10/16/13

Interdisciplinary Opportunities at UBC

FIREtalks

FIREtalks are a series of interdisciplinary research exchanges run by graduate students for graduate students. A programme of the Research Commons, FIREtalks provide an opportunity for graduate students to share and discuss their research or ideas in an interdisciplinary forum. They are a great opportunity for graduate students in the UBC academic community to collaborate, network and explore ideas without conventional disciplinary boundaries.

The next FIREtalk is on October 23rd, 2013 (4-6 PM): Indigenizing the Academy

How can the academy engage Aboriginal and Indigenous knowledge? What are some ways researchers at UBC – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – are using Indigenous methodologies and incorporating Indigenous knowledge? What challenges arise and how can we address them?

For more information, please visit: http://koerner.library.ubc.ca/services/research-commons/fire-talks/?login

UBC Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Network (iGSN)

The iGSN is a group of enthusiastic graduate students dedicated to improving the graduate student experience at UBC.  The group’s mission is “to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge-sharing between graduate students from different disciplines. Only through an exchange of ideas can we push the boundaries of research, obtaining new and exciting results.  By providing social, recreational, and professional development opportunities that are discipline-independent and highly inclusive, we hope to accomplish this task here at UBC.”

For more information and to join the group, please visit: http://igsnubc.wordpress.com/

 Stephen M. Straker Memorial Lecture, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, “Dis/Integration: On the New Interdisciplinarity”

  • Date: Monday, October 21, 2013
  • Time: 4:00-5:30pm
  • Place: Buchanan Building, Block A, Room 104, 1866 Main Mall

Professor Smith (Duke University) is a leading literary theorist and critic, and also a major contributor to Science and Technology Studies, bringing together insights from literary and critical theory with those from history and philosophy of science. Among her honours are visiting appointments at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the US National Humanities Center, and the Rockefeller Foundation Center at Bellagio. She is also the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts.

For more information, please visit: http://www.history.ubc.ca/events/stephen-m-straker-memorial-lecture-barbara-herrnstein-smith-%E2%80%9Cdisintegration-new

09/28/13

Upcoming Interdisciplinary Conferences

Out of the Box: Celebrating Interdisciplinarity Conference
Conference: Friday, March 21st, 2014 at UBC
Call for abstract deadline (EXTENDED): November 30, 2013
Also visit the Facebook page.

International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
Conference: June 11th-13th, 2014 at UBC
Current call for proposal deadline: December 10th, 2013 (Abstracts are accepted in
monthly rounds. Return here for subsequent review deadlines.
Proposals received at each deadline will be reviewed between two to four weeks
of the corresponding deadline.)

09/11/13

ICoP October Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013
Time: 2:30-4:30pm
Place: Fraser River Room in the Centre for Teaching and Technology at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre

Registration:  http://events.ctlt.ubc.ca/events/view/2865

Please come join our first Interdisciplinary Community of Practice (ICoP) meeting for the new academic year to meet new and old community members from across the disciplines and to plan the Community’s activities for the year. The session will include a brief presentation by Pam Kalas from the Department of Zoology sharing lessons learned from integrating the Truth and Reconciliation event on September 18 into her biology course (BIOL121) (Click here for a brief story on this initiative). Bring your colleagues, your ideas for interdisciplinary activities, and curiosity and enthusiasm for building interdisciplinarity into your courses!
04/19/13

Upcoming Meeting: April 25, 2013

Greetings, interdisciplinary enthusiasts!

We look forward to seeing you at the next Interdisciplinary Community of Practice (ICoP) meeting. At this meeting, we will look ahead to the 2013/2014 school year:

  • Mix strategies: Natalie Baloy (UBC Mix Coordinator) will discuss how you can develop your own interdisciplinary events and partnerships using Mix strategies
  • Interdisciplinary teaching techniques: We will explore how to adapt teaching and discussion techniques to interdisciplinary learning settings
  • ICoP next year: You’ll meet Victoria Wood (College of Health Disciplines), the new co-facilitator for the ICoP with Hanae Tsukada from CTLT, and we’ll discuss topics for ICoP meetings in 2013/2014
  • Networking: And there will be ample time for cross-disciplinary networking!
Here are the event details:

  • Date: Thursday, April 25th
  • Time: 10am-12pm
  • Location: Room 2.22 in the Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology (Irving K. Barber Learning Centre)
  • Please bring: Colleagues or someone you’d like to meet from another discipline, and interdisciplinary ideas for next year
  • Please register: http://events.ctlt.ubc.ca/events/view/2433
See you there!
Natalie, Hanae, and Victoria
03/15/13

Meeting Notes: March 4, 2013

On Monday, March 4th, the ICoP met to discuss to how to promotes interdisciplinary thinking in the classroom.

After a brief round of introductions between veterans ICoP Members and ‘newbees’, we welcomed two guest speakers.

  • Sauder instructor Paul Cubbon will shared his experiences designing COMM 486S/JRNL 520A, a new course on social media, and many other interdisciplinary courses he has helped to create. COMM 486s/JRNL 520A is cross-listed in Commerce and Journalism and is co-taught by Cubbon and Alfred Hermida. (Click here to see Dr. Cubbon’s UBC TedX Talk.)  Paul gave an energetic and inspiring presentation on how to work within and around structural challenges to build innovative interdisciplinary courses. For advice and techniques, check out Paul’s Handout (pdf).
  • Karla Pollmann, visiting scholar from the University of Kent, has been conducting research this year at UBC for a project entitled, “Go Beyond Boundaries: Designing an Interdisciplinary Graduate Teaching Programme.” She has been observing the different forms of interdisciplinarity at UBC. She share some of her reflections so far with us, noting that UBC Mix offers an innovative “grassroots” model that could be taken up by universities in the UK and Europe. She distinguished between different forms of interdisciplinary education and institutional support, from student-driven to teacher-driven models, program-based models, and short vs. longterm approaches. For summaries of these different forms, see Karla’s Handout (pdf).

After Paul and Karla’s helpful presentations, the remainder of the meeting was devoted to networking and casual sharing about past, current, and future interdisciplinary efforts.

Our next meeting is scheduled for April 25, 2013. See you there!

02/21/13

Designing Interdisciplinary Learning Activities

Join us for an Interdisciplinary Community of Practice meeting!

Date: Monday, March 4th

Time: 2:30-4:30pm

Location: Seminar Room 2.22 – Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology

Please registerhttp://events.ctlt.ubc.ca/events/view/2273

How can you promote interdisciplinary thinking in your classroom? At this ICoP meeting we will explore how to design effective interdisciplinary courses and learning activities. Building from our last session on assessing interdisciplinary learning, we will discuss how to adapt and alter existing approaches to lesson design to encourage students to think across disciplines.

Sauder instructor Paul Cubbon will join us to share his experiences designing COMM 486S/JRNL 520A, a new course on social media. The course is cross-listed in Commerce and Journalism and is co-taught by Cubbon and Alfred Hermida. Paul will discuss the development of the course and lessons he is learning in its first term. (Click here to see Dr. Cubbon’s UBC TedX Talk.)

For the remainder of the meeting, we will brainstorm how to adapt different teaching techniques to enhance interdisciplinary learning. Please bring a question or example of your interdisciplinary teaching efforts to share with the group.

About the Interdisciplinary Community of Practice (ICoP): The ICoP emerged out of enthusiasm for UBC Mix, a project that supports classroom-level collaborations between two or more courses for interdisciplinary lessons. Scholars of higher education are increasingly recognizing the value of interdisciplinary thinking. The ICoP provides a space to think collectively about the practice and pedagogy of interdisciplinary teaching and learning at UBC. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact facilitators Natalie Baloy (ubc-mix@interchange.ubc.ca) and Hanae Tsukada (ctlt.prodev@ubc.ca).

11/5/12

ICoP: Assessment and Evaluation (November 5, 2012)

At the November 5th meeting of the Interdisciplinary Community of Practice, we addressed issues relating to assessing and evaluating interdisciplinary learning. Hanae Tsukada and Natalie Baloy co-facilitated the meeting.

After a brief round of introductions, we learned about mechanisms of interdisciplinary assessment from the following community members:

  • David Brownstein (Geography/Canadian Studies): Ritsumeikan University/UBC exchange – LLED/ISC overlapping assignment
  • Mike van der Loos (Engineering): Engineering Capstone course and student reflections
  • Catherine Douglas (Economics): Designing Mix on homelessness with community partners, student reflections
Many thanks to these presenters!

In addition to speakers’ remarks, we discussed Bloom’s Taxonomy (see links below) and how to adapt learning objectives to interdisciplinary contexts. The following resources were available:

These resources are also available at this Dropbox link. If you have resources about interdisciplinary teaching and learning, please send them to mix.ubc@gmail.com. Be sure to use and build our Wiki resource portal as well!
Thank you for participating in our meeting! It is exciting to see this new community develop and grow.
10/25/12

INQUIRY Learning Opportunities

The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, also known as the Berger Inquiry, involved over two years of community testimony and legal hearings that addressed the social, environmental, and economic impacts of a proposed gas pipeline in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Representatives from Aboriginal communities, lawyers, business people, workers, and other constituency groups voiced their various concerns, objections, and support for the project. The INQUIRY exhibit includes Inquiry transcripts, stories, and photographs.

Students, staff, and faculty can engage with the exhibit in a number of ways:

  • Workshops: Curator and former journalist Drew Ann Wake will offer tailored workshops with courses from across campus to review the collected evidence and engage in role play from various Inquiry perspectives. Ms. Wake, with co-organizer Amy Perrault, has also invited several key individuals from the Inquiry to meet with students. Ms. Wake is consulting with faculty to design sessions that draw on course objectives and bridge in key concepts the project highlights.
  • Plenary session: On the morning of November 13th, Glen Coulthard, Julie Cruikshank, and Alestine Andre INSERT POSITIONS/CONNECTIONS TO BERGER INQUIRY HERE will speak about the political, social, educational, and historical dimensions of the Berger Inquiry and its legacies. INSERT LOCATION/TIME DETAILS HERE
  • CTLT Workshop: The Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology is hosting a guided workshop and facilitated conversation around the exhibit’s themes and teaching/learning potential. Faculty and TAs are especially encouraged to attend. (For more details and to register, click here.)
  • Student Research Collective: An interdisciplinary student research collective is developing around themes highlighted in the exhibit and relevant to a number of contemporary processes: Aboriginal community consultation, resource extraction, sustainable development, current pipeline projects, non-renewable energies.
09/5/12

Green College Interdisciplinary Lecture Series

Check out the current listings of interdisciplinary series at Green College, consult the Calendar of Events for further details, or sign up for the event newsletter!

Each year, Green College hosts a number of lecture series that are open without charge to College members, the UBC community, and the general public. These series are presented by the College in collaboration with faculty members from UBC departments and programs who act as convenors and coordinate themes and speakers.

Interdisciplinary events typically take place at the College either before dinner or after dinner. These timings “outside typical classroom and business hours” are in keeping with the extracurricular nature of the College’s academic programming, and are intended to make it easy for those who attend the talks to join the speakers and College residents for dinner.