Starting with Worldviews: A Five-Step Preparatory Approach to Integrative Interdisciplinary Learning

In this article we propose a five-step sequenced approach to integrative interdisciplinary learning in undergraduate gateway courses. Drawing from the literature of interdisciplinarity, transformative learning theory, and theories of reflective learning, we utilize a sequence of five steps early in our respective undergraduate gateway courses to foster preliminary lessons crucial for integrative interdisciplinary learning. Collectively, these steps help students recognize their own worldviews even as they will eventually understand tnad value the multiple disciplinary perspectives to be integrated in interdisciplinary work.  The five steps discussed in this article are initial community-building activities, a class viewing of a segment from The Muppet Show featuring Harry Belafonte, a combination of class and small group discussion, an intellectual autobiography assignment, and our respective adaptations of Smith Magazine’s Six-Word Memoirs.