Pixel International Conferences

The Natural Sciences degree programme at the University of Nottingham is an interdisciplinary undergraduate science course. Its ethos is that big scientific challenges, such as climate change or curing cancer, can not be met by individual scientific disciplines but by a holistic approach by the entire scientific community. The scientific response to the coronavirus pandemic is an example of this. However, this interdisciplinary approach is at odds with the modularization present in many undergraduate courses.  Working within that system, the Natural Sciences programme has a synoptic module which aims to help students integrate knowledge from across different subjects. Further, the module seeks to train students in developing their research and employability skills through interdisciplinary teamwork [1]. Despite its good intentions the module received strong negative feedback from students in 2018/19. They raised concerns regarding the amount of work involved, individuals not participating in group work, a lack of time and resources to conduct research, unclear assessment criteria, and project topics which were not relevant to current world issues. This feedback prompted an overhaul of the module’s delivery. The project topics were revised and now address global environmental, economic and social sustainability issues using the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals [2] as a framework to connect the different challenges. Students are now given a choice of assessment tasks so that they can choose whether to conduct scientific research and write a journal article, plan scientific research and write a grant proposal, or write a policy paper to put scientific knowledge into practice. The students are encouraged to use online tools to help manage the project and this also enables staff to monitor engagement and give timely advice to individuals and groups. The assessment criteria were revised by mapping each assessment activity to the employment skills identified by the World Economic Forum [3]. The revised module was implemented in 2019/20 and received positive feedback from students.  Student attainment was also very good. The university is now planning to expand this strategy by creating similar provision for students on all science courses. The intention is to have closer integration of research and teaching through greater research-based education [4].

Keywords: Interdisciplinary science, sustainable development, employability skills, research-based education, problem solving.

References:

1. Raine, D., “Innovative pedagogic practices: undergraduates as interdisciplinary researchers”, Higher Education Academy, UK, 2015.
2. United Nations General Assembly, “Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development”, United Nations Resolution A/70/1, 2015.
3. World Economic Forum, “The future of jobs: employment, skills and workforce strategy for the fourth industrial revolution”, WEF Global Challenge Insight Report, 2016
4. Strachan, S.M., et al., “Using vertically integrated projects to embed research-based education for sustainable development in undergraduate curricula”, International Journal of Sustainability in HE, 2019.