Which teaching approach most effectively enables graduate students to…

Concept: A teaching approach is classified by the organising principle it uses. Integration means that the content, methods and viewpoints of several disciplines are drawn together into one treatment of a topic instead of being taught as separate subjects. Inclusion means that the learning is planned so that learners of every background, ability and social identity can participate and have their perspective represented. Integration therefore supplies breadth of perspective, and inclusion supplies breadth of participation.

Application: The stem imposes three requirements at the same time — examination from multiple perspectives, scientific accuracy, and inclusivity. Environmental problems such as air pollution, deforestation or water scarcity are simultaneously ecological, economic, political and ethical, and their burden falls unequally on different social groups. Drawing the disciplines together keeps the scientific content accurate while adding the economic, social and ethical viewpoints, and the inclusion principle brings the experience of the affected groups into the discussion. The approach that carries both properties at once is the integrated and inclusive approach.

Contrast with the other approaches:

• A process approach organises teaching around the procedures of enquiry — observing, classifying, measuring, hypothesising, experimenting and inferring. It develops method, but on its own it does not require several disciplinary viewpoints or planned participation of diverse learners.

• A conceptual approach organises teaching around a hierarchy of key concepts and generalisations, moving from concrete instances to abstract ideas. It gives conceptual clarity, but it says nothing about whose perspectives enter the discussion.

• A scientific approach follows the evidence-based procedures of the natural sciences, stressing objectivity, measurement and verification. That secures accuracy of the scientific content, but the approach by itself neither draws the economic, social and ethical disciplines into the treatment of the problem nor plans for the participation of diverse learners.

Cross-check: Test the three requirements one by one. Multiple perspectives are met by interdisciplinary integration; scientific accuracy is met because the science disciplines are among those integrated; inclusivity is met by the inclusion principle. Only the integrated and inclusive approach satisfies all three together, so that is the answer.