Personal Experiences with Interdisciplinary Collaboration

For the purpose of this assessment, a critical reflection is a short essay that draws on your own experience as evidence. In this critical reflection, experience must not just be described; it should be critically explored and interrogated, guided by the concepts and frameworks provided in the assigned readings.

Much of the work in this unit is about process, and gives students the opportunity to rigorously and critically reflect on how issues such as difference, dissent, care, establishment of protocols, time management, leadership, cultural competence, compromise, ethics, values and other issues are key elements in this process. Instead of relegating these issues to the realm of 'circumstance' or a question of luck/timing/who's in your team, etc, we explicitly foreground them as elements that can be cultivated, practiced, and learned from.

Aims

This assignment is a capstone assessment of your understanding of the process of interdisciplinarity and your understanding of some of the key concepts and frameworks that can support this process. Your critical reflection will provide an analysis of your journey from a discipline-based perspective to interdisciplinary collaboration in the context of your Case Study teamwork.

Your Reflection must include:

Substantial discussion of at least two readings from the unit's reading list, but you may use additional readings and research as necessary.

Detailed discussion of at least one lecture theme, but you may discuss more than one theme, as appropriate. You may choose to cite lectures (particularly by guest experts – they offer a lot of great analysis and concepts!) but this should be in addition to your 2 reading minimum.

A bibliography, formatted in an academic style (the bibliography is not included in the word count). You can use any academic referencing style (e.g. APA, Harvard, Chicago), but make sure that you use it consistently.

In considering what to include:

Tensions and “failures” are good opportunities for reflection! Understanding how and why interdisciplinarity sometimes doesn’t succeed is just as important as understanding how and why it does. 

If you feel that your collaboration may have been constrained due to working online, you may choose to discuss such impact in terms of the concepts and frameworks offered by the readings.

Beware of approaching this as an opportunity to just complain or ‘let off steam.’ Instead, use this assignment to rigorously analyse the unfolding results of your team project, using intellectual resources from the unit as your guide.

Structure

Unlike more formal essays, a critical reflection does not require a strong thesis (i.e. one overarching independently-derived and evidence-based argument). However, it must:   

Be clearly organised, with a logical structure and coherent flow of ideas. A strong introduction (that lays out the direction of the reflection), clearly defined paragraphs, and a conclusion are appropriate. Subsections might be appropriate.

Employ analysis and argument, rather than just description. Instead of just describing your experiences, you should analyse them, and explain how they are meaningful and significant. How do they exemplify, uphold, challenge or extend the concepts and frameworks from this unit? How do the concepts help you understand your experience?

Please check here some useful suggestions prepared by Dr Robin Dixon