2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This research describes the design and assessment of two pedagogical approaches aimed at fostering a multidisciplinary graduate engineering course that bridges the domains of education and computer science. Leveraging the Communities of Practice framework, we examine how computer science students integrate new knowledge from education and computer science to engage in an educational data mining project. In the first course iteration, we investigated the creation of a multidisciplinary community by connecting students from both disciplines through a blend of problem-based learning instruction and traditional lectures. In the second version of the course, we established a multidisciplinary environment by bringing two instructors, one with computer science expertise and the other from education. To investigate the effectiveness of these approaches, we conducted multiple student interviews and classroom observations. We found that employing students as intermediaries had a localized impact on discipline integration, proving particularly effective for students with backgrounds outside of computer science. However, it fell short of achieving an overarching integration of education knowledge within the entire class. Furthermore, the co-teaching approach influenced class dynamics significantly, as instructors honed their brokerage skills and introduced crucial components to the multidisciplinary toolkit. These elements could be reinterpreted by students within the context of their projects, leading to a deeper integration of education and computer science disciplines. However, while students did acquire more knowledge from their less familiar discipline, they didn't always achieve a comprehensive practical understanding of the class outcomes. The paper also discusses the merits and drawbacks of employing both approaches to build an interdisciplinary class. The benefits, pros, and cons of having both approaches to building an interdisciplinary class are discussed.