Building Students' Integrative Thinking Capacities: A Case Study in Economics and History

Having engaged in interdisciplinary team-teaching in both the two-course cluster format and the single course format, we intend to show how we helped students recognize and find their own integrative insights between the disciplines of history and economics. In the process we not only compare the advantages and disadvantages of each format but also illustrate more fully the differences between multidisciplinarity and true integration. We show (1) how the weaknesses and strengths of our two disciplines complement each other, (2) how the different goals of each discipline can be reached using the methods of the other, and (3) how appropriately-designed readings, writing assignments, group presentations, and other activities can help students to achieve the goals of integrative interdisciplinary pedagogy.