Transdisciplinarity 6-curriculum

(6) PhD Curriculum for Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity

Achieving Breadth and Depth of Understanding

Vincent Vesterby

Conference theme: Educating the next generation

Who Might be Interested In this Curriculum?

People seeking a curriculum leading to a doctoral degree in modern-generalist-discipline-independent-transdisciplinarity.

Multidisciplinary specialists seeking advanced transdisciplinary skills and mindset.

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Curriculum Content ...1

There are two main areas of study in the curriculum. 1.Modern-generalist-discipline-independent-transdisciplinary-understanding.2.Supplementary courses: mathematics, expository writing, foreign language, literature, and history.

Achieving transdisciplinary understanding has two parts.1.Foundations of Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity. 2.Guided advanced independent study, which involves auditing as broad a selection of science, math, and social studies courses as possible.

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When auditing courses the students would not do the assignments or take the tests.

Instead they would:•Mine the course material, the text, and the lectures, for general-factors. •Learn to view the course material by way of patterns-of-organization, structural-logic, and development.•Write descriptions of the specific forms the general-factors manifest in the subject area of each discipline.•Compose a summary of the subject area of the discipline. •Write a report discussing the integration of the subject area of the discipline with the subject areas of other interrelated disciplines.

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Each of the supplementary courses plays a supportive role for discipline-independent-transdisciplinary-understanding.

Mathematics courses will be audited. • The students will analyze the math itself, discovering at

the level of structural-logic how and why mathematical relations work.

• The goal is to develop enough understanding of math to be able to find and discuss general-factors occurring therein.

• This level of insight is expected to enable graduates to understand the use of math in the various disciplines.

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One foreign language is required. • This should be a major world language in which science is

published and which is widely used in systems science. • By graduation the students should have sufficient

command in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in their foreign language to successfully attend a conference in that language.



This curriculum requires expository writing that is descriptive in nature. • Definitions of terms are based solely on descriptions of

intrinsic significant aspects of the reality referents of the terms.

• Descriptive writing should describe things developmentally from the simple to the complex, from what goes before to what follows, from the lower levels to the higher levels.

• Students will integrate the general-factors they have found in the audited classes into their progressively growing universal-conceptual-model.


The mode of discipline-independent-transdisciplinarity is based on understanding rather than on quantity of memorized knowledge.

As the students audit a diversity of classes they create within their mind their own universal-conceptual-model that is based on understanding.

The extent of this understanding provides a universal framework on which to add and organize the details of various specific situations.

Those details are accessed as needed from a wide variety of data sources, and from consultation with disciplinary experts.


Using Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity ...2

This curriculum provides the ability to approach any system and analyze it for the general-factors of which it is composed, to map its structure and processes, and to provide guidance for its management.


Transdisciplinarity 6-curriculum

Science

Transcript of Transdisciplinarity 6-curriculum