Integrative Learning:
http://www.ugs.udel.edu/gened/gei2005/Capstone%20Experience%20Mapping%20the%20Terrain.pdf
One of the great challenges in higher education is to foster students’ abilities
to integrate their learning across contexts and over time. Learning that
helps develop integrative capacities is important because it builds habits
of mind that prepare students to make informed judgments in the conduct of
personal, professional, and civic life; such learning is, we believe, at the very heart of
liberal education.
The good news, as documented in the Association of American Colleges and
Universities’ report Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation
Goes to College (2002), is that many campuses today are creating opportunities for
more integrative, connected learning. First-year seminars, learning communities,
interdisciplinary studies, capstone experiences, portfolios, student self-assessment,
and other innovations are increasingly in evidence. The bad news is that they often
involve small numbers of students or exist in isolation, disconnected from other
parts of the curriculum and from other reform efforts. Indeed, the very structures of
academic life encourage students to see their courses as isolated requirements
to complete.
How, then, can campuses help students pursue learning in more intentionally
connected ways? What does such learning look like? How might it be shaped by
emerging cultural realities and by new thinking about learning and teaching? This
paper attempts to situate integrative learning within the larger territory of liberal
education and to set the stage for new thinking about what works, how, and why.
Learning That Is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
At the heart of liberal education lies the idea that learning should be greater
than the sum of its parts. Resonant with the classical tradition of educating the
“whole” person, liberal education has historically encouraged “breadth of outlook,
a capacity to see connections and hence an ability to make fundamental decisions
and judgements” (Rothblatt 1993, 28). Historically, this work of integration has
been credited with countering the forces that narrow perspective, liberating students
from the darker sides of human nature and social constraint, and preparing them for
responsible participation in civic life. The promise that “integrative learning” leads to
personal liberation and social empowerment inspires and challenges higher education
to this day (see AAC&U 1998).
The concept of integrative learning inspires, in part, because of its intellectual
appeal. The capacity to connect is central to scholarship broadly conceived—whether
focused on discovery and creativity, integrating and interpreting knowledge from
different disciplines, applying knowledge through real-world engagements, or 2 teaching students and communicating with the public (Boyer 1990). Done well,
these facets of scholarship all require taking account of different dimensions of a
problem, seeing it from different perspectives, and making conceptual links among
those dimensions and perspectives (Suedfeld et al. 1992). Integrative learning also
has emotional appeal. Indeed, emotion can be a catalyst for integrative learning.
When students become passionate about their learning, when a topic ignites
enthusiasm, integration is more likely to happen. As E. M. Forster famously wrote
in Howard’s End (147), “Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be
exalted….”
Educators have long endorsed the value of integrative learning. Today,
however, there is new appreciation of its importance
to contemporary thought and life. For one thing,
disciplines are now less bounded; new areas of scientifi c
knowledge are emerging on the borders of old ones, and
the humanities and social sciences are engaged in lively
trade of concepts, methods, and even subject matter
(Geertz 1983; Bender and Schorske 1997; Gallison
1997). Technology and globalization are transforming
knowledge practices in all the disciplines, professions,
and arts (Gibbons et al. 1994). Indeed, we are awash
in information in all areas of life, challenging the
integrative abilities of experts and students alike.
The workplace, too, has been transformed. The “knowledge society” places a
premium on higher education, making college a virtual necessity for American
students aspiring to a middle-class style of life. “Flexibility” and “mobility” are
the watchwords of the new economy; a career spent with the same employer, or
even in the same line of work, is fast becoming the exception rather than the rule.
Accordingly, students are now advised that the knowledge they gain in their majors
will not be useful for long unless coupled with skills and dispositions that enhance
their ability to fi nd and take advantage of new opportunities as they arise. To be sure,
many educators remain wary about linking liberal education to vocational ends.
Others, however, are more sympathetic to the concerns of students and their families
about preparation for work, and they see in students’ search for vocation a humane
activity that liberal education should inform. As Ellen Lagemann (2003, 
argues,
“one might even venture that vocation, broadly defi ned…tends usually to be the
theme that links the different experiences that defi ne an individual’s education” (see
also Shulman 1997).
Students today would benefi t from taking a more intentional, deliberative, and
refl exive stance toward vocation, which requires integrative learning during and
beyond their college years, as well as toward other parts of their lives. Whether one
is talking about jobs, health, or the environment, globalization and developments
in science and technology have made everything more complex, bringing many
advantages to the fortunate, but also exacerbating inequalities and elevating risk
for all (Beck 1992). We no longer live in a world where it is easy to feel in control
or empowered to affect what is happening in our neighborhoods, much less in
the nation or the world, yet our own actions—even the food, clothing, and cars
we buy—have immediate consequences for those far away (Giddens 1994). As
University of New Hampshire scientist Berrien Moore (2004) commented on the
results of a massive international study on air pollution, “What happens in Beijing
will affect Boston, what happens in Boston will affect Paris, et cetera. And I think
that that’s something that we will have…even as we begin to solve local problems,
this connectivity of the planet will come back at us time and time again.” These
complex conditions of twenty-fi rst-century life make high demands on our capacities
for moral judgment and practical reason (Sullivan 2002). To participate responsibly
as local citizens, people must also be “citizens of the world,” aware of complex
interdependencies and able to synthesize learning from a wide array of sources, to
learn from experience, and to make productive connections between theory and
practice (Nussbaum 1997).
Our colleges and universities can play an important role in helping students
develop this integrative cast of mind, and many campuses espouse such a goal.
College catalogs make powerful promises about students’ personal and intellectual
development as thinkers and citizens—and certainly there are inspiring models and
“existence proofs” to show what may be possible (Colby et al. 2003). To meet these
commitments to integrative learning more fully, and to meet them for all students, is
the diffi cult challenge ahead.
Integrative learning does not just happen—though it may come more easily for
some of us than for others. Whether one is talking about making connections within
a major, between fi elds, between curriculum and cocurriculum, or between academic
knowledge and practice, integrative learning requires work. Of course, students
must play a role in making this happen—a theme we will return to shortly—but
integrative learning is unlikely to occur without commitment and creativity from
our educational institutions. To support integration, many colleges and universities
Mapping the Terrain
today are developing new kinds of institutional “scaffolding”—courses that invite
students to take different perspectives on an issue, capstone projects that ask students
to draw on learning from earlier courses to explore a new topic or solve a problem,
experiences that combine academic and community-based work, or systems of
journaling and refl ection like those known as “learning portfolios.”
Such developments meet obstacles at every turn. As Carol Schneider and Robert
Schoenberg (1999) suggest, organizing for integrative learning goes against the
grain of many structural features of campus life: academic departments and schools
often see their responsibility as socializing students into a particular discipline
or profession; the split between general education and the major exacerbates the
problem; the bachelor’s degree is defi ned more in terms of courses and credits than
by a vision of what the degree should mean; systems of faculty roles and rewards have
been slow to recognize interdisciplinary and applied scholarship, not to mention
the extra efforts entailed in designing, teaching, and assessing courses aimed at
integrative learning (also see Huber 2001). Other familiar disconnects include the
gaps between programs in the professions and the liberal arts and sciences, the
curriculum and the cocurriculum, and campus and community life.
Among the many structural barriers to integrative learning cited by Schneider
and Shoenberg (1999; also see Wellman and Ehrlich 2003), the course and credit
system is, perhaps, the most diffi cult to address. Since the replacement of the
required curriculum with “free electives” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, the provision of content through courses counted in standard credit units
has long encouraged faculty and students alike to think of learning in course-like
modules or chunks. Warning that “colleges are depriving students of a connected
view of scholarship,” Gerald Graff (1991, 1-2) writes that
one of the oddest things about the university is that it calls itself
a “community of scholars,” yet it organizes itself in a way that
conceals the intellectual links of that community from those who
don’t already see them. I trace this oddity to…the assumption
that the natural unit of instruction is the autonomous course,
one not in direct dialogue with other courses. The classes being
taught at any moment on a campus represent rich potential
conversations between scholars and across disciplines. But since
these conversations are experienced as a series of monologues, the
possible links are apparent only to the minority of students who can
connect disparate ideas on their own.
The idea of making students more
self-aware and purposeful—more
intentional—about their studies is a
powerful one, and it is key to fostering
integrative learning
More explicit rubrics for self assessment,
sometimes connected with
portfolio development, may also serve
powerful integrative purposes by
making students more self-aware,
self-directed learners.
A Statement on Integrative Learning
Fostering students’ abilities to integrate learning—across courses, over time, and
between campus and community life—is one of the most important goals and
challenges of higher education. The undergraduate experience can be a fragmented
landscape of general education courses, preparation for the major, cocurricular activities,
and “the real world” beyond the campus. But an emphasis on integrative learning can help
undergraduates put the pieces together and develop habits of mind that prepare them to
make informed judgments in the conduct of personal, professional, and civic life.
Integrative learning comes in many varieties: connecting skills and knowledge from
multiple sources and experiences; applying theory to practice in various settings; utilizing
diverse and even contradictory points of view; and, understanding issues and positions
contextually. Signifi cant knowledge within individual disciplines serves as the foundation, but
integrative learning goes beyond academic boundaries. Indeed, integrative experiences often
occur as learners address real-world problems, unscripted and suffi ciently broad to require
multiple areas of knowledge and multiple modes of inquiry, offering multiple solutions and
benefi ting from multiple perspectives.
Many colleges and universities are creating opportunities for more integrative, connected
learning through fi rst-year seminars, learning communities, interdisciplinary studies
programs, capstone experiences, individual portfolios, advising, student self-assessment, and
other initiatives. Often, however, such innovations involve only small numbers of students
or exist in isolation, disconnected from other parts of the curriculum and from other reform
efforts. But a variety of opportunities to develop the capacity for integrative learning should
be available to all students throughout their college years, and should be a cornerstone of a
twenty-fi rst-century education.
Students need programs of study that will help them understand the nature and
advantages of integrative learning and assist them in pursuing their college experience in more
intentionally connected ways. They also need courses designed by creative faculty that model
and build integrative skills, and curricula that defi ne pathways that encourage integrative
learning within and across fi elds. Wider collaboration between academic and nonacademic
staff, college and community, four-year and two-year institutions, higher education and
K-12 will create further opportunities for integrative learning throughout students’
educational careers.
It is important for educators to work together to build knowledge about integrative
learning in its many varieties, and about how it is best encouraged and assessed. Developing
students’ capacities for integrative learning is central to personal success, social responsibility,
and civic engagement in today’s global society. Students face a rapidly changing and evermore-
interconnected world, in which integrative learning becomes not just a benefi t … but
a necessity.
What is Integrative Learning?
Integrative learning can be thought of as the concept that learning can cause 1 + 1 to yield something more than 2. When we learn something new, it isn’t just placed in isolation in our brain, but is instead available to combine with what we have learned before. Our minds use knowledge to build connections to existing knowledge to bring greater meaning to what we know, thus increasing the learning that takes place. New knowledge should connect with our existing knowledge to lead us to be able to ask new questions so we can learn even more. Also, when we are exposed to a range of subject matters and learning experiences
Developing students’ ability to integrate and apply learning is an important piece of what makes college education relevant for today’s world. On any given day, newspaper headlines point to the need for graduates who are sophisticated in their thinking, able to discern complexity in situations, and motivated to continuously seek better, more responsible, solutions to problems encountered in work, in life, and in society. Today’s world demands graduates who can contribute depth of knowledge and also use a variety of sources to seek new insights. The current context also requires graduates who are creative; who can anticipate the not-yet-known, and negotiate rapid technological, cultural, and global shifts.
ttp://www.aacu.org/meetings/integrative_learning/index.cfm
Conversations on Poverty and Economic Justice
“Fostering students’ abilities to integrate learning–over time, across courses, and between academic, personal, and community life–is one of the most important goals and challenges of higher education.” AAC&U Statement on Integrative Learning
http://www.gvsu.edu/integrativelearning/index.cfm?id=539DA37D-A98E-5BF4-5621DA9C7CD9A4F2
WHY INTEGRATIVE LEARNING? WHY NOW?
The impulse to connect is a universal human desire and a critical component of intellectual and emotional maturity, and probably always has been. The challenges of the contemporary world, however, have brought a new urgency to the issue of connection and integration. An early cartoon in the always-insightful Dilbert series captures well one of the defining features of our time. In the cartoon, a character uses a teacup on its side to represent the human brain. An enormous fire hose sprays water in the direction of the cup to illustrate the information overload that characterizes so much of modern life. As one might expect, nothing stays inside the cup, while water sprays everywhere on the page. Today’s college student needs more than ever a developed capacity to make sense of this flood of information flowing into his or her consciousness every day. That capacity depends fundamentally on how well she or he can see connections and integrate disparate facts, theories, and contexts to make sense of our complex world. For these reasons, in its new campaign, Liberal Education and America’s Promise: Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College, the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is highlighting integrative ability as a key outcome of a quality undergraduate education today.
It is clear that integrative learning is essential to prepare students to deal effectively both with complex issues in their working lives and the challenges facing the broader society today and in the future. As the articles in this issue make clear, after years of compartmentalizing knowledge, leaders across the educational spectrum are renewing efforts to connect fragmented learning. In fact, it could be argued that in most arenas outside the academy–from the workplace to scientific discovery to medicine to world and national affairs–multilayered, unscripted problems routinely require an integrative approach.
For these reasons, AAC&U suggested in its 2002 report, Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College, that schools, colleges, and universities should enable students to become “integrative thinkers who can see connections in seemingly disparate information and draw on a wide range of knowledge to make decisions.” These thinkers must learn to “adapt the skills learned in one situation to problems encountered in another: in a classroom, the workplace, their communities, or their personal lives” (21).
The Greater Expectations report, of course, was not the first to call for this kind of learning. Integration has become an ongoing topic of discussion among federal and state policy makers, campus and K-12 leaders, business leaders, and members of professional societies. The U.S. Department of Education’s Goals 2000 project endorsed “interdisciplinary frameworks” and thematic teaching of “big ideas” (1998). The 1991 report Science for All Americans (Rutherford and Ahlgren) is critical of teaching scientific principles in isolation and calls for thematic approaches and for approaches that teach students to apply academic concepts to real-world contexts. The American Association for the Advancement of Science also supports integrative learning and the application of scientific concepts to real-world situations through Project 2061.
Integration of knowledge and multidisciplinary perspectives are among the top priorities endorsed by the professions as well. In its report Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology argues for advancing integrative learning, including the capacity to work in multidisciplinary teams, as a target goal for future engineering professionals. The International Association for Management Education predicts interdisciplinary activity will reach a new level of sophistication as more problem-oriented courses and multidisciplinary units are developed in undergraduate and graduate business programs.
Leaders in the K-12 standards movements also advocate integrative learning. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics includes “connections” as one of its standards, suggesting that “instructional programs . . . should enable all students to . . . understand how mathematical ideas interconnect and build on one another to produce a coherent whole; [and] recognize and apply mathematics” in contexts outside of the field (2002, 64-65). These sorts of standards are echoed in other subject areas.
The business community, too, is calling for integrative capacities in employees. As early as 1991, the U.S. Department of Labor SCANS Report (Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) argued that “workers are expected to identify, and integrate information from diverse sources” and that they “should understand their own work in context of work of those around them . . . [and] understand how parts of systems are connected” (22). The Business-Higher Education Forum’s report Spanning the Chasm argues that “requiring interdisciplinary courses and projects will benefit students by helping them integrate skills and by presenting them with a broader range of perspectives” (1999, 8).
Finally, the calls for integrative learning are supported by cognitive research. The National Academy of Science report How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School suggests that
[in] traditional curricula . . . though an individual objective might be reasonable, it is not seen as part of a larger network.
Yet it is the network, the connections among objectives, that is important. . . . to understand an overall picture that will ensure the development of integrated knowledge. (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, eds. 2000, 139)
Given the interest from many sectors and the exciting developments in integrative and interdisciplinary scholarship that are transforming so many fields of study, support for integrative learning appears to be quite strong. The challenge remains, however, to turn promising integrative learning innovations into coherent programs of study with progressively more rigorous expectations for all today’s undergraduate students.
http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/postings/697.html
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