Page 28 - Teaching and learning of interdisciplinary thinking in higher education in engineering

Chapter 2
differences between sciences. Explicit attention to these disciplinary and scientific differences appears to be a typical condition for enabling the development of IDT.
Considering the complexity of teaching and learning IDT, interdisciplinary higher education faces challenges in accomplishing both broad and narrow IDT among its students. Realizing desired learning outcomes demands consistent and well-designed learning environments within a coherent and learner-centred curriculum (Ten Dam et al., 2004). For this reason, curriculum and course developers need a comprehensive understanding of the typical conditions that underpin the development of IDT (Stefani, 2009). This necessitates, for example, gaining insight into the extent to which students need to be equipped with knowledge of different disciplines as well as didactic ways of enabling integration (Chen, Hsu, & Wu, 2009). However, in view of the lack of an applicable teaching and learning model, it is necessary to examine the literature to seek a basis for this kind of higher education. This line of reasoning motivated the present review of the scientific research on teaching and learning IDT in interdisciplinary higher education.
2.2 Review framework
The objectives of the review were to systematically identify, critically analyse, and discuss scientific research on teaching and learning IDT in interdisciplinary higher education. For this purpose, the theory of Biggs (2003) was used as a frame of reference; it provided an organized way of reviewing the literature that corresponded well with our line of reasoning. This theory describes a comprehensive model for teaching and learning in higher education. In particular, teaching and learning are conceived as an interacting system of four components: student, learning environment, learning process, and learning outcomes (Biggs, 1993). Such a model might enable curriculum and course developers in interdisciplinary
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