About
This leveraging project, funded by the NSW Department of Education, 2021-2024, will extend our collective understanding of interdisciplinary expertise, and how to enhance its development for pre- and in-service teachers and, through that, how to strengthen students’ capabilities for interdisciplinary work. This project will produce an overarching framework that articulates the main constituents of teachers’ interdisciplinary expertise and co-create a set of practical reusable design resources for embedding the development of teachers’ interdisciplinary expertise in preservice education and in-service professional development.
Objectives
- To identify the principal challenges and barriers teachers face—and the capabilities and resources they need—when developing their students’ abilities to engage in productive interdisciplinary project work.
- To create a framework for developing teachers’ interdisciplinary expertise, including a set of reusable design resources for integrating the development of interdisciplinary expertise in pre-service teacher education and in-service professional development.
- To apply, test, refine and expand this framework and associated resources in a robust, iterative co-design process with experts, stakeholders and end-users.
- To disseminate the framework, resource kit and associated project outcomes.
Next steps
Our team is currently in the interview phase of this project and collating preliminary insights and resources. We will also host a webinar on the 27th of April 2023 to share project updates and design workshop plans. Register here.
Contact us
If you would like further information about this project, please contact teresa.swist@sydney.edu.au
Project team
- Lina Markauskaite
- Peter Goodyear
- Cara Wrigley
- Teresa Swist
- Genevieve Mosely
Consultation paper
This consultation paper specifically seeks to identify and map current practices and needs for developing in-service and pre-service teachers’ interdisciplinary expertise in the Australian and, particularly, NSW school contexts. It also expects to create a broad network of teacher educators and other collaborators across NSW Education and NSW universities interested in collaborating in future stages of the project.
The consultation is structured around four questions:
- What are the most important areas of teachers’ interdisciplinary practices and needs for professional learning?
- What kind of expertise and resources do teachers need for productive interdisciplinary teaching?
- What are the key features of effective professional education for interdisciplinary teaching?
- What are the main barriers and enablers for developing pre- and in-service teachers’ expertise for interdisciplinary teaching?
Project reference group
We appreciate the ongoing engagement, expertise and knowledge of current members, which include:
This group meets on a semi-regular basis (online and in-person) to:
- provide feedback and insights across the course of the DTIE project (2022-2023);
- inform the development of key project outputs with diverse knowledge, experience, and leadership; and,
- mobilise evidence about teachers’ interdisciplinary expertise by making it accessible, useful, and adaptable to pre-service and in-service teacher contexts.
Outputs
Project outputs to date can be found on this page.