Interdisciplinary Courses in Arab and German Universities

Training

Given the complex global challenges, research cooperation across disciplines is more crucial than ever. However, the integration of interdisciplinary approaches into higher education curricula poses a challenge in itself. Therefore, the AGYA training workshop in Amman on ‘How to Integrate Interdisciplinary Courses in Arab and German Universities’ in August 2019 brought together Arab and German university instructors to explore the concept of interdisciplinary course curricula and its implementation in higher education systems.

The purpose of the AGYA training workshop was to investigate interdisciplinary courses and programs in higher education and to train the university professors with regards to an interdisciplinary redesign of their courses. In the AGYA training workshop, university professors from Germany and five different Arab countries received a state of the art hands-on training on how to utilize the interdisciplinary approach in the conception of their university classes. ‘The training sessions were excellent and thought-provoking. I am looking forward to apply the different techniques that I have learned in my university classes back in Tunis,’ sums up participant Dr. Aida Seddik from the University of Tunis El- Manar. Her colleague Dr. Alrefaiyeh Mousa from the College of Computer Engineering and Information Technology at the Palestine Polytechnic University, Hebron, adds: ‘The workshop offered us a great opportunity to gain excellent knowledge about developing interdisciplinary courses. Furthermore, I could meet people from different universities that inspired me and will help me to open new opportunities for cooperation.’