Conference Agenda

The escalating complexity of global challenges drives a shift in higher education towards educational programs that foster transformative competencies and transdisciplinary learning. To address 'wicked problems' students need to become able to integrate a wide variety of lay and scientific knowledge sources and as such there is a need for novel tools and methods to empower students to integrate these perspectives in education as well as in future profession. The innovative transdisciplinary education presented in this session provides a comprehensive approach to provide students with required competences to guide transformations. Furthermore, as students experience the benefits and limits of scientific disciplines, they become open to the added value of other knowledge sources, which supports them to collaborate with each other and societal partners on identifying problems and solutions. In this session we make the case for prioritizing education that aims at fostering transformative and transdisciplinary competences and show the learning outcomes of the Transition Cycle Method.

The Transition Cycle Method, evaluated in the honors course 'The Next Great/Small Transformation', offers a structured approach to learning basic skills for managing complex transition challenges. This method, inspired by Transitions Research, Design Thinking, and Experiential Learning, iteratively connects four phases: imagine, connect, act, and assess. Our action research evaluates this method's effectiveness in developing students' skills to address complexity, uncertainty and resistance. Through transdisciplinary teamwork, students engage in a transformative process, starting from envisioning innovative 'what if' scenarios to executing and reflecting on interventions, thereby fostering a deep understanding of and engagement with societal transition challenges.

Building on this educational approach, our session aims to provide a structured example on embedding transformative competencies and transdisciplinary collaboration within higher education curricula. By highlighting the necessity of aligning educational practices with real-world challenges and fostering a reflective, responsive, and caring learning environment, we contribute to the ongoing discourse on preparing students for the complexities of future societal roles. This abstract presents a collective call for a pedagogical shift towards fostering the inner capacities of students to navigate and influence an increasingly complex world, thereby aligning with frameworks such as the OECD Learning Compass 2030 and the Inner Development Goals. Through this educational approach, we aspire to cultivate future generations of professionals equipped to transcend disciplinary boundaries and drive meaningful societal change.

Since its inception in the 1970s, the concept of transdisciplinarity has gained considerable attention and interest in scholarly circles and beyond as a research approach. This attention has stimulated, amongst others, a considerable amount of scholarly literature that explores the required preparation of researchers to navigate transdisciplinary environments and be properly prepared for adequately engaging with the complex societal issues of our time. Drawing inspiration from Dewey's work on experiential learning approaches such as problem-based learning and community service learning are transforming educational contexts from a knowledge-based to a competencies-based approach (Tarrant & Thiele, 2016). However, the conversations among scholars regarding the competencies necessary to adequately engage in transdisciplinary settings and, hence, deal with complex societal issues, remain ongoing.

Although there is a sense of convergence emerging from these discussions, the list of competencies attributed to transdisciplinarity continues to expand (e.g. Redman & Wiek, 2021). Consequently, designing courses to prepare students for transdisciplinary environments can be overwhelming due to the lack of shared understanding the interconnected nature of these competencies, and their reliance on each other to formulate the overarching set of transdisciplinary competencies. A significant issue that we observed is that discussions about competencies typically occur at the course level, with transdisciplinary competencies rarely being viewed as part of a scaffolding process.

In this presentation, we will examine the development of transdisciplinary competencies as a "leerlijn," which literally translates from Dutch to “Learning Path”. Our case study focuses on a re-evaluation of an ongoing 2-year master's program offered by the Athena Institute, known as Management, Policy Analysis, and Entrepreneurship in the Health & Life Sciences (MPA). Our intention was not to iterate the curriculum or its learning activities but rather to highlight the aspects of the program that contribute to the development of transdisciplinary competencies. To achieve this, we conducted bilateral interviews with course coordinators and facilitated two focus group discussions to explore how the program can foster the cultivation of transdisciplinary competencies.

This dialogue revealed that while course coordinators may interpret transdisciplinarity differently, their courses converged in fostering a set of competencies that align with the competencies discussed in scholarly work as suitable for transdisciplinary settings. However, it prompts us to ponder the depth of mastery that students achieve on the course level and how various courses can serve as building blocks to strategically guide students through their development. Here, we distil reflections and insights gained from these practitioners regarding crafting transdisciplinary curricula, the obstacles they encounter, and key factors to contemplate when structuring educational programs to nurture transdisciplinary competencies

Reference:

• Redman, A., & Wiek, A. (2021). Competencies for Advancing Transformations Towards Sustainability. Frontiers in Education, 6, 785163. https://doi.org/10.3389/FEDUC.2021.785163/BIBTEX

• Tarrant, S. P., & Thiele, L. P. (2016). Practice makes pedagogy – John Dewey and skills-based sustainability education. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 17(1), 54-67. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijshe-09-2014-0127

key readings (optional)

Margolis, A. A. (2020). Zone of Proximal Development, Scaffolding and Teaching Practice. Cultural-Historical Psychology, 16(3). https://doi.org/10.17759/chp.2020160303

Humankind is currently facing a large number of global, societal problems, many of which are extremely complex. In order to solve these problems, interdisciplinary collaboration is crucial. Scientific research is riddled with examples of a lack of knowledge due to a lack of diversity in academic research teams, clinical trial participants, laboratory animals and cell lines. Additionally, there is an increasing demand for ethics and methodology of science by life scientists and clinicians.

To address this need and these gaps in our education, an interdisciplinary, six-month program was developed within the Graduate School of Life Sciences (GSLS) of Utrecht University, where students from 16 different life sciences disciplines come together. The Life Sciences & Society program aims to teach students the importance of incorporating the societal perspective into research design, thereby increasing the impact of their work, and really meeting our society’s needs.

The main component of the program is the Capstone project, a transdisciplinary research project into a societal problem from an external partner, forming a bridge between science and society. Parallel to the project, students follow different theoretical modules during which they acquire knowledge about relevant topics, such as History & Philosophy of Life Sciences, Ethics and Research Integrity, Open Science, Diversity Perspectives, and Global & Planetary Health. The structure of the program gives them the unique opportunity to incorporate the new theoretical knowledge and perspectives into their Capstone project and to reflect on their project and methodology within the theoretical modules. The lecturers and teachers are from several schools within the university, giving the students an interdisciplinary perspective on the topics at hand.

The program also includes a series of workshops to train and develop the students’ personal and professional skills, allowing students to progress in their personal development. Students learn about collaboration, intercultural communication, personal working styles and conflict management, to name a few examples.

According to feedback from alumni, the Life Sciences & Society program’s emphasis on personal and professional development along with hands-on experience, was not only beneficial for their personal and professional growth, but also aided them in defining how they wanted to dedicate their careers as a life science professional.

Our study aims to investigate the impact of our program on past students’ professional identity formation. The study will use qualitative research methods, using semi-structured interviews with past participants of the program, one, two, and three years after completion. By exploring the alumni’s views on their role as scientists within society and how the different components of the program may have influenced their professional identity, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness of our program. This includes the possible effects the transdisciplinary nature of the program may have on the professional identity of alumni. The information gleaned from the study will be used to improve the curriculum of the program, and additionally, we hope that the findings will inspire other organizations to provide their students with similar opportunities to bridge the gap between academia and society.

To navigate complex societal challenges, numerous scholars advocate for the use of transdisciplinary (TD) methods. According to the definition provided by Lang et al. (2012), the complexity of these challenges can be tackled by "differentiating and integrating knowledge from various scientific and societal bodies of knowledge", including academic, experiential, cultural and spiritual ways of knowing. To acquire the competencies necessary to contribute to TD-projects, Transdisciplinary Education (TDE) facilitates their development.

Knowledge integration is widely accepted by scholars to be one of the key components, if not the key component of transdisciplinarity (Pohl et al. 2021), making the ability to integrate different ways of knowing a crucial competency for students, teachers and co-learners in a TD-process. However, knowledge integration is a challenging competency to acquire (Godemann, 2008) and its development can be supported by educational tools. However, developing these tools requires a deep understanding of knowledge integration and most of the time teachers themselves do not know what knowledge integration is or how it may be achieved. While several scholars have attempted to conceptualize the integration process (e.g. Pohl et al., 2021), we do not yet know exactly when knowledge integration occurs and under what conditions. Therefore, we ask: how can the knowledge integration process be characterized in TDE? and what are conditions that influence whether knowledge integration takes place in TDE?

To address these explorative questions, an in-depth qualitative analysis of a single case was conducted. The context of the Transdisciplinary Master Insert (TDMI) program at the University of Twente, winner of the Dutch Higher Education Award 2022, was selected. TDMI is a 30 EC extra-curricular program where students with different disciplinary backgrounds collaborate with societal partners in TD-projects. A mixed method approach was used, including observations during TDMI workshops, interviews with students, stakeholders and staff involved in the TDMI program.

Preliminary findings show that there may be a tendency of co-existence of different ways of knowing and understanding within projects that are intended to be transdisciplinary. In this case, different, potentially contradicting, perspectives exist next to each other without integration taking place. Three potential conditions that influence whether integration or co-existence occurs were identified. The first condition is the extent to which participants feel that they have a stake in the project, as this drives them to either push their own perspective or go along with another perspective. The second condition is, how tangible the developed solution is, bringing out potential disagreements on what the solution(s) may look like. Lastly, the third condition is moments of reflection, in which participants become aware of their own and others ways of knowing.

Next steps in the research are, gathered and analysing further data to validate the findings thus far and potentially identify additional influencing conditions. The final results, presented at the conference, will contribute to a conceptual understanding of knowledge integration in TDE and informs the development of educational tools that stimulate knowledge integration.

Background: Fostering autonomous motivation is conducive for students’ experiences in their study programmes since it is associated with many positive outcomes. This study designed and evaluated an extracurricular project called the ‘Societal Impact Project’ designed on the combination of three educational principles: authentic societal problems, collaborative learning, and scaffolding. The project aimed to explore how these principles could support students’ basic psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence, which according to the Self-determination Theory, facilitate students’ autonomous motivation.

Methods: First-year bachelor’s students in the studies of Biomedical Sciences and Health Sciences participated in the project. Students as well as coaches participated in focus groups conducted after the project. We adopted thematic analysis. The project lasted for eight months. Students worked in small groups with the guidance of coaches to address societal problems relevant to their study fields.

Results: We synthesized three main themes. First, students felt motivated to have freedom in choosing societal problems of interest and self-pacing their work, but they needed guidance from the project and the coaches. Second, working in groups could be motivating or demotivating depending on group dynamics and connections with peers, but communication made a difference, especially in challenging situations. Third, society-relevant problems stimulated student’s motivation and learning, and helped students to see a bridge between university and society; however, such problems also posed challenges such as difficulty in contacting stakeholders and identifying an optimal extent to which the problems were directly relevant to their studies. All three themes were interconnected in facilitating students’ motivation.

Conclusion: Working in small groups with the support of coaches on authentic societal problems influenced student’s motivation. Students felt autonomously motivated when they had autonomy with support, relatedness based on active collaboration and effective communication, and competence through structured activities in the project, support from coaches, and group work on authentic problems. This study provided insights for future curriculum designers to use societal problems to develop curricula that foster student’s autonomous motivation.