Striking differences between physics and biology have important implications for interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The author is a physicist with interdisciplinary connections. The research group in which he works, the Center for Nonlinear Dynamics at the University of Texas at Austin, is…

There is increasing enthusiasm for teaching approaches that combine mathematics and biology. The call for integrating more quantitative work in biology education has led to new teaching tools that improve quantitative skills. Little is known, however, about whether increasing interdisciplinary work can lead to adverse effects, such as the…

Contemporary universities in the developed world face a plethora of increased--and changing--responsibilities. We are the global university, responsible for the production of worker citizens who will be "prepared" for an extraordinarily diverse set of challenges across all facets of their lives. Much of our research concentration in the academy…

In response to the call of "BIO2010" for integrating quantitative skills into undergraduate biology education, 30 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Program Directors at the 2006 HHMI Program Directors Meeting established a consortium to investigate, implement, develop, and disseminate best practices resulting from the integration of math and…

Due to recent changes in the workplace, the workforce and higher education have driven academic programs of adult education (AE) and human resource development (HRD) in the U.S. to become more integrated as part of the mission of institutions of higher education. In this exploratory study, existing graduate programs in AE and HRD in the U.S. were…

Health science students like students in many disciplines exhibit difficulty with transferring content from one course to another. For example, the problem explored in this study occurred when overlapping concepts were presented in introductory biology and chemistry courses, but students could not transfer the concepts to the other disciplinary…

This document describes a variety of curriculum integration options ranging from concurrent teaching of related subjects to fusion of curriculum focus to residential study focusing on daily living; from 2-week units to year-long courses. Suggestions are offered for choosing proper criteria for successful curriculum integration, dealing with the…

The reflections on interdisciplinarity cover several dimensions. One, among them, concerns the nature of what occurs between two disciplines. Does inter-disciplinarity relate to an intention, to a metatheory, to the object, or to a method? It is this ultimate space that we propose to study, supported by Reswebers (2000) proposition, putting the…

This book addresses issues relevant to the development of a coherent curriculum. A "coherent" curriculum is one whose parts are unified and connected by a sense of the whole. Following the foreword by Arthur W. Steller and the prologue by James A. Beane, the introduction (1) by James A. Beane raises a number of questions related to the search for…

Discusses the need for integration of science and mathematics education with a history of curriculum activities related to integration. Provides a bibliography of 67 references chosen by the School Science and Mathematics Association (SSMA) Early Childhood and Middle School Science and Mathematics Integration Task Force. (YP)

Vocational education was largely established on the principle of nontransferability. However, vocational education and academic education have many similarities. Indeed, the difference between basic and academic skills has often been defined in terms of rigor. Basic skills are those concrete skills that are generally taught at the elementary…

Many anthropologists believe that anthropology stands to gain from devoting greater attention to history and historical questions. A successful synthesis of anthropology and history would not be difficult to achieve for several reasons. First, the two disciplines share fundamentally similar subject matters. Anthropology is the exploration of the…

Integration of the social studies disciplines for more complete understanding of man's problems is promoted as reform to "real" social studies curriculum. (Author/ND)

The following papers on interdisciplinary cooperation in second language instruction are included: (1) "Language Teaching: Possibilities for Interdisciplinary Co-operation," by James E. Alatis; (2) "L'insegnamento della letteratura italiana (The Teaching of Italian Literature)," by Ezio Raimondi; (3) "Objective Evaluation and Transparency," by…

This compendium of information and resources can be used as guide to those interested in curriculum integration as an effort toward school reform. The compendium summarizes the work of the Keystone Integrated Framework Project. It also provides information to those who wish to explore the possibilities of curriculum integration in their own…