Development of interdisciplinary lessons integrating science and engineering in heterogeneous teams: Education students' attitudes

The course “Interdisciplinary Aspects in Science and Engineering Education” is a unique course designed to expose students of science and engineering education to the characteristics of interdisciplinary teaching and learning. The theoretical part of the course deals with the nature of science and engineering and the interaction between the two, various hierarchies describing the level of integration between disciplines, and possible strategies for developing interdisciplinary lessons. In the practical section, the participants develop, in heterogeneous teams of students from different academic backgrounds, an interdisciplinary lesson integrating science and engineering, and teach it to their peers. Using qualitative tools, the research described in this paper characterized the attitudes of 112 students towards developing an interdisciplinary lesson as part of a team. The findings indicate that the students identified both the difficulties involved in developing an interdisciplinary lesson as part of a team and the advantages inherent to teamwork. It was further found that the weight of the attitude component that recognized the contribution of teamwork to the development of interdisciplinary lessons was considerably higher than the weight of the component indicating the difficulties that involved teamwork.