School leaders have the all important task of being the gatekeepers of the educational process: harnessing the development of its most important resource--the people working in schools. Training professional personnel in education is a vital function of the human resource function. It is the task of the school leader to cultivate staff that is…

This document was produced by the authors based on their research for the report "Higher-Level Vocational Education and Training Qualifications: Their Importance in Today's Training Market" [ED499709], and is an added resource for further information. This document contains information regarding: (1) The Australian Qualifications…

Interdisciplinary teaching usually starts with question or subject and it continues as answering complicated questions. The basic objective in interdisciplinary teaching is not to transfer knowledge of a specific discipline but more to use knowledge of various disciplines for a specific aim. Interdisciplinary programs are composed of collaboration…

The report was commissioned by the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) to provide quantitative and qualitative information on the perspectives of teachers, headteachers and governors, from the three pilot regions (London, the South East and Yorkshire and the Humber), towards using local buildings, places and spaces to support learning…

Interdisciplinary thinking is gaining momentum as an important topic for empirical investigation, particularly in regard to how crossing disciplinary boundaries can enrich teaching and learning across fields. There is a need for researchers who can think and work at the interdisciplinary interface. However, despite increased attention given to…

One of the shortcomings in most efforts to integrate art and science is that many people have a shallow understanding of art, which inevitably leads to shallow connections between art and science. Coloring drawings of planets, building sculptures of volcanoes, and decorating scientific diagrams are fine activities, but they do not link science and…

Many educators today advocate the use of historical narratives as one of a number of possible contexts for teaching science. However, several pedagogical and epistemological issues arise when implementing narratives in the classroom. In this paper, we are interested in expanding our view of narrative, specific to integrating the history of science…

Thomas Locker's book about nature entitled "Water Dance" (1997) provides the basis for this interdisciplinary project on Earth's water cycles. Through thoughtful consideration of the text and art in "Water Dance," students build and express deeper understanding of the water cycle (and the elements within). In addition, they develop the disposition…

Using contemporary insights from feminist critical theory and the literary device of synecdoche, we argue that transdisciplinary knowledge is productive because it maximizes serendipity. We draw on student learning experiences in a course on "Gender and Science" to illustrate how the dichotomous frameworks and part-whole correspondences that are…

Most college students do not habitually do the deep thinking that will allow them to take their learning beyond the acquisition of knowledge. This paper examines the findings from a phenomenological study of eight students involved in an interdisciplinary community focused on developing responsible, life-long learners. Students identified both the…

An open-ended student conference project involving sophomore, junior, and senior chemical engineering students is described. The project is designed to address outcomes in each of the courses in which those students are enrolled, as well as broader "soft skills" including multidisciplinary teamwork, communications, lifelong learning, and…

The present article offers comments on the infusion of methodologies, approaches, reasoning strategies, and findings from the fields of genetics and genomics into studies of complex human behaviors (hereafter, complex phenotypes). Specifically, I discuss issues of generality and specificity, causality, and replicability as they pertain to…

Little is known about the organization, characteristics or services offered by academic interdisciplinary gerontology centers located in higher education institutions. This article presents a description and an emerging typology of academic interdisciplinary gerontology centers based on information collected from the Websites of 47 centers. The…

The biochemistry degree has been taught at Lisbon University for 25 years. Since its creation, the curriculum is characterized for being widely eclectic and multidisciplinary. The adoption of the concepts proposed in Europe by the Declaration of Bologna and incorporation of these ideas at Lisbon University is discussed here for the biochemistry…

Geography faces stiff curricular competition from the continuing emphasis of policy makers on the three R's and science. In many places, this competition seems to have squeezed out any systematic attention to geography or the other social studies, particularly in elementary school. What's more, it doesn't look like things are going to turn around…