Increasing undergraduate interdisciplinary exposure through an interdisciplinary web-based video series

There is a need for innovative approaches in the classroom to increase student preparedness to address and solve some of today’s complex social problems. Interdisciplinary courses can be one way to accomplish this. This is an exploratory study to examine if an interdisciplinary web-based video series is associated with improvements in interdisciplinary competence. The course is taught using a flipped pedagogical approach in which a web-based interdisciplinary video series first delivers exposure of content to students and class time is then spent in solving real world problems in interdisciplinary teams. Goals of the study include introducing an innovative approach to teaching interdisciplinary courses, examining if it is associated with an improvement in interdisciplinary competence, and evaluating student receptivity. In this paper we describe this approach using a case study in obesity education.