Join us this summer as we showcase innovative and interesting topics from each institution of the UT System.

First up is UTSA’s own Jodi Peterson, Claudia Arcolin, and Emily Johnson on the Interdisciplinary Project:

The year 2020 was monumental and will have immense historical significance. It seems possible, that we are entering into an entirely new historical epoch that will present challenges as well as opportunities. How are students facing this defining moment in their lives? Working as a collaborative team, an interdisciplinary project was designed to encourage students from six disciplines to gain insight into the experiences of others, reflect on their own experiences, and create artistic responses.

With the desire to give students a community in which to document this defining moment in their lives, a group of faculty, designers, videographers and librarians at The University of Texas at San Antonio created a collaborative interdisciplinary project. This project reached students from multiple disciplines within the College of Liberal and Fine Arts and the College of Architecture, Construction and Planning, allowing students to express their defining moment through written, artistic, musical and architectural modalities.

The project involved more than 500 students from six disciplines and was led by a group of nine instructors. Dedicated professionals from the Academic Innovation and Library teams designed the learning experience and identified best practices considering Universal Design for Learning, digital fluency, FERPA and copyright. Students’ artifacts have been posted in the university Research Press Archive and will be transformed into Open Educational Resources accessible to the entire community.

Discover how to design an interdisciplinary project for a large number of students, coordinate instructors from multiple disciplines, create the virtual learning environment and engage students in a unique learning experience.

Participants will engage in an interactive presentation and will experience the virtual learning environment for the interdisciplinary project with access to Padlet for a dialogue. Through breakout sessions/groups, participants will have the opportunity to explore in detail how to implement a similar project in their institution.

Anticipated Participant Learning Outcomes

Participants to the session will learn how to:

1. Design a virtual learning activity for an interdisciplinary project.
2. Create a collaborative team to implement a project that involves several disciplines.
3. Explore best practices and rules for interdisciplinary projects in terms of FERPA and copyright.
4. Preserve student artifacts into Online Archive.

Click to view the recording