INTERDISCIPLINARY LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A CASE-STUDY BASED EXPERIENCE

Interdisciplinarity, although a reality in daily work, is not well established in Higher Education Teaching and therefore its implementation in the classroom remains a challenge. Interdisciplinary learning could be understood as the interaction (and not the addition, which would be the multidisciplinarity) among different disciplines, where dialog and collaboration in order to reach the same goal (a richer knowledge) is essential. The aim of the present study is to show an experience carried out at the University of the Basque Country (Spain) in which students from three different degrees (Primary Education, Social Education and Psychology) and years (first, second and third levels) were put together to work on the same case-study. The case-study was focused on the school-context, where frequently different professionals have to collaborate to achieve an agreement about an intervention-plan to be developed with a child, student group, family, institution… Specifically, the authors formed interdisciplinary teams comprised by future teachers, social educators and psychologists to analyze the same case from a systemic point of view and to collaborate in the design of an intervention. Altogether, 370 students and 6 teachers participated in the experience. The process had different phases: pretest phase, where students’ motivation and their perception about cooperation and interdisciplinarity was analyzed; implementation phase, where the case-study was developed during 15 weeks; and the post-test phase where, again, students’ motivation and perception about cooperation and interdisciplinarity was gathered up. The present paper will be based on the implementation phase, explaining how this complex process was carried out, and identifying the strengths and limitations found on the path.