Collaborative Student Projects Across Classrooms and Disciplines: How to Foster Academic Skills Through Shared Experience
Ralph Hale and Valerie Surrett
Cross-disciplinary student projects are effective in transforming student attitudes, incentivizing hard work, and enhancing learning. This spring, Memory students were divided into “research teams” that designed futuristic memory replacement systems (MRS), and English students were divided into “journalism teams” that wrote editorials about the MRSs, translating science for a general audience. The project underscored the necessity of developing partnerships and communication channels across disciplines. Students demonstrated awareness of real-world implications of academic work and viewed their projects from outside their disciplines. This workshop will focus on development of academic skills and how these benefits are possible in many cross-disciplinary pairings.