarship and practice, and those that take STEMM, and the influence of STEMM on society, humanity, and nature, as the focus of humanistic and artistic inquiry.
|
From page 71... ...
Adams explained the goals of the Humanities Connections program: The most important challenges and opportunities of the 21st century re quire the habits of mind and forms of knowledge fostered by study of the humanities. The NEH Humanities Connections grant program will help prepare students in all academic fields for their roles as engaged citizens and productive professionals in a rapidly changing and interdependent world.3 The NEH particularly encourages projects that foster collaboration between humanities faculty and their counterparts in social and natural sciences and in preprofessional programs in business, engineering, health sciences, law, and computer science.
|
From page 72... ...
. The best examples of such collaborations are ones in which all members bring distinct skills and disciplinary perspectives to bear on shared goals rather than ones in which humanities and arts students simply support an essentially technical design challenge.
|
From page 73... ...
Another curricular program that integrates humanistic and STEMM fields centers on the profound ethical questions resulting from rapid scientific and technological advances in medicine. Bioethics is now a well- established integrative discipline in which students develop the tools and context for moral discernment in life sciences, medicine, and biotechnology, infusing their analyses with content and perspectives from law, policy, and philosophy (Leppa and Terry, 2004; Lewin et al., 2004; Vaughn, 2012)
|
From page 74... ...
In working together to define design problems and to identify context-specific issues and possible solutions, students from all backgrounds gain appreciation for the methods, values, and history of other disciplines. When designed to explicitly include nonengineering students, the aim is for students to develop a mutual literacy in each other's disciplines and collaborate in this shared space (National Academy of Engineering, 2012)
|
From page 75... ...
The third option at the University of Virginia is the Forum Curriculum, which has similarities in integration to the general education programs at LaGuardia Community College and Guttmann Community College (both City University of New York) ; Portland State University; and selected California State University campuses)
|
From page 76... ...
One explicitly arts and STEM integrative learning community is the University of Michigan's Living Arts program,5 themed around the creative process and funded by the provost's office and academic units that selfidentify as "maker" units. These include the School of Music, Theatre and Dance; Stamps School of Art and Design; Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; and the College of Engineering.
|
From page 77... ...
See Box 3-5 for one example of a successful integrative program at Guttmann Community College. Other notable programs are in place at LaGuardia Community College,7 Maricopa Community College,8 and eattle Central Community College.9 Given that they generally have limS ited resources and a relatively short time with students, community colleges have had to be particularly innovative in producing integrated approaches to general education -- for example, combining training in mathematics, writing, historical analysis, and natural sciences in single courses.
|
From page 78... ...
Once students enroll, they are assigned to a cohort during the summer bridge program and remain in this group until they choose a major. NCC offers a curriculum that does not require separate disciplinary courses so that students can build develop mental skills, which many of them need, while still learning college-level material.
|
From page 79... ...
Faculty work together to create "signature assignments" that seamlessly integrate all major components of the program, with 11 defined learning outcomes that cover a wide range of skills and disciplines. The curriculum focuses on "skill spines," faculty defined topics that should be covered in every offering of the City Seminar.
|
From page 80... ...
. STUDIES OF INTEGRATIVE EXPERIENCES DO NOT ALWAYS INVOLVE INTEGRATION OF THE HUMANITIES, ARTS, AND STEMM Although this study uses the term "integration" to refer specifically to the integration of the humanities and arts with STEMM fields, higher education scholars consider integrative educational experiences more broadly.
|
From page 81... ...
Perhaps exposing students to integrated learning experiences will not only promote existing learning and career outcomes but also spur a distinctive form of learning not captured by or part of other learning dimensions (e.g., cognitive development, critical thinking, pluralism, etc.)
|
From page 82... ...
The next chapter further explores the challenges of assessing learning outcomes in higher education, in general, and the challenges of assessing the impact of programs and courses that integrate the humanities, arts, and STEMM, specifically.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.