You need to have some knowledge in a discipline or field, and some grasp of the specialist discourse, before you can tackle challenging problems in that discipline or field at the edge of your current ability. The school curriculum reflects to some extent the bigger picture of knowledge creation in the wider world. For example school 'Maths' is derived through a process of transformation from the subject discipline of Mathematics (see the work of Prof Basil Bernstein to find theory about the rules and power involved). Many observers would agree that a wider 14 to 19 high school curriculum would be welcome (comparing favourably the International Baccalaureate qualification to the narrower English 3 Advanced Level Subjects system) but that is not the same as getting rid of subject disciplines across the school curriculum. And a significant problem at school level, for example 14 to 19 years, is that it is expensive and difficult to provide meaningful work experience for students in vocational or professional fields so that they have understanding of real world contexts in which to contextualise problem solving activities. To provide a wide educational experience for 14 to 19 year olds seems appropriate, including some element of vocational or at least practical skills development for all learners. But to abandon traditional subject disciplines completely seems a rather drastic step and to replace it with generic skills development or vaguely vocational fields of study may lead to a dumbing down of the curriculum rather than raising expectations for all students. Will this lead to traditional subject discipline education for the children of elites and a dumbed down cheap and cheerful generic curriculum for the majority?

Dear Chandana,

It is very interesting question, as I working on the applications of the wireless networks in future smart Grids, It was necessary for me  to know about control systems, communication network, renewable energy sources, the intelligence, the electricity Market, etc, however I did not know about them in my udergraduate studies. I think yes we need to break the boundaries that we have created because the technology is going at this direction.

Regards

Finland could implement the system by having a line between the old and the new system which moves up by a year each year, until all pupils and students (and teachers, lecturers) are on the new system. 

Yes, certainly. 

I believe that the future of Culture and Sciences resides on Multidisciplinary Studies.

Revision of the problem of demarcation in science will be urgent need in the near future.

The question is really thought provoking....different field of science/art when we link properly only can solve problems.  Instead of bounded studies wild and broad understanding is important.

Knowing is easy but understanding and using the things properly is showing one persons caliber.

The question keeps a lot of worth. However, when there was no disciplinary system in our but learning was there. From Evolution of human beings, people learn things through different method. Some of these methods are.

Self-direction. This method was used before the advent of agriculture and industry.

Brain doesn't have any specified boundaries

Its true our brain receive information from many disciplinary areas in the same way.

We have separated these pieces of information into different disciplines

the choice of separation is one that of outer world nor our inner mind.

this has been done over the period of time of evolution of human being.....as we become more evolved we have made more disciplines...it is for our convenience we have made all the se divisions.

I don't think early man lived on this planet know any of these  subjects like maths, history, physics, chemistry, biology but still he could understand whats around him and lead a peaceful life.

their brains have never been divided....it is the civilized man who made all these divisions.

Even now there is always an option choose what is required to your living from all that is available from around the world integrate it in your mind and then act...pieces can be added to make peace within the brain ....its all in your thoughts.

Basic knowledge of science help us to cross borders into various field of life

Reduction in science is a process of integration of knowledge/disciplines into fewer. Hence, it is a goal common to all scientific efforts.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that human mind is also analytical and tends to categorize the perceived world into smaller and mentally delimited areas (such as discipline) .

Although the ideals of multidisciplinary learning/knowledge  seems to be at odds with integration of disciplines, the two are NOT mutually exclusive.

You are talking about a real issue, knowledge is partitioned into smaller disciplines, one may know mathematics but nothing about health, technology, etc which are important to anybody' life.   I think something can be done if the time and the ability of human mind are not imposing limits.   

Disciplines have distinctive ways of organizing and communicating knowledge. If you are suggesting that we break down those structures, then, yes, your question seems plausible.

Project-based learning is an intrinsically interdisciplinary pedagogical approach.

 Banana yes. Cell... no. Cell depends on if you mean a political cell, spreadsheet cell, or cell in an organism. As for the general claims about doing away with disciplines or imagining they don't exist, that is fine except the disciplines help us determine the rules for arguing and constructing meaning. We don't just do that in our minds (by ourselves). 

In fact the diversity that is found in interdisciplinary approach to learning adds value to the pedagogical process that cannot be achieved by a single discipline. Yes we can.

Debra

Devemos aprender em um mundo sem fronteiras. Para isso é preciso aceitar as culturas diferentes. O conhecimento é naturalmente interdisciplinar que deve avançar para transdisciplinar. 

You might be interested in the attached papers on innovation pedagogy.

Interdisciplinary approaches to learning are the way to go nowadays, to the best of my understanding.

This discussion asks if learning can take place in a world without disciplinary boundaries. I believe the answer is yes and I will summarize my justification at the end of this post. Further, students of all ages can be better prepared for 21st Century jobs if interdisciplinary boundaries replace reducing education to its current, often disconnected parts. Students are better served when subject matter is seen as a component of a larger systemic process; however, this needs to be qualified in specific cases. One example is professional education, such as health care.

There are parts of this post that you might take as generalizations. They are not meant to be definitive statements, but explaining each one would make this post longer than intended. If you look at the K-12 curriculum in most public school systems, you will see there is little room for adapting a process that is essentially an inflexible curriculum. Other than special education services, there is not much individualization. This requires students to adapt, even if they are not able to make the needed changes.

Similar to our ever-changing work skill and demands, formal education best serves students when it is flexible; allowing selections from a variety of learning formats and content. While this might be a drastic change in education, it helps students to become independent learners who use what works best for them within the context of what is being studied. Basic skills, such as reading, writing, and mathematics can be taught across a curriculum that allows for real world applications.

There is a difference between disciplinary boundaries and teaching basic, introductory skills. This is an important distinction. Having objectives and goals are important to help learn basic skills. However, teachers can often facilitate learning as opposed to lecturing. Facilitation will help a student’s overall motivation and learning in order to function in the 21st Century workplace.

Most of us spent our elementary, junior high, and high school years learning within disciplinary boundaries. The emphasis was, and is on reducing problems within the context of a given subject matter. We are taught to separate curriculum into compartments.  Once we are out of school, we look at problems as being specific to a discipline (i.e. math, psychology, engineering, business). The problem is that the real world does not operate in the same way. Most problems are interdisciplinary in nature and need to be solved by using many different disciplines. Our formal education did not prepare us for this.

Curricula are developed to provide needed information about limited topic areas. Challenges we face today are more complex than in the past, and are interconnected with many other areas of study. Education needs to prepare students to work interdependently. Students will greatly benefit if curriculum and instruction is based on systems thinking that emphasizes complex systems. Since we don’t know what will be needed in the future, it seems that learning how to learn, both independently and interdependently as opposed to reducing learning to single disciplines is a critical skill that needs to be learned.

Concordo integralmente com Steve Schneider, 

Of course, Chandana, I believe, like Maria, that the future of Culture and Sciences resides on Multidisciplinary Studies. To do this, I think we have to start by offering young children a schooling based on experiences and projects. In addition, taking great care of language, avoiding unnecessary labeling, strategically combining different activities that stimulate multiple intelligences in an integrated way, etc. The arts (music, plastic, dance, drama, poetry, etc.) are very suitable means to educate in this sense.

Best regards

Excellently put Steve. Will this approach define the ancient preparation of Philosophers where the individual is subject to solve real life problems with multitude disciplines interdependently analyzed? 

The fact that physics and philosophy grow from the same root attests that disciplinary borders are later-day creation. In my academic field the borders are blurred and yet defended and maintained. 

You need to have some knowledge in a discipline or field, and some grasp of the specialist discourse, before you can tackle challenging problems in that discipline or field at the edge of your current ability. The school curriculum reflects to some extent the bigger picture of knowledge creation in the wider world. For example school 'Maths' is derived through a process of transformation from the subject discipline of Mathematics (see the work of Prof Basil Bernstein to find theory about the rules and power involved). Many observers would agree that a wider 14 to 19 high school curriculum would be welcome (comparing favourably the International Baccalaureate qualification to the narrower English 3 Advanced Level Subjects system) but that is not the same as getting rid of subject disciplines across the school curriculum. And a significant problem at school level, for example 14 to 19 years, is that it is expensive and difficult to provide meaningful work experience for students in vocational or professional fields so that they have understanding of real world contexts in which to contextualise problem solving activities. To provide a wide educational experience for 14 to 19 year olds seems appropriate, including some element of vocational or at least practical skills development for all learners. But to abandon traditional subject disciplines completely seems a rather drastic step and to replace it with generic skills development or vaguely vocational fields of study may lead to a dumbing down of the curriculum rather than raising expectations for all students. Will this lead to traditional subject discipline education for the children of elites and a dumbed down cheap and cheerful generic curriculum for the majority?

The brain itself don't separate the information, it does it because we have an environment when we do it. One example is art, let's talk about music. You can ask to any musician if music is science and they will say NO, music is emotions, but if you as any mathematician if music is emotion and they will reply NO, music is a clear mathematical sequence.  Now, think about fractals. We learn to see a beautiful image or a mathematical sequence. So our brain won't separate this is physics, so it can't be near playing, or this is colors, so don't mix them with flavors. We do it because our frame of mind and environment. but when you talk with a chef, he or she would say flavors and colors go better if.

More and more disciplines are crossing over, neuroscience is a good example, we need to know physics, biochemistry, genetic... and we need to use the information in a proper way to explain processes...

I don't see why not.   The problem will be to get persons to change because so many have gotten used to things the way they are.   Let's watch and see what takes place in Finland and as other countries join in this revolutionary effort.   I would say start with the younger ones that way that is all they know so the change would not be that difficult.

 There are many ways to think about this question. Off the top of my head, I think that we can divide knowledge about a discipline into two levels for those who are studying it. One is the general level knowledge where we hope students get a sense of the materials and are able to connect to other, related topics to strengthen their overall critical thinking base. The other level is professional level knowledge, where those students who are very interested and capable in a field will go beyond general level knowledge to focus in on very specific facts and concepts. While i very much like the idea of boundary-less teaching, I will draw a caveat from the fact that human minds created these boundaries to begin with and that it takes keen interest and a lot of practice to be able to derive the connections between disciplines. I am also concerned that this 'new' way of teaching may become yet another 'technique du jour' where in which students are just exposed to a new regime or paradigm with no more care than past approaches. Without due care we will then consider 'smart' students to be those who can make the connections we can make, while those who can't are dumb. What about assessing such a situation? Would a question on an exam be something like: Read the paragraph about a man (or yes a woman, bird, or donkey) who has made 5 decisions about things he will do in the next week and analyze each decision using interdisciplinary logic (?). In breaking down the answer, it might be that the man's chemistry was wrong in decision 1, his math was right in 2, his assumptions were wrong in 3, his psychology was right in 4, and his physics was correct in 5, with some detailed descriptions thereof. I actually like such an approach, but I have spent my entire adult life training myself to draw connections between anything and everything. Since it is well known that academic learning is something that we can only set the conditions for, I am not sure that we yet grasp the correct learning conditions for non-disciplinary learning and thus would have hard time in developing useful measuring sticks for formative and summative assessment--and this is not to mention the fact that we have done a pretty poor job of understanding both concepts for 'disciplinary learning'. In the end, I like non-disciplinary learning, but I am unconvinced that any one system is better, if we have knowledgeable, critically minded, dedicated, and caring teachers, who have the support of principals, parents, and students. Finland and Singapore use very different educational systems, yet both are near the top of the PISA, so who is better at teaching? I think we may be forgetting that teaching is not a one-size-fits-all proposition and that all teaching approaches must have comprehensible standards that everyone can use. I will finish with this question regarding the latter: Where is a enlightened group of people who will set the standards for non-disciplinary learning? I am such a person, but even I would not call this an easy task because very bright people tend to disagree on what constitutes knowledge / learning when there is nuance involved. In math or chemistry there are agreed-upon right or wrong approaches to problem solutions, but in non-disciplinary testing, who sets the bar on answers as to the 'proper' balance of math, logic, history, science, etc. in a student's answer?

Dear Hussin Jose Hejase and Heitor Romero Marques, thank you for the replies. Yes, the idea is for individuals to solve real life problems with a multitude of disciplines. Evaluation is ongoing and can be done in many ways. Below, is a brief overview that extends, somewhat, what I mentioned previously. For more specifics, I recommend accessing The Waters Foundation at watersfoundation.org.  The process I am referring to is Systems Thinking and it uses whatever disciplines are needed to solve simple to complex problems. I am defining a discipline as a body of knowledge and skills that is then applied to solve related problems. However, problems can be complex and require the use of numerous disciplines.

Systems thinking requires a systemic perspective. It is used to solve problems within a system that contains whatever components are needed as long as all parts of the system have the same overall goal. Some key concepts are seeing problems as interrelated relationships and seeing change happen in terms of patterns rather than individual events. It is the structure of a system that is important with each component affecting the others.

Educational systems teach the core information, skills, and values of distinct disciplines; things students need upon graduation. This worked for many years because education related to the workplace. As technology increases so does the type of education that is needed. Today, there is a need for critical thinking and creativity which are often not addressed past the curriculum being used. The status quo is maintained with little change in societal expectations.   

Using system approaches, emphasis is placed on the relationship between disciplines, various curricula, and the overall educational system. While this can be more complex, it is also open to change as needed. Rather than reduce learning to individual subject matter, the components of an educational system interact. Changes in curriculum are a needed part of a student’s education and it relies on creativity and more complex problems. This has been referred to as an organization learning system where maintenance and change are both needed. Finally, there is a place for integrating and generalizing knowledge and skills from many disciplines.

https://watersfoundation.org

Dear Chandana,

This might appear to be an ideal model where as knowledge develops overlaps between disciplines can be part of an exciting discovery for the learner.  But, in the same way answering the question , "which comes first, the chicken or the egg?"  Do we need people who have learned in this environment to more fully deliver it successfully or can we develop and deliver it really successfully now?  Finland and Scotland may be making some progress, but whilst we have universities still focused on set subject courses with pre-requisite learning there will be limitations driven by factors outside the control of the model.