Experimental archaeology is a vibrant and fascinating field that offers great opportunities for hands-on student learning in history. Although it is typically taught by archaeologists and anthropologists, it is certainly accessible and easily adapted to history courses. In addition to teaching "Introduction to Experimental Archaeology"…

Practicing medicine and creating art are both informed by observation and perception, yet how artists and doctors view the world and their place in it might be quite different. By bringing two populations together--RISD students and Warren Alpert Medical School students--into one experimental course, "No Innocent Eye: Knowledge and…

This paper represents an attempt to incorporate concepts and issues stemming from the global financial crisis (GFC) into the typical Intermediate Accounting, two-course sequence as taught in North American colleges and universities. The teaching approach which the authors advocate embeds the GFC throughout these courses. The main expected outcome…

The NEXA program at San Francisco State University seeks to span the gulf between the humanities and the sciences by offering interdisciplinary team-taught courses on concepts and issues in the liberal arts. Providing a rigorous and challenging curriculum for highly motivated students, the program is gradually finding a niche within the confines…

This report shows how the study of U.S. history can be enriched by blending geography into the curriculum. Because the fields of history and geography have not been melded together in terms of curricula, often history is not taught in relation to geography and geography has tended to be taught primarily as location/place information. The report…

An experimental interdisciplinary freshman course taught at North Carolina State University was intended to introduce principles of general systems theory; to provide examples through lectures and readings of applications of these principles in a wide variety of fields; and to introduce and provide practice in critical questioning and evaluation.…

Monmouth College (New Jersey) paired one section of freshman composition with introductory sociology. This section focused on expository composition skills serving sociological inquiry, such as comparing and contrasting, critically analyzing written text, and supporting a position through reasoned argument. The paper discusses theoretical…

Describes how the University of Pennsylvania is testing a new way of teaching involving team-taught interdisciplinary courses on some its freshmen, while keeping others in a control group. (EV)

In 1985 and 1986, two randomly selected groups of Harvard Medical School students entered either the traditional program or the New Pathway, a redesigned medical curriculum with a 3-year longitudinal course structure involving the same small group of students and teachers. The program features the interweaving of material from other disciplines;…

An experimental first-year course introducing law students to the law firm addressed: a single issue in contract law from both sides, writing as an advocate, the lawyer's role, legal research methods, the legislative process, the counseling function, the appellate process, and traditional legal writing. An interdisciplinary approach was used. (MSE)

Describes the origins, development, and activities of the Elementary School Economics Project at the University of Chicago during the "New Social Studies" era of the 1960s. Maintains that the program was compatible with the social science and inquiry-based instructional strategies popular at that time. (CFR)

The philosophy and structure of programs of coordinated study at Evergreen State College from 1970 to 1980 are discussed, and comparisons are made to the experiment at the University of California, Berkeley, promoted by Joseph Tussman. Both programs are based on ideas suggested by Alexander Meiklejohn and his Experimental College at the University…

A compendium of reports of experimental instructional projects and educational programs generated by teachers at 10 midwestern universities is presented. Most of the items report changes in a particular discipline area, but these arrangements can frequently be adapted for use in other departments and interdisciplinary programs. Subject matter…

This document presents the negative effect on many adolescents of the typical secondary school program and outlines a proposed curriculum for education majors. The problem dealt with is the departmentalized structure of high schools, which results in fragmenting the student's life at school into a series of subject-matter-centered meetings. The…

The Virginia Beach (Virginia) Public School Division, which has a fairly large student population of 55,500 students, has enjoyed strong community support over the last 2 years for its newly instituted comprehensive curriculum assessment and development project. The project's goal of attaining educational improvement in all areas from kindergarten…