Our group project involves exploring interdisciplinary communication skills
and collaborative learning across STEM disciplines. In order to examine the topic we
completed a literature review and surveyed staff about their views on interdisciplinary
communication and collaborative learning at undergraduate level. We also held two
focus group sessions on the topic with staff from three institutions.
Though one of our intended project outcomes was a design model for interdisciplinary
approaches to communication skills, as a result of the literature review we have redefined
our purposes and will instead, in the first instance, present guiding principles for the
effective integration of interdisciplinary communication skills training into existing and
future programmes. In this paper we outline the first draft of these principles which
recognise interdisciplinary collaboration as a pedagogical ‘trading zone’ and see the
development of communications between the disciplines as a necessary response to the
realities of world complexity, the dissolving of boundaries between subjects, the need to
combat excessive specialisation, the drive for rounded graduates who possess scientific
literacy, critical and creative thinking, and expanded expertise, vocabulary and tool sets,
in addition to the ability to communicate to wider audiences. In this context we report on
how these principles have been impacted by the very recent moves to integrate arts-based
subjects with STEM disciplines - moving from STEM to STEAM. We suggest that this
is an important transition from which benefits for the student should arise
