An Ecological Framework and Design Patterns for Developing Teachers’ Interdisciplinary Expertise

Teachers face an increasing need to engage in teaching practices that extend beyond their disciplinary specialisation. They are called upon to teach cross-curricula topics, contribute to STEM and STEAM education, and engage in other integrative teaching and learning practices. However, pre-service teacher education and in-service teacher professional development programs rarely focus on developing the expertise necessary to do this.

In this seminar, I will present a recently completed translational co-design project that aims to co-create actionable design knowledge for teacher educators to support the development of teachers’ interdisciplinary expertise. First, I present key outcomes from our literature review and scoping study that informed the development of an ecological framework for teachers’ interdisciplinary learning. Then, I present design patterns that we co-designed for developing teachers’ interdisciplinary expertise. I conclude with an invitation to provide feedback on our developed approach to capture actionable design knowledge and some critical reflections.