Projects per year
Abstract / Description of output
This article follows an experimental interdisciplinary undergraduate course into the busy, unpredictable space of the contemporary city. It locates practice-based research of interdisciplinary higher education in a dynamic learning environment, which is comprised of unpredictable connections between disciplinary perspectives. Following Karen Barad, the aim is to diffract interdisciplinary higher education in order to recognise and work with a multiplicity of meaning and experience. This article explores an alternative to the dominant model of challenge-based learning in the interdisciplinary classroom. Creating Edinburgh: The Interdisciplinary City is an undergraduate elective offered by Edinburgh Futures Institute at the University of Edinburgh. It provides students with opportunities to explore the city of Edinburgh in small groups, comprised of students from a wide range of degree programmes. Groups are invited to engage with a selection of themed fieldwork topics throughout the 11 weeks of the course, visiting specific sites and responding to a series of tasks and questions. These include topics such as Sustainability, Decolonisation and Wildness, which are presented as interdisciplinary field topics to explore, rather than problems to solve. This article develops a research methodology that sets out to travel with students as they navigate their way through the city during their weekly field trips. Combining first-hand autoethnographic accounts with walking interviews, it offers an insight into interdisciplinary learning and teaching in the expanded field of the contemporary city. Conceiving urban space as an assemblage of digital and non-digital objects, events and activities, members of the research team accompany students during their fieldwork, equipped with audio recorders, cameras and notebooks. The documents of these research journeys are then diffracted within a new materialist framework. The article concludes with questions and prompts for working with the agency and affordances of a field-based education practice.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1151 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-11 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Humanities and Social Sciences Communications |
Volume | 11 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 6 Sept 2024 |
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Dive into the research topics of 'Creating Edinburgh: Diffracting interdisciplinary education in the contemporary city'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Active
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Principal's Teaching Award Scheme
Overend, D., Choi, S., Cross, A., Kurchik, M., Scoles, J. & Cullen, C.
4/01/23 → 31/12/24
Project: University Awarded Project Funding
Activities
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Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Conference
David Overend (Presenter), M Winter (Presenter), Clare Cullen (Contributor) & David Jay (Presenter)
21 Mar 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
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Mobilising place as the context for developing students’ skills
David Overend (Speaker)
29 Feb 2024Activity: Academic talk or presentation types › Invited talk
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The Postdigital Classroom
David Overend (Invited speaker) & James Lamb (Organiser)
20 Feb 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course