Page 108 - Teaching and learning of interdisciplinary thinking in higher education in engineering

Chapter 5
5.5.2 Learning strategies to overcome the learning challenges (research question 2) Table 5.3 illustrates the kind of learning strategies that were reported per category of challenge.
Table 5.3 An illustration of the reported strategies per category of challenge
Category of challenge
To overcome the experienced challenge:
Content-related:
connecting the disciplines
“[I] will draw a flow chart. This simple method allows me to have a clear view on the situation. Problem in the middle and possible causes from both [technological and managerial] perspectives. Flowchart allows to define the problem and, step by step find out concrete managerial and technological issues causing problems”
Incentive-related:
confusion on selecting the disciplinary knowledge
“I read carefully my previous assignments (1st-5th), come [read] back to [the] description of the CMC case [company] and combine it with the literature about the TQM [Total Quality Management] approach”
Interaction- related: searching for adequate disciplinary knowledge
“[I] spend much time searching for literature in order to find ways to make a linkage between T[echnological] and M[anagerial] issues with the respective consequences. Additionally, I discussed with my peers about the problem I was facing and it appears that I am not the only one. Together we tried to solve the difficulty by searching literature”
At first sight, the reported strategies seemed to be effective strategies for coping with the challenges of IDT learning. Table 5.4 shows the subcategories of each learning strategy per category of challenge. This table shows that strategies for coping with the challenges involved in IDT learning include the following: using all the available information to gain a good understanding of the problem situation, rethinking all technological and managerial knowledge elements to find connections, putting thoughts on paper to foster reflection on the
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