ABSTRACT

Current teaching, learning and assessment practices can lead students to believe that courses within a programme are self-sufficient and separate. Integrative Learning explores this issue, and considers how intentional learning helps students become integrative thinkers who can see connections in seemingly disparate information, and draw on a wide range of knowledge to make decisions.

Written by international contributors who engaged reflectively with their teaching and their students’ learning, the book seeks to develop a shared language of integrative learning, encouraging students to adapt skills learned in one situation to problems encountered in another, and make autonomous connections across courses, between experiences, and throughout their lives. More informed teachers can help students develop the necessary attributes for intentional learning, which include having a sense of purpose, fitting fragmentary information into a ‘learning framework’, understanding something of their own learning processes, asking probing questions, reflecting on their own choices, and knowing when to ask for help.

Integrative Learning draws on international research and vast studies to provide the reader with the resources to ensure access to a unified learning experience. The book discusses conceptual and technical tools necessary for facilitating integrative learning across a range of disciplines as well as providing learning pedagogies and considers integrative learning in the context of the relevance of higher education in the complexity and uncertainty of the 21st century. It will appeal to academics and researchers in the field of higher education, as well as those generating higher education curriculums.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

ByDANIEL BLACKSHIELDS, JAMES G. R. CRONIN, BETTIE HIGGS,

chapter 4|10 pages

Integrative learning in a campaigns and elections class

ByJEFFREY L. BERNSTEIN, HAILEY L. HUCKESTEIN

chapter 6|13 pages

Learning agreements: road maps to integrative learning

ByMARY CREANER AND JANE CREANER-GLEN

chapter 9|13 pages

Integrative learning: the first year seminar

ByBETTIE HIGGS

chapter 11|14 pages

Capstone courses as a vehicle for integrative learning

BySHANE KILCOMMINS

chapter 13|11 pages

The drama workshop as a catalyst for integrative learning

ByKATE McCARTHY

chapter 14|13 pages

The course portfolio as a catalyst for integrative learning

ByMARIAN McCARTHY

chapter 15|12 pages

Interdisciplinary science: integrative learning in first-year undergraduate science

ByEILISH McLOUGHLIN AND ODILLA E. FINLAYSON

chapter 16|15 pages

Learning beyond cognition: embodying integration from seminar to the stage

ByJACK MINO, PATRICIA SANDOVAL

chapter 17|13 pages

Building bridges to learning communities

ByGEOFF MUNNS

chapter 18|13 pages

Digital Humanities and integrative learning

ByJULIANNE NYHAN, SIMON MAHONY, MELISSA TERRAS

chapter 20|14 pages

Learning by doing: a practicum for head and neck cancer prevention

ByELEANOR M. O’SULLIVAN

chapter 22|12 pages

Joining the dots: the curriculum vitae as an integrative learning tool

ByAILEEN WATERMAN