Why an Interdisciplinary Program?

UIC has recently made important strides to support interdisciplinary research, teaching, and service efforts. This recognizes that new knowledge often emerges best when two or more traditional disciplines join to study a particular problem. In addition, interdisciplinary work is often the way to support new fields of endeavor. In the case of Learning Sciences, it is clear that both of these ideas apply. As mentioned, there are problems in learning that are addressed only when there is careful consideration of the content.

There are also educational reasons for an interdisciplinary degree. Many problems in teaching and learning would benefit from individuals trained to consider teaching and learning in general and in a specific context. As is discussed in more detail in Section 8.2, such individuals are much needed in all sectors of the educational system, both in traditional settings and in the private sector. It may be possible to address some of these broad needs within traditional disciplines. But the Learning Sciences Graduate Program will actually address these needs in different areas simultaneously and with greater effect. Consider, for example, these three cases, each of which illustrates a particular problem that has occurred in our traditional graduate programs already:

• Computer scientists are hampered in efforts to plan and implement science education lessons within a computer science program; an interdisciplinary approach that uses work in K-8 science learning will remove this barrier.
• Chemists interested in knowing better the steps that occur as a college student come to a thorough understanding of mechanism; interdisciplinary training that incorporates educational psychology perspectives will address this.
• Someone looking to train for a leadership position in training high school teachers in inquiry teaching of science needs to know the science well; an interdisciplinary program would provide expertise in learning and in science.

The interdisciplinary Learning Sciences Graduate Program will do more than provide overlapping training to these different students (a well coordinated cross-listing plan might do that). By housing these and other students in a single program, each individual graduate will learn much more about the problem of how to apply education, psychology, and computer science to learning of specific content, for each person will see how this general problem is solved in different ways.

The constitution of the Learning Sciences Ph.D. program as an interdisciplinary unit will allow the Program to incorporate the findings from several different fields. Participating program faculty (current and anticipated) represent disciplines and areas of inquiry such as literacy, cognition, the natural sciences, instruction and assessment, linguistics, mathematics, measurement, computer science, communication, visual arts, and human development. These faculty will inform the program and will also make it much easier for research to be applied where it is most needed: in the specific content and educational programs found across UIC's many colleges. The program will be directed by a Coordinating Committee of three faculty, selected by the core faculty in the Learning Sciences who represent the multiple colleges and disciplines contributing to the program and approved by the Deans of the Graduate College, College of Education, College of Engineering, and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The Coordinating Committee, in consultation with the core faculty, will provide leadership, define the overall goals of the program, and encourage the submission of training and interdisciplinary grants that support the goals of the program. Admission of candidates to the program and the monitoring of student progress will be performed by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) of the Learning Sciences program, a position appointed by the Dean of the Graduate College in consultation with the Graduate Studies Committee. The Coordinating Committee, in consultation with the DGS and the Graduate Studies Committee, will monitor the academic curriculum for the students, proposing revisions for approval by the core faculty as appropriate. Initial approval of the academic program and subsequent revisions to the program will undergo review and approval processes that apply to all Ph.D. programs, except that the Educational Policy Committees of three colleges (Education, Engineering, and Liberal Arts and Sciences) will be involved in this process. This program will not supplant the ongoing training programs of the traditional degree-granting Departments. Instead, this interdisciplinary program will expand the outreach of these programs, provide new courses and activities that will enhance the traditional programs, promote interactions between investigators and students in these programs, attract more high-quality students ot UIC and increase funding opportunities for UIC faculty through the development of interdisciplinary training and research grants.

By way of summary, the proposed Graduate Program in Learning Sciences is intended to achieve the following objectives:

• Produce graduates with demonstrated strength in the application of learning sciences to the theoretical and practical design and analysis challenges found within and across disciplinary contexts.
• Establish a community of faculty and graduate students in pursuit of common interdisciplinary interests in learning sciences, thereby enhancing UIC's capacity to address significant interdisciplinary questions at the nexus of research and practice.
• Prepare scholar/researchers who are equipped with the unique disciplinary and methodological knowledge necessary to conduct rigorous research on fundamental issues of learning across diverse populations.
• Prepare cohorts of scholars/researchers/teachers who in their own practice can integrate deep disciplinary content learning and the assessment of that learning in environments that foster active and engaged learners.
• Enhance the intellectual infrastructure and context at UIC for researching and improving Undergraduate, Master's, and Ph. D. level educational programs by assisting faculty in applying the learning sciences knowledge base to the design, implementation and evaluation of learning experiences that serve a diverse study body within a Research I academic institution with a strong urban education mission.