New Perspectives in Science Education

University level engineering science education, in Canada and elsewhere around the world, is often provided exclusively to a given cohort of engineering students that progress through their collective university educational experiences together. These educational experiences will often consist of little to no interaction with other student cohorts from diverse disciplines and faculties. Engineering students that graduate and enter their longer-term engineering careers may only then be required to work and interact with people of diverse interests, skills and educational backgrounds. As such, traditional engineering educational experiences can fall short in preparing engineering students for their future work environment. This paper reviews an initiative to help address this short-fall through providing an interdisciplinary educational experience that brings together student cohorts from a Media, Art and Performance faculty with software engineering students. The bringing together of diverse student cohorts in a classroom setting requires significant changes to the traditional educational experience of engineering students. These changes include exposing engineering students to different educational experiences, teaching methods and educational content that they would otherwise not experience. In addition, this educational experience also provides participation in building and working on interdisciplinary teams that leverage the unique and diverse skills of its members.

Keywords: Interdisciplinary, Engineering, Education;