Transdisciplinary Collaboration

Applying evidence-based approaches to training, education, and professional development in an increasingly technical learning environment is demanding. To gather achieve effective results, we need resources. What is the best technology to use in a given situation, and what other modalities can supplement an existing program? From identifying learner’s need to determining which technologies, evidence-based strategies, and tactics to use, we all need opportunities for critical reflection and consultation. To that end, the EDHP-SIG seeks to inspire and facilitate transdisciplinary collaboration among healthcare educators, instructional designers, and other educational specialists by creating new conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and/or translational innovations that unify and move us beyond discipline-specific approaches to address common problems.

The ambition of the EDHP-SIG is to respect the “individual and collective diversity” (McGregor, 2017)  of the variety of health educators and the distinct experience of instructional designers to promote reciprocal relationships through transdisciplinary collaboration.  The EDHP-SIG will provide a “virtual infrastructure” (Ronstadt & Yellin, 2010) to plan development opportunities, share strategies and resources, support the advancement of design research studies, and provide exposure to resourceful tools and experiences for participants.

Membership and participation in the EDHP-SIG events and website resources support information gathering, dialogue, engagement, and constructive feedback. Participants can expect to procure consultation from other educators in the health professions and with instructional designers. The EDHP-SIG activities support the qualities of transdisciplinary collaboration, as summarized by McGregor (2017) by promoting:

• Focus on complex educational problems facing participants. Solutions identified by the EDHP-SIG transdisciplinary team require the integration of “life-world and local expert perspectives and scientific/disciplinary perspectives” (McGregor, 2017, para(s). 5).
• Facilitation of dynamic team approaches. The EDHP-SIG moderates to ensure participants address the question or problems presented, assist in translating the knowledge emerging from interactions, and work to sustain group agreement.
• Inclusion of diverse groups of health educators and instructional designers. EDHP-SIG composition consists of members from academic, non-academic, public (government), private (industry/business), and civil society health educators and instructional designers in varying domains.
• Collaborative problem-framing. The EDHP-SIG expects that as shared objectives are reached, a shared understanding of how to address solutions will be achieved, and a common language will emerge.
• Sharing and access to integrated knowledge via online resources and links. Synthesized comprehensive solutions on research, theory, and practice developed through transdisciplinary collaboration will be available through the AECT website, which provides tools to organize practical findings through an online archive to serve as a collection.
• Dissemination and diffusion of innovation and results. We expect that EDHP-SIG transdisciplinary wisdom will be disseminated and diffused in the wild while being created, discussed in conferences, documented in journals, and will continue to evolve as the collaboration continues.

Working with the EDHP-SIG requires a unique combination of skills, knowledge and experience. However, as Carroll et al. (2014) suggest, “transdisciplinary requires more humility that recognizes the boundaries of what single disciplines can achieve and more openness to other perspectives.”  As educators and instructional designers, we view learning, teaching, and using technology through our own lens. Participating in transdisciplinary collaborative experiences with EDHP-SIG has the potential to promote excellence, translate research, and theory into practice and product innovation.

References

Carroll, L., Ali, M. K., Cuff, P., Huffman, M. D., Kelly, B. B., Kishore, S. P., Narayan, K. M., Siegel, K. R., & Vedanthan, R. (2014). Envisioning a transdisciplinary university. Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics: A Journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics, 2 Suppl 2(Suppl 2), 17–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/jlme.12183

McGregor, S. L. T. (2017). Challenges of Transdisciplinary Collaboration: A Conceptual Literature Review. Integral Leadership Review, 7(1), 30–42.

Griffin-Sobel, J. P., Acee, A., Sharoff, L., Cobus-Kuo, L., Woodstock-Wallace, A., & Dornbaum, M. (2010). A transdisciplinary approach to faculty development in nursing education technology. Nursing Education Perspectives, 31(1), 41.

Ronstadt, K., & Yellin, P. B. (2010). Linking Mind, Brain, and Education to Clinical Practice: A Proposal for Transdisciplinary Collaboration. Mind, Brain & Education, 4(3), 95–101. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-228X.2010.01088.x