Facilitating the Integration of Learning: Five Research-Based Practices to Help College Students Connect Learning Across Disciplines and Lived Experience

Students’ ability to integrate learning across contexts is a critical outcome for higher education. Oftenthe most powerful learning experiences that students report from their college years are those that prompt integration of learning, yet it remains an outcome that few educators explicitly work towards or specify as a course objective. 

Given that students will be more successful in college (and in life) if they can integrate their learning, James Barber offers a guide for college educators on how to promote students’ integration of learning, and help them connect knowledge and insights across contexts, whether in-class or out-of-class, in co-curricular activities, or across courses and disciplinary boundaries. 

The opening chapters lay the foundation for the book, defining what integration of learning is, how to promote it and students’ capacities for reflection; and introduce the author’s research-based Integration of Learning (IOL) model.

The second section of the book provides practical, real-world strategies for facilitating integrationof learning that college educators can use right away in multiple learning contexts. James Barber describes practices that readers can integrate as appropriate in their classes or activities, under chapters respectively devoted to Mentoring, Writing as Praxis, Juxtaposition, Hands-On Experiences, and Diversity and Identity. 

The author concludes by outlining how to apply IOL to a multiplicity of settings, such as a major, a single course, programming for a student organization, or other co-curricular experience; as well as offering guidance on assessing and documenting students’ mastery of this outcome.

This book is addressed to a wide range of educators engaged with college student learning, from faculty to student affairs administrators, athletic coaches, internship supervisors, or anyone concerned with student development.

James P. Barber is Senior Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Associate Professor of Education at William & Mary. Dr. Barber is an expert in the areas of college student development (in particular, self-authorship assessment), assessment of student learning and integrative learning. Prior to his faculty appointment, he worked in student affairs administration for nearly a decade, specializing in fraternity and sorority affairs, residence life and student activities. Dr. Barber also has substantial experience with globalization and international education. He has led students on study abroad experiences in the Czech Republic (2011), China (2013, 2016), and Spain (2017, 2019).