Interdisciplinary studies in history

Definition of interdisciplinary studies

According to Moran (2010p14) interdisciplinary is any form of dialog or
interaction between two or more disciplines.
According to Wein and Newel (1997)interdisciplinary studies is a process
of answering a question, solving a problem or addressing a topic that is
too broad or complex to be dealt with adequately by a single discipline of
profession and draws on disciplinary perspectives and integrates their
insights through construction of a more comprehensive perspective.
Inter means between
Disciplinary refers to a particular field of study or body of knowledge such
as physics, psychology and history.
The writer's working definition is that interdisciplinary is a combination or
involving two or more academic disciplines or fields of study.
Conceptions of interdisciplinary studies
There are three approaches that historians can use to triangulate in the
study of history which are multi disciplinary, interdisciplinary and
transdisciplinarity. Multidisciplinary is the relating to the study of one topic
involving several subject disciplines. Transdisciplinarity concerns that
which is at once between the disciplines across different disciplines and
beyond all disciplines. interdisciplinary is the combination of two or more
academic fields of study.
Multidisciplinary studies a topic from the perspective of several disciplines
at one time but makes no attempt to integrate their insights, its approach
tend to be dominated by the method and theory only while
interdisciplinary dwells more on integration insights which helps it
complex problems. Also interdisciplinary is dominated by ideas, data and
information,methods,tools,concepts and theories in its approach. This is a
difference in the sense that multidisciplinary only have two approaches
while interdisciplinary has many approaches
Interdisciplinary studies or interdisciplinarity concerns integration.
integration means to make a whole.ln interdisciplinarity integration is a
process by which ideas, data and information,methods and concept's from
two or more disciplines are blended together. For example archeology is
interdisciplinary study of human activities in the past. Archeology has
various goals which range from studying human evolution to cultural
evolution and understanding culture history.The disciplines involves

surveying, excavation and eventual analysis of data collected to learn

more about the past.
Strengths of interdisciplinary studies
Interdisciplinary approach is a key concept to the advancement of school
curriculum at all levels.interdisciplinary is an improvement to the means
with which students will interact for the purposes of achieving education
outcome.
Students who are taught by interdisciplinary skills master higher order
thinking skills and integrated pedagogy become very attractive to top
colleges and wealthy business.interdisciplinary skills lead to future
discovery and innovation.For example Libby who discovered radiocarbon
dating.He applied his findings in chemistry to the disciplinary of
archeology.By studying interdisciplinary the thinking of students become
broad and manage t invent something on their own.

Through interdisciplinary studies students learn tolerance for their pears

as well as leadership and collaboration skills they don't only concentrate
on there own curriculum but rather other grades,which even widens their
thoughts.
Disadvantages of interdisciplinary studies

The interdisciplinary approach is uniquely different from a

multidisciplinary approach, which is the teaching of topics from more than
one discipline in parallel to the other, nor is it a crossdisciplinary
approach, where one discipline is crossed with the subject matter of
another. Interdisciplinary techniques go beyond these two techniques by
allowing students to see different perspectives, work in groups, and make
the synthesizing of disciplines the ultimate goal. Many interdisciplinary
scholars debate weather the specific interdisciplinary technique of teamteaching is the best approach for student progress in the classroom
Integration confusion.Since the interdisciplinary involves many disciplines
the student might get confused when researching.
Richard (2000 p16)argues that team taught courses lay to claim
interdisciplinary often fail to achieve their objectives precisely because the
individual members of the instructional team themselves never really
understand their common concerns which they must dwell in.This is

because these students study too many disciplines at the same time
which can end up confusing students.
In conclusion interdisciplinary studies is the combining two or more
academic disciplines.There are three approaches in which historians can
use to triangulate in the study of history these are
transdisciplinarity,multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.multidisciplinary
and interdisciplinary are two different concepts.Using interdisciplinary
studies has its advantages such as it enhances students communication
and also it is a key concept to the advancement of school curriculums
however it has its disadvantages such as integration confusion and that it
is time consuming.
References
Richard (2000p14)The Best of Both Worlds: Blending History and
Geography in the K-12 Curriculum.
Willard Libby"How and Why to Teach Interdisciplinary Research Practice.
Newel and Klein"From the Stage to the Classroom: The Performing Arts
and Social Studies.(1997)
Moran (2014p14) "Innovations in Interdisciplinary Teaching, West port, CT,
American Council on Education ORYX Press"
Richard (2000p14)The Best of Both Worlds: Blending History and
Geography in the K-12 Curriculum
Willard Libby"How and Why to Teach Interdisciplinary Research Practice.
Newel and Klein"From the Stage to the Classroom: The Performing Arts
and Social Studies.(1997)
Moran (2014p14) "Innovations in Interdisciplinary Teaching, West port, CT,
American Council on Education ORYX Press"