Scaffold the cognitive processes of interdisciplinary understanding during collaborative modeling¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 qualitative), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

The authors recommend that future work examine effective ways to structure students' interactions and scaffold the cognitive processes associated with interdisciplinary understanding as students figure out a phenomenon from diverse perspectives. They note that collaborative modeling involving multiple expertise "can also lead to conflict and misunderstanding due to different perspectives and non-overlapping expertise", and that integrating separate models while ensuring syntactical quality and shared understanding remains a challenge. The study's findings on time allocation across processes motivate targeting scaffolds at transforming knowledge and maintaining a critical stance.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Identification of appropriate scaffolds to enhance the effectiveness of collaborative multidisciplinary modeling tasks

Constraints¶

• The authors call for future studies rather than reporting a tested scaffold; the study itself demonstrated the potential of the tasks but did not evaluate specific scaffolds

Target Learners¶

• high school students working in multidisciplinary groups

Target Learning Goals¶

• interdisciplinary discourse
• merging disciplinary perspectives

Claims¶

• Groups' success in merging perspectives was related to the time they allocated to the interdisciplinary cognitive processes, especially transforming knowledge and critical stance [+W]

Related Strategies¶

Examples¶

• The science unit 'How does alcohol consumption affect our body?' — the 15-lesson multidisciplinary modeling unit the strategy comes from

Key Sources¶

• Idit Adler · Saja Rabie. (2026). Towards interdisciplinarity: emerging patterns of discourses during collaborative multidisciplinary modeling. Instructional Science (2026) 54:36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-026-09785-4