An Interdisciplinary Teaching Module on the Global Clothing Industry: Lessons from Working across Four Disciplines and Two Universities

Harré, Niki; Azizi, A; Coomber, Ties; King, Ellinor; Mead, Andrea Michelle; Saeckel, Sarah; Vallée, Manuel; Yeo, Samantha Zi Lin; Zhang, Yulun

doi:10.1108/s2055-364120200000018025

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Against the backdrop of the challenges faced by humanity since the beginning of the 21st century, spanning from catastrophic consequences of climate change (Benevolenza & DeRigne, 2019) to the COVID-19 pandemic (Chu et al, 2020) and the ethical dilemmas raised by development of Artificial Intelligence (Belk, 2021), interdisciplinary action is hoped to be a solution (Buanes & Jentoft, 2009) to so called 'wicked problems' (Rittel & Webber, 1973): problems that are complex, lack clear boundaries, and attempts to solve them have unforeseen consequences (Lönngren & Van Poeck, 2021;McCune et al, 2021). While interdisciplinary teaching and learning (IDR T&L) is seen as a 'key part of the required educational response' (Turner et al, 2022) to address these problems, implementing IDR T&L initiatives in higher education is not an easy task, with difficulties including institutional barriers (Harré et al, 2020), reducing the time available for practical work (Baschung 2016), adaptation to the local context (Ruano-Borbalan 2019), sustaining teacher collaboration (Pharo et al, 2012) or student involvement (Gantogtokh & Quinlan, 2017), and lack of general design frameworks for various educational activities, as most accounts of IDR T&L tend to focus on describing the details of a specific implementation rather than on synthesizing generalized theoretical frameworks and methods for implementing IDR T&L activities (Lindvig & Ulriksen, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hack it with EDUCHIC! Educational hackathons and interdisciplinary challenges—Definitions, principles, and pedagogical guidelines

Vanhée,

Danielsson,

Enqvist

et al. 2024

Euro J of Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Whereas hackathons are widespread within and outside academia and have been argued to be a valid pedagogical method for teaching interdisciplinarity, no detailed frameworks or methods are available for conceptualizing and organizing educational hackathons, i.e., hackathons dedicated to best achieving pedagogic objectives. This paper is dedicated to introducing EDUCational Hackathons for learning how to solve Interdisciplinary Challenges (EDUCHIC) through: (1) defining the fundamental principles for framing an activity as an EDUCHIC, integrating principles from pedagogical methods, hackathon organization, and interdisciplinarity processes; (2) describing general properties that EDUCHIC possess as a consequence of the interaction of the fundamental principles; (3) developing operational guidelines for streamlining the practical organization of EDUCHIC, including an exhaustive end‐to‐end process covering all the steps for organizing EDUCHIC and practical frames for carrying the key decisions to be made in this process; and (4) a demonstration of these guidelines through illustrating their application for organizing a concrete EDUCHIC.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hack it with EDUCHIC! Educational hackathons and interdisciplinary challenges—Definitions, principles, and pedagogical guidelines

Vanhée,

Danielsson,

Enqvist

et al. 2024

Euro J of Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Other research investigates the innovative, interdisciplinary, sustainability teaching in discrete modules. After a module on the clothing industry at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, chemistry and psychology students showed increased knowledge of the environmental and scientific impacts of the industry, as well as a change in materialistic values and habits of clothing consumption (Harré et al , 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching an interdisciplinary course in sustainable food systems: science and history meet in “a world that works”

Blodgett

Feld

2021

IJSHE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose The sustainability of the global food system hinges on its environmental resiliency and safety, including the health and well-being of its labor force. Single disciplinary courses in liberal arts or science often fail to highlight the overlap between environmental and social vulnerabilities that lead to food insecurity and diminish the sustainability of food systems. This paper aims to present the design and delivery of a successfully co-taught, interdisciplinary module on agricultural labor and sustainable food systems as a case study. Design/methodology/approach The authors designed a co-taught module in which they joined each other’s respective history and science class sessions at the undergraduate business college where they teach. Innovating the cross-disciplinary content of food security, immigration status, labor exploitation and pesticide exposure, they approached sustainability from the disciplinary perspectives of labor history and environmental science to show how these elements had both unique and overlapping impacts across food systems levels. Comparisons between pre- and post-module survey responses, alongside assessments of a co-authored exam question, measured the effectiveness of this module is changing students’ perspectives as food consumers and as citizens. Findings This module altered students’ understanding and perspectives around issues of food systems sustainability. Assessments indicated that students increased their awareness of agricultural workers at the front end of the food system, during production; students also gained awareness beyond consumption as they came to see the connections between workforce invisibility and ecosystem degradation. Originality/value These insights are valuable to educators at all institutional levels who seek to collaborate on sustainability initiatives and teaching, both in the singular, robust modules and in building modules that will lead to the development of entire courses focused on sustainability. The module described here builds on previous demonstrations of the value, significance and effectiveness of cross-disciplinary collaborations; it pioneers the use of the food system as the link between social and environmental sustainability education.

show abstract

Sustainability in Curricula (SE)

Lud

2023

Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An Interdisciplinary Teaching Module on the Global Clothing Industry: Lessons from Working across Four Disciplines and Two Universities

Cited by 4 publications

References 16 publications

Hack it with EDUCHIC! Educational hackathons and interdisciplinary challenges—Definitions, principles, and pedagogical guidelines

Hack it with EDUCHIC! Educational hackathons and interdisciplinary challenges—Definitions, principles, and pedagogical guidelines

Teaching an interdisciplinary course in sustainable food systems: science and history meet in “a world that works”

Sustainability in Curricula (SE)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About