Co-designing For Interdisciplinary Expertise with In-service and Pre-service Teachers

Interdisciplinary expertise is a vital means for Australian students, and by extension, their teachers, to contribute productively and actively towards addressing transversal real-world challenges. In professional situations and school contexts, teachers face many challenges as they engage in multidisciplinary foundational knowledge, engage in hybrid and networked education, develop students’ transversal capabilities, and commit to interdisciplinary professional learning practices. Yet there is a pressing need to connect the dots and create possible solutions for developing interdisciplinary expertise for teaching in pre-service and in-service education. Whilst policies and research literature recognise the need to prepare teachers for interdisciplinary practices, an articulation of what constitutes such expertise is firstly required. In this study, a co-design methodology is presented as an effective, user-centred approach that actively involves teachers’ educators, teachers, and other stakeholders to develop a rich understanding of teachers' interdisciplinary expertise. The study offers insights into design processes revealing interrelated tensions in collaborative co-design. Premises connecting these tensions include poorly understood interdisciplinary pedagogies, theory- and evidence-deficient teacher education programs, and limited emphasis on developing well-rounded teacher expertise to teach students to integrate disciplinary knowledge. This study will report on the design and outcomes of two day-long intensive co-design workshops conducted to translate research findings and insights from 23 semi-structured consultation interviews with Australian teacher educators, in-service teachers and teacher leaders, and pre-service teachers. Data were collected using multi-stream video recordings of all interactions during the workshop and through the collection of co-created design artefacts (e.g., drawings, notes). Thematic analysis and a grounded theory approach were employed to systematically identify and interpret recurring patterns within the observational data, ensuring a rigorous and systematic exploration. As a result of the workshops, the project team, together with the participants, produced a framework of teachers' interdisciplinary expertise. Additionally, a design pattern book was created with associated resources consisting of a set of practical, reusable design tools and methods. These resources are contextually grounded in the education discipline and contribute to the development of teachers' interdisciplinary expertise in pre-service education and in-service professional development. The advantages and utility of the co-design methods adopted in the workshops are offered as recommendations for developing teaching practices that are scalable, sustainable, and responsive to diverse settings and changing contexts. Our research posits that insights from co-design processes and outcomes hold the potential to significantly enhance and inform future approaches to interdisciplinary expertise development for both in-service and pre-service teachers.