Teaching integration

In interdisciplinary education, it is not only important for students to be exposed to knowledge from different disciplines, but also to learn to integrate this knowledge into both a more comprehensive understanding of the scholarship and a more holistic view of the world. In this chapter we focus on how students become “integrators.” We do this by looking at the learning trajectory of the bachelor program Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) offered at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. First, we discuss its conceptual understanding of integration. Second, we describe how interdisciplinary integration is taught at LAS throughout a reflective and interdisciplinary core curriculum. We explain how this process is supported by on- and offline tools. Finally, we present some alternative foundations for learning trajectories toward integration by complementing the foundational “Repko method” with other integrative research methodologies that may be chosen to shape learning trajectories that lead toward becoming integrators.