In this essay, the authors argue that linked-course learning communities serve students at nonresidential metropolitan public universities by increasing their academic achievement, reducing their attrition, and engaging them in the project of public education. They use a winter 2004 research project to argue that linked courses create supportive…

A limited approach to team teaching at the college level is described and assessed. Two instructors with solo assignments collaborated to teach a single instructional unit across separate sections of an interdisciplinary course. The experience demonstrated that small-scale joint teaching can have significant advantages while avoiding the practical…

Discusses an interdisciplinary course on the psychology and philosophy of William James. Describes course organization and goals. Explains that the course includes sections on James' life and personal characteristics, his psychological and philosophical works, and specific psychological and philosophical topics that he addressed. Assesses…

The author expresses concern that the interdisciplinary approach to art education requires too much staff time and additional teacher education, limits innovation, allows only superficial exposure, and trivializes art. He asserts that students will gain more from an in-depth experience in at least one discipline of art. (SJL)

Teachers of courses on Russian for business and economics face the difficult task of bridging the objective and subjective needs of students. The need to have large and varied amounts of representative material to introduce unfamiliar concepts and new terminology is a challenge for course designers. Courses should expose students to three…

In some colleges and universities, linguistics does not have a positive image. This is due in part to the number of students that struggle through linguistic theory that they will forget once the examination or course is over. However, instructors can make linguistics courses serving primarily nonmajors more attractive by omitting certain topics…

The evolution and design of an interdisciplinary honors course at the University of Maryland at College Park are described. The course, on knowledge and its human consequences, brings together faculty experts, "teacher-learner" faculty, and first-year honors students to explore different kinds of knowledge and their philosophical,…

The undergraduate course in agricultural ethics has been under development at Texas A&M University for four years. The course that has evolved is the result of discussion between the philosophy and agriculture departments. The course attempts to incorporate basic economic principles that affect agriculture as well as to tie these principles to…

In the fifties and early sixties, United States colleges and universities shied away from courses about communist insurgencies because of the repressive influence of McCarthyism. Vietnam was eliminated from classroom investigation, forcing students to take the issues to the streets. In an effort to expose and examine issues that arose from the…

A professor of American Indian law describes an interdisciplinary curriculum approach that combines legal and historical perspectives, focusing on issues of tribal sovereignty, tribal experience, and tribal persistence and continuity despite formidable legal and historical obstacles. Course content, strategy, objectives, and the law-history…