(Page 6 of 61) - Political Science and Interdisciplinary Courses authored by Erb, Scott.

course (classroom strategies), and how to integrate the different disciplines. In one way
the two courses would be very different. Modern Times would be taught with up to 60
students, and each instructor would receive credit for teaching a four credit course. In
Children and Political Violence we choose to split the four credit load between us (2
credits each), even though we’d both attend and participate in every class. The benefit of
that is that we kept the course size limited to 18. In each course the web tool Blackboard
was used to enhance communication with students and provide a forum for discussion. A
comparison of the two courses yields practical insights of the issues surrounding team
taught interdisciplinary courses. For each course I first discuss general issues involved in
preparing and teaching the course, then consider the particular challenge concerning
integration of political science in the course.

Modern Times: Art, Music, Politics and the Great War

Modern Times has been taught twice, in Fall 2003 and again in Fall 2004. The

organizing theme was not World War I (though it was the temporal core), but modernism.
Europe, we told students, underwent a major cultural change during the period around the
Great War, and that this can be seen in art, music, and politics. The question posed to the
students at the start was whether we could better understand the time period and
specifically the nature and impact of modernity if we brought three separate disciplines to
bear on the same general theme. All students taking the course were enrolled in one of
three companion sections of English Composition, taught by Tiane Donahue and Luann
Yetter, where they would engage in writings and discussions to complement the course,
and receive assistance for the writing requirements.

We developed a course proposal, and requested approval from the Dean of Arts

and Sciences and the Provost to teach this course as an experimental first year course,
with enrollment limited to 60 incoming first year students. Our stated goal was to help
students make the academic transition from high school to college, learning the skills
needed to succeed, and understanding that education is not just mastering traditional first
year survey courses, but integrating knowledge and exploring connections with intriguing
subject matter. The goal was to guide students to recognizing that education was not just
about getting a degree in order to earn more money, but to appreciate the joy of academic
inquiry, and the richness that understanding and thought can bring to life. In other words,
our goals were truly interdisciplinary, we were not trying to recruit majors or promote the
specifics of our own disciplines. We received approval to offer the course, with funds for
course development. Administrative support was enthusiastic and consistent.

Having

“invented the subject” we turned to defining learning outcomes and the scope of the
course.

Defining desired learning outcomes and developing a syllabus proved difficult.

We each struggled with how to integrate our disciplines into the issues. We found
ourselves overloaded with topics, themes and readings, as we first approached the course

This course led to the creation of first year seminars, piloted last fall and which are likely to become a

permanent part of General Education at UMF. Although inspired by Modern Times, most of the first year
seminars are not team taught, nor are they interdisciplinary. Their size is limited to 18 students. The
general goals, however, are the same as Modern Times, and an example of the collegial agreement can be
found at: http://neasc.umf.maine.edu/data/portfolio/index.htm (click first year seminar).