Kate Ropchan's
ePortfolio
My voyage to Master of Educational Technology
Motorsailers
A motorsailer is a boat that is a cross between a sailboat and powerboat. It draws together positive aspects of the different types of vessels. Similarly, interdisciplinary teaching allows learners to make cross-connections between the separate courses that they take, and apply this knowledge to real world situations. There are numerous benefits to an interdisciplinary approach, as I discuss in my ETEC 532 group wiki site about interdisciplinary teaching.
Artifact: Interdisciplinary Teaching Wiki
Life is experienced in an interdisciplinary way, so shouldn't education be the same? After all, “compartmentalizing subjects into discrete learning opportunities does not reflect the way in which information is presented and learnt outside the education system” (Hickman & Kiss, 2010, p. 28). In the real world, graduates are rarely provided with subject-based problems to solve (Wee, Kek, & Sim, 2001). In order to make learning more authentic and situated in real world contexts, I am passionate about interdisciplinary education. Participating in this group project allowed me to learn more about this teaching style, its benefits and challenges, and factors to consider when initiating an interdisciplinary unit.
Wikispaces was used to create this group website, and it is a platform that I have gone on to use to create websites for the courses that I teach. I appreciate the collaboration afforded by Wikispaces, and the platform is straightforward and easy to use.
