Chapter 11: Faculty Peer Coaching in Transdisciplinary, Experiential, Problem-Focused Learning Contexts

Transdisciplinarity is a form of interdisciplinarity where teams from several disciplines work to transform complex problems that no one discipline alone can solve. It can be a highly effective pedagogical model at the undergraduate level, but it requires a significant level of trust among participating instructors, as transdisciplinary pedagogy requires intensive project-and collaboration-focused teaching methods, coordinating with external stakeholders, and working on issues that are beyond any one discipline’s capacity to solve. Peer coaching among instructors can successfully address such challenges. Based on the experience of teams of instructors and administrators from innovation and design organizations at two universities, this chapter explores how coaching can be adapted to serve transdisciplinarity pedagogy and adapts an existing design and assessment heuristic tool to scaffold transdisciplinary teaching teams to plan, teach, and coach each other throughout such courses.