Developing a boundary crossing learning trajectory: supporting engineering students to collaborate and co-create across disciplinary, cultural and professional practices

ABSTRACT

The competence to work together and co-create with others outside one’s own scientific domain, culture or professional practice is a critical competence for engineers to respond to global challenges. In this context, boundary crossing (BC) competence is crucial. We reflect on a university-wide participatory action research educational innovation project for developing and implementing BC in its education, draw conceptual and practical lessons learned and identify success factors. The BC theory and its four learning mechanisms (identification, coordination, reflection, transformation) are introduced and we argue that they provide a solid foundation for BC competence development in courses and curricula. We show that BC can relatively easy be implemented in existing education, yet it is crucial to use experiential types of learning to make this rather abstract concept tangible for both teachers and students. Two key lessons learned for developing BC education are to see BC competence as a generic competence and boundaries as learning opportunities.

KEYWORDS:

• Boundary crossing
• interdisciplinarity
• transdisciplinarity
• teaching and learning
• curriculum development
• learning activities

Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the SEFI 48th Annual Conference Engaging Engineering Education 20-24 September 2020.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

AppendicesAnnex I: Questions to trigger programme committees, programme directors and lecturers about boundary crossing within their curricula and support the development of a learning trajectory

1. Identifying boundaries

• What boundaries do you expect your graduates to be able to cross? And thus, what boundaries should your students be confronted with during your study programme?

• Which boundaries do you want your students to practice crossing?

• Does your programme aim at developing BC at interpersonal or at intrapersonal level, or at both?

2. Doing an inventory of current BC experiences in a curriculum:

• Where in your study programme are boundaries present?

• Are these boundaries utilized as learning opportunities?

• Are explicit learning activities used to help students crossing the boundaries? If so, which ones?

• Is BC instructed, practised, is feedback given, is BC assessed?

3. Selecting courses that will explicitly address the I-C-R-T learning mechanisms:

• Which courses are suitable for instructing students on BC and BC learning mechanisms?

• Which courses are suitable to develop BC at interpersonal level? Which courses are suitable to develop BC at intrapersonal level?

4. Developing new learning outcomes and learning activities that explicitly address the I-C-R-T learning mechanisms, including instruction, practice, feedback and assessment.

• How can you change existing learning activities to make more explicit use of already present boundaries?

• What new learning activities can you design?

Once these questions are addressed, learning activities and assessment tools need to be developed. One of the outcomes of the Comenius project is the development of a toolbox for learning activities and assessment tools. Some examples are presented in Annex II. More can be found at https://edusources.nl/, select Boundary Crossing Community.

Annex II: Examples of boundary crossing learning outcomes and activities

To make BC more tangible, this section will display some exemplary BC-learning outcomes, learning activities and learning trajectories developed in various Bachelor and Master programmes of our University.

Exemplary learning outcomes

BC learning outcomes are often, and can easily, be linked to the more content related learning outcomes of a course. The examples below show a variety of learning outcomes. After every learning outcome we will show 1) the name of the programme, 2) the year of study, 3) the addressed BC learning mechanism(s), and if applicable 4) the type of boundary at stake.

• Know what is interdisciplinarity in the food domain and recognize this for different phenomena (BSc Food Technology, year 1/period 1, identification, disciplinary boundary);

• Integrate theoretical and practical knowledge from various food science disciplines while considering the consumer perspective as well (BSc Food Technology, year 1/period 6, identification/transformation, disciplinary and university-society boundary);

• Communicate project progress with various stakeholders (BSc Food Technology, year 1/period 6, coordination/reflection, university-society boundary);

• Assess and analyse land use and water management issues from different academic and societal perspectives and bring these together (BSc International Land and Water management, Year 1/period 1, reflection/transformation, all kind of boundaries);

• Create additional value by combining biobased disciplines thus to apply an interdisciplinary approach (MSc Biobased Sciences, Year 2, identification/reflection/transformation, disciplinary boundary);

• Work as part of a multi-disciplinary and multicultural team and value the contribution of different perspectives in designing solutions for complex (environmental) problems (MSc Environmental Sciences, year 1/period 6, identification/coordination/reflection, disciplinary and cultural boundary).

Exemplary learning activities

We can also make BC more tangible in learning activities. Below we present some learning activities that can be integrated in any kind of course. They are described independent from a specific context or educational program. The table shows what type of boundaries are crossed, possible variations to the learning activity and the addressed BC learning mechanism(s).

Table

Annex III: Boundary Crossing Learning Trajectory BSc Environmental Sciences

Table

Annex IV: Boundary Crossing Learning Trajectory BSc Food Technology

Table

Notes

1 Bregt, A.K. et al. 2017. Application for NWO Comenius Leadership Fellow. Boundary Crossing as the Modus Operandi of Wageningen University, Wageningen University and Research: NWO.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the NWO-NRO funded Comenius Leadership Fellow 2018 (NRO: 405.18865.742).

Notes on contributors

K. P. J. Fortuin

K. P. J. Fortuin is senior lecturer and education coordinator at the Environmental Systems Analysis group at Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands and involved in international environmental science curriculum development. Her research focusses on improving interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary competence development in environmental-science education in an intercultural context. Besides, she studies the application of environmental systems analysis methodologies and approaches. She is recently appointed as programme director Marine Sciences.

Judith T. M. Gulikers

Judith T. M. Gulikers is associate professor at the Education and Learning Sciences group at Wageningen University & Research. Judith is an educational psychologist with a PhD in educational sciences. Her research focusses on assessment at class, course and curriculum level in innovative learning environments (e.g. transdisciplinary – boundary crossing – settings). Her main interest lies in how we can use – formative/sustainable – assessment to make student learning visible and further guide their learning. Judith is also teacher educator.

Nynke C. Post Uiterweer

Nynke C. Post Uiterweer works as a senior policy adviser education at the Dean & Managers office, Education and Student Affairs at Wageningen University & Research. Trained as an irrigation engineer and as a psychologist she’s passionate about inter- and transdisciplinary education and research, and sees it as her role to stimulate and enhance boundary crossing learning in Wageningen University education.

Carla Oonk

Carla Oonk is a researcher, lecturer and education coordinator at the Education and Learning Sciences group at Wageningen University & Research. Carla’s research focuses on teaching and learning in transdisciplinary learning environments for which she integrates her backgrounds in Environmental Science (BSc), Land Use Planning (MSc) and Educational Science (PhD). She found the main theoretical foundation for her work in the boundary crossing theory, and aims to further both theoretical insights and practical implications in ‘learning with and from “the other” across practices’.

Cassandra W. S. Tho

Cassandra W. S. Tho is a researcher and skills trainer at the Education and Learning Sciences group at Wageningen University & Research. Cassandra’s research interests lie in the domain of educational innovation in higher education, with a focus on boundary crossing and challenge-based learning.