Communicative Action and the Trans-Disciplinary Education ...

Kung-Pei TangCommunicative Action and the Trans-Disciplinary Education in Taiwan 40

Communicative Action and theTrans-Disciplinary Education inTaiwanKung-Pei Tang, Center for General Education at Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan, Email:[email protected].

doi: 10.22545/2015/00069

Based on the theory of communicative actiondeveloped by the German sociologist JurgenHabermas, we performed a systematic review of

the development of Trans-Disciplinary Education inTaiwan. The development of Trans-Disciplinary Ed-ucation in Taiwan is initiated by MOE Program forTrans- Disciplinary Education on Society-Humanity-Science and is also abbreviated as SHS Program.There are three sections in this paper. In the firstsection, we explained the SHS Program and its orga-nizational framework. We examined then the theoryof communicative action and discuss why his theoryis adopted in this study. In the final section, wereviewed a plan of ten discussion topics with com-municative action to illustrate how the SHS programmobilizes the faculty members to participate in publicaffairs. Since this program is still in progress, weare following four essential guidelines to describe thedevelopment of the Trans-Disciplinary Education inTaiwan.Keywords: Communicative action, Transdisci-plinarity, Trans-Disciplinary education.

1 Introduction

Trans-Disciplinary Education Program Office,MOE, Taiwan – The program of Trans-disciplinaryEducation was launched in 2012. As a pilot project[1] of the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, this

program is officially titled “MOE Program for Trans-Disciplinary Education on Society-Humanity-Science– Cultivation for the Competence of Cross-BoundaryProblem-Based Learning in Colleges”, and is abbre-viated as SHS Program[2].

Why did the SHS Program adopt the idea ofTransdisciplinarity? – The term “transdisci-plinary” is defined in different ways internationally.The academic debate on transdisciplinarity in thecontext of higher education refers to the “Seminaron Interdisciplinarity in Universities” in 1970. Thisseminar was critical in drawing outlines for trans-disciplinarity [3, p. 18; 139, 4, pp.46-47]. Centrefor Educational Research and Innovation was theorganizer of this seminar. The starting point was toget a better understanding of the following problem:“how to unify knowledge and what the many implica-tions of such unity are for teaching and research inthe universities” [5, p. 11]. A group of distinguishedauthors, such as Heinz Heckhausen, Marcel Boisot,Erich Jantsch, and Jean Piaget reflected on the ideaabout how the purpose of teaching is deeply tied tothe previous academic disciplines. Therefore, inter-disciplinarity represents methodological guidelinesto unify fragmented knowledge, which usually is dis-persed in different academic disciplines. Scholars,such as Heckhausen, Boisot, Jantsch, and Piaget,tried to set up general principles to re-categorize

Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & ScienceISSN: 1949-0569 online

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(regroup) disciplines by clarifying terms such as mul-tidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisci-plinarity. In other words, they gave themselves anexceptional task to redefine “a common system ofaxioms for a set of disciplines” [6, p. 515].

The Swiss developmental psychologist, Jean Pi-aget, pointed out that the idea of interdisciplinaryand transdisciplinary will become clear when peoplecarry out a study with cross domain perspectives. Pi-aget addressed the epistemological pathway from thebiological and social domains to science in general[7]. Inspired by Piaget, Erich Jantsch asked aboutthe purpose of science and criticized that science ispreserved as a ‘value-free’ abstraction. Compared tomultidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, Jantschascribed systemic thinking to transdisciplinarity. Heproposed to use transdisciplinary thinking to pro-mote organizational reform and innovation in univer-sities, which was called ‘transdisciplinary universitystructure’. In his opinion, while the university isa political institution, on the top of this structureshould be the purposive level. Thus, the centraltheme of transdisciplinary approach should be un-derstood as the new ‘univeristas’ as it would beoriented toward humanity [8, pp. 114-121].

After three decades, this idea of transdisciplinaryuniversity structure is also found in the “Handbookof Transdisciplinary Research”:

“Transdisciplinary orientations in research,education and institutions try to overcomethe mismatch between knowledge productionin academia, and knowledge requests forsolving societal problems”. [9, p. 3]

SHS Program aims at identifying approaches toCross-Boundary Learning and research, while main-taining the training program as an educational plat-form for both teachers and students to engage inlocal and global issues. Hence, the SHS Programadopted the concept of “transdisciplinarity”.

1.1 Organizational Framework of ThisProject

This four-year SHS program is implemented throughthe operation of five sub-divisions (see Figure 1):

(a) Promotion Office for Curricular Innovationsin Trans-Disciplinary Education – This officeserves to review and evaluate transdisciplinary

curricula and training programs developed bycolleges nation-wide. In addition, this officeresponds to request for curricular innovationsand practices in terms of transdisciplinarity andproblem-based-learning. The expected resultsshould be having courses and clusters addressingmajor issues of Taiwanese Society.

(b) Office for Internet Multimedia Service and Com-munication – This office serves to produce pro-gram outcomes through internet and communi-cations.

(c) Master Academy – A one-week summer academyaims to set up an internationally known learn-ing arena for Trans-Disciplinary Education.Students and teachers will be inspired andtrained with the approach of “learning by doing”through competition and interactive training.

(d) Regional Promotion Centers – The promotioncenters are responsible for cross-school and cross-region activities, including workshops, sympo-siums, and competitions.

(e) Office for Teaching and Learning Develop-ment within Trans-Disciplinary Education –This Office aims at providing faculty membersto have an in-depth understanding of trans-disciplinarity for curriculum design. To facili-tate the professional development objective, thisoffice organizes workshops and publishes a self-learning digital book. Through the workshopsand discussions, participants will improve theirskills in course design and curricular innova-tion[2].

1.2 The SHS Program Runs by Platforms

The program office and the five sub offices were es-tablished through the Request for Proposal (RFP)[10]. According to the Guidelines for Pilot Projectunder Humanity and Technology Education [1], SHSProgram must be innovative, experimental, and ful-filling the following tasks:

• It should have positive impacts on higher educa-tion and establish models for training programsfor scientific and technological talents.

• It should provide guidance for teaching andresearch in related fields.


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Figure 1: Organizational framework of SHS Program.

• It should contribute to international interactionsin the field of education and enhance academicreputation of Taiwanese Universities.

• It should establish a platform to integrate teach-ing and research resources and to share the re-sources.

From an administrative point of view, the existingmultidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisci-plinary programs can be divided into two categories:

1. Programs organized within universities: the Uni-versity Strategic Research Groups in the Uni-versity of Southampton, the InterdisciplinaryStudies Field Major at UC-Berkeley, the MATransdisciplinary Studies in Zurich Universityof the Arts, etc. [11, pp. 174-181].

2. Programs run by national or international orga-nizations: “Network for Transdisciplinary Re-search” (TD-NET), “The Academy of Transdis-ciplinary Learning & Advanced Studies” (The-ATLAS), and the “International Center forTransdisciplinary Research” (CIRET). TheseOrganizations serve as the platforms for otherexisting organizations. They focus on particu-lar central themes like sustainability and urbandesign[12] in initial phases [13].

With the experimental aspect, the SHS Programbegins its platform in the universities in Taiwan andthen opens to public issues that help establish theconcept of transdisciplinarity. In addition, it uses atop-down approach to introduce transdisciplinarityas an educational concept in the field of higher educa-tion. While SHS Program transforms the big pictureof Transdisciplinarity to the operational details un-der bureaucratic practice, it uses CommunicativeAction to define the program’s orientations, objec-tives, and proposals.

2 Necessity for CommunicativeAction in SHS Program

SHS program emphasizes Transdisciplinary Educa-tion, while the existing academic disciplines are thefoundation of the knowledge for teaching purposesin universities in Taiwan. The excessive usage ofbuzzwords in recent years has caused a skepticalsuspicion on the legitimacy of popularizing Trans-Disciplinary Education in the field. While hopingto promote the concept of Trans-Disciplinary Edu-cation, the officials in the higher education worrythat Trans-Disciplinary Education would remain anabstract buzzword with no real impact. Transdis-ciplinary represents knowledge intermediation and


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communication, which is beyond the existing disci-plinary boundaries [14]. That is to say, when weintegrate our thinking with knowledge in existingdisciplines, we are not able to describe clearly theprocess of transdisciplinarity. It becomes a concernthat without discussions about epistemological ormethodological understanding, the concept of Trans-Disciplinary Education would be used in any givensituation and eventually lose its value.

Jurgen Habermas’s concept and theories are ap-propriate to illustrate this concern. In his Theory ofCommunication, Habermas1 pointed out the socialtheoretical distinction between the life-world andthe System. He strongly criticized the uncoupling ofSystem and Life-world, and the “commodification,bureaucratization, and colonization of the life-world”.In his view, the systems become increasingly com-plicated in modern life. Therefore, the life-worldturns out to be increasingly rationalized. In this pro-cess, system mechanisms gradually become detachedform the social structures and developed into “au-tonomous organizations”. Finally, these autonomousorganizations uncoupled from the life-world. Theyare connected with one another via delinguistifiedmedia of communication such as money and power.The social interaction is steered by these systemicmechanisms and disconnected from cultural normsand values. In the meantime, the life-world becomesa subsystem – a part of the whole social system.Therefore, the systemic mechanisms must be closelyrelated to the life-world. This means that they needto be institutionalized in the modern societies [18].

Habermas believed in the idea of legitimation cen-tral. His theory of legitimation crisis focuses onthe topic of the fundamental crisis tendencies inthe modern, liberal, and democratic welfare state.Habermas believed that the fundamental problemof the modern capitalist state and the most obviousthreat to their survival is the tendency to develop

1The German social philosopher Jrgen Habermas, born in1929, belongs to the second generation of critical theorists,the so-called Frankfurt School in Germany. His idea of crit-ical theory, discourse ethics and legitimacy crisis are veryimportant to analyze the contents of the social practices,also the education policy in advanced capitalist societies.15. Shapiro, S., Crisis of legitimation: Schools, society,and declining faith in education. Interchange, 1984. 15(4):p. 26-39, 15. Ibid., 16. Thomassen, L., Habermas: a guidefor the perplexed. 2010, New York, USA: Continuum, 16.Ibid., 17. Terry, P.R., Habermas and Education: knowl-edge, communication, discourse. Curriculum Studies, 1997.5(3): p. 269-279.

a legitimation deficit [19]. In Habermas’s view, thisdeficit in capitalist society may be due to the Re-politicization of the public sector. That is to say, thestate expands its activities immensely in the areasof economic and social life of citizen. The activitiesinclude more subdivisions such as our rationalityof administrative planning and values of politicalcommunity [15]. The rationality of administrativeplanning furthers the politicization of the private sec-tor in our life, such as education, especially curricularplanning. This tendency endangers the civil priva-tization that’s essential to the de-politicized publicrealm [20, pp. 369-370]. Therefore, the legitimacyof policies such as educational reforms also needsto be addressed. The program, Trans-DisciplinaryEducation, for example, is a part of a mid-term planof MOE. To promote this plan, the promoter wouldneed to constantly reflect on this essential question:how do I know that transdisciplinary thinking bringsus a new vision, but not a collective delusion in ourminds? We need research to find out the best waysto confirm it. By giving clear and concrete explana-tions to MOE’s mid-term plan, we might be able tohelp answer the question. Finding out the contextof trans-disciplinary program development and itsoperable parts would be the first step. The followingstep would be to test the program’s rationality andfeasibility. Therefore, this article is meant to dealwith the following issues: the relationship betweenthe development of transdisciplinary thinking andhigher education, the focus of important domesticand international events relating to transdisciplinarythoughts, and the reasons why a person involves inpromoting transdisciplinary thinking.

Another rationale that the authors use Habermas’theory is that it provides a theoretical base for theperception of planning. It emphasizes a widespreadof public participation - sharing of information withthe public, reaching consensus through public dia-logues rather than the exercise of power, avoidingprivileges of experts and bureaucrats, and replac-ing the model of technical expert with the reflectiveplanner [21-26].

A pilot project of Ministry of Education has amission - to initiate necessary reforms for highereducation policy. According to Habermas’ theory ofdiscourse ethics, the “validity claims”2 are redeemed

2Validity claims are the assumptions that we always alreadymake in an unquestioning manner concerning the truthand sincerity of other’s communications. This questioning


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Table 1: Classification of problems and crisis in John Platt’s exposition.

Estimated Crisis Intensity Problems

Total annihilationNuclear or RCBW escalation

Great destruction or change

Widespread almost unbearable tension Administrative managementSlums (the gap between rich and poor)Racial conflicts

Large-scale distress TransportationCrimes

Tension producing Cancer and heart diseasesSmoking and drugsArtificial organsWater supply shortageMarine resourcesInternet privacy

in “discourse”, or communicative action. This meansthat all communication is open to being tested as towhether it is comprehensible, sincere, truthful, andappropriately expressed [27, p. 7].

“The goal of coming to an understanding‘Verstandigung’ is to bring about an agreement ‘Ein-verstandnis’ that culminates in the intersubjectivemutuality of reciprocal understanding, shared knowl-edge, mutual trust, and accord with one another.Agreement is based on recognition of the correspond-ing, validity claims of comprehensibility, truth, truth-fulness, and rightnes” [28, p. 3].

Habermas’s intention was to establish a theoryconcerning communication as a way to reach a sharedunderstanding. For the purpose of developing ashared understanding, the speaker and listener must,in Habermas’s view, agree to the universal validityof the claim raised in the process of communication.Potentially, the listener could challenge these validityclaims. The validity claims were deemed acceptedby the listener when the listener accept a speech act[29]. In summary, good communication is necessaryin order to reach a consensus.

SHS Program, as a pilot experimental project ofMOE, involves many stakeholders, such as all thefaulty members in Taiwan. However, these stake-holders are not “guinea pigs” in this experimentalproject. Therefore the “validity claims” of SHS

of assumptions underpins not only the traditional sciencesbut also social sciences. 27. Murphy, M. and T. Fleming,Communication, Deliberation, Reason in Habermas, Criti-cal Theory and Education, M. Murphy and T. Fleming,Editors. 2010, Routledge: New York. p. 3-16.

Program must be redeemed. This means that theapproaches to defining orientations, objectives, andproposals for trans-disciplinary education can beidentified and agreed so that these needs could beginto be included in public policy.

A third reason, from Habermas’s communicativeaction, one sees the possibility of a connection tosocial capital. Communicative action is an individualaction designed to promote common understandingin a group and to promote cooperation, as opposedto “strategic action” designed simply to achieve one’spersonal goals [30, pp. 85-101, 284-288].

The next section is a case report for the processof promoting cooperation via communicative action.SHS Program organized a convention called “0.comactivity” of Master Academy with an intention to ob-tain a methodological guideline for transdisciplinaryeducation in Taiwan.

3 Approaches to CommunicativeAction in SHS Program

In the late sixties of the twentieth century, JohnPlatt [31] recruited a large-scale of scientists to solveproblems caused by crisis in United States. He ex-plained and classified the problems in the follow-ing categories: total annihilation, great destructionand change, widespread almost unbearable tension,large-scale distress, and tension producing. Table1 illustrates some cases under his classification ofproblems and crisis.

Erich Jantsch expressed his concern in reference


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to Platt’s approach to organizing scientists:

“A certain danger may be seen here inthe temptation to take a straightforwardproblem-solving approach of the type whichhas proved so successful in attaining purelytechnological targets, and to neglect the sys-temic character of most of these problemsin the social area” [8, p. 99].

Jantsch reminded us that the topics about mean-ings and values should be the first priority in theacademia field.

The architects of the SHS Program were aware ofthis blind spot in a straightforward problem-solvingapproach. To figure out the guidelines for proceedingtransdisciplinary education as a reform movement,the director of the SHS program conducted a fo-rum to inspire reflections among experts in variousfields across humanities, social sciences, and naturalsciences - philosophy, chemistry, physic, electricalengineering, geography, anthropology, sociology, biol-ogy, literature, history, psychology, mathematic, etc..This event in the year 2011 is called “0.com activity”of Master Academy and lasted for two days.

In the “0.com activity” of Master Academy, over50 local scholars and scientists were invited. In theinvitation, the scholars were asked not only to iden-tify the most important issues for people in Taiwan,but to elaborate the meanings and values of thosetopics. The four validity claims addressed by Haber-mas, namely comprehensibility, truth, truthfulness,and rightness were therefore fulfilled. The “0.comactivity”of Master Academy provided a forum whereparticipants voiced concerns about critical local andglobal issues and made efforts to establish a mu-tual understanding on the issues. The Discourseon the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Mendeveloped by Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of thecentral themes in this event. Hence, further discus-sions about values and meanings were facilitated inthe forum.

The “World Cafe” approach developed by JuanitaBrown and David Isaacs [32] was applied in theevent. Collaborative deliberations between naturescientists, social scientists, philosophers, and otherhumanities took place at the event. The discussionswere aimed at identifying critical issues relating tolocal conditions in Taiwan. Ten main topics tookshape from the discussions, vote and modifications:

Topic I: Academic Freedom and Globalization

Currently, academic development in Taiwan is con-fronted with a conundrum between its autonomyand globalization. This topic explored issues withthe following guiding questions:

– What are the phenomenons under the conun-drum between academic colonization and aca-demic autonomy?

– How were the problems formed? How should weconfront the problems by establishing a new aca-demic paradigm to meet the needs of Taiwanesesociety?

– What are universities’ roles in training schol-ars to be equipped with skills to handle globalchallenges?

Topic II: The Paradigm-Shift fromKnowledge-Based to Literacy-BasedCurriculum in Taiwanese Higher Education

Under the educational reform, the higher educa-tion in Taiwan has shifted its curriculum focus fromknowledge-based learning to literacy and practicalwisdom-based learning. This topic discussed thefollowing:

– What causes such curriculum shift?

– What are the differences between knowledge-based and literacy-based learning?

– What is practical wisdom? How to teach it?

– How should we develop curriculum and designactivities to promote practical wisdom?

Topic III: Issues of Democracy within aMulti-Cultural Society

As democracy grows, Taiwanese society has encoun-tered various issues and conflicts. This topic exploredthe following questions:

– What causes conflicts and hatred in a society?

– What is the impact of conflicts and hatred to asociety?

– How to resolve conflicts and hatred?

– Is having tolerance and acceptance enough tomaintain justice and harmony within a society?


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– Besides being tolerant, what are other person-ality traits that are probable to improve com-munication and decrease conflicts?

– What are the university’s roles in resolving suchissues?

Topic IV: Emerging Issues of SocietalInnovation

As the society grows, expands, and progresses, Tai-wan has stumbled upon various problems during thisprocess. This topic discussed the following:

– What is the bottom line as a democratic countrydeveloping its political structure to promote freemarket and nationalism?

– Will the same political structure exist in thefuture societies?

– If new political structure is demanded, whatwill it be? Why?

– What are university’s roles to facilitate resolu-tions of these issues?

Topic V: Concerns with Eco-Innovation andSustainable Development

This topic discussed issues around economic devel-opment in Taiwan with following questions:

– What is happening with contract manufacturein Taiwanese industries?

– How is relying on contract manufacturing af-fecting long term business and industrial devel-opment in Taiwan?

– Why is improving Taiwanese companies’ re-search and development capability the best ap-proach to enhance their competency?

– How could universities support in training elitesto help reach the industrial goal of enhancingcompanies’ research and development capacity?Are there other approaches to accomplish thisgoal?

Topic VI: The Issues of Demographic Change

Taiwan is facing demographic changes with its pop-ulation. This topic explored the following:

– What are the concerns of aging population, de-clining birth rate, and new immigrants in Tai-wan?

– How could technology be effective in resolvingthese concerns? What are other resolutions?

– What are universities’ roles in providing solu-tions to issues caused by demographic changesin Taiwan?

Topic VII: The Issue of Natural ResourcesDepletion and Appropriate Usage of NaturalResources

We are encountering challenges caused by the world-wide natural resources depletion. This topic dis-cussed the following:

– What are the problems of water resources inTaiwan?

– What are possible solutions to water shortage?Why?

– What are universities’ roles to help resolve issuesof water shortage?

Topic VIII: Issues of Technology and SocialSymbiosis

The development of high technology has broughtboth positive and negative effects to Taiwanese soci-ety. This topic explored the following issues:

– What are the negative effects caused by theusage of high technology in our daily lives?

– What would possible limitations be for high-tech usage in the future?

– What are the negative environmental effectscaused by the development of mass transporta-tion in Taiwan?

– How should we resolve as well as preventingthe potential environmental damages as hightechnology continues to evolve as the societygrows?

– What are universities’ roles in responding tothe issues caused by technology?


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Topic IX: The Issues of Cultural Identities

With the unique historical development, Taiwan hasgone through various challenges under cultural iden-tities. This topic discussed the following:

– What are some cultural identity concerns facedby people in Taiwan?

– What are the differences between cultural iden-tity and national/political identity?

– What are some methods to resolve conflictsraised by cultural differences?

– What are universities’ roles to manage the needsin dealing with recognizing cultural differencesand identity issues?

Topic X: The Issue Between Individualism andthe Value of Collectivism

As life evolves, we experience constant change everyday. The practice of individualism and collectivismsometimes contradict each other. This topic willexplored the following:

– What is justice? What does being fair mean?

– Why does the meaning of justice and fairnesschange in different societies and different histor-ical time periods?

– What is the impact of having the value of justiceand fairness to human society?

– How could we encourage people to embody in-dividualism as well as collectivism and pursuethe happiness of justice and fairness?

– What are universities’ roles in response to theissue of lacking the value of justice and fairness?

These ten important issues exhibit a rationaleand illustrate the reasons why transdisciplinarity isneeded in higher education in Taiwan. After thisevent, the SHS program office conducted the Requestfor Proposal (RFP) process to recruit faulty membersnationwide to run the sub offices of the SHS program.The director of Promotion Office for Curricular In-novations in TDE and the project director of theMaster Academy were the participants in “0.comactivity” of Master Academy[Trans-DIsciplinary Ed-ucation Program33].

The Promotion Office for Curricular Innovationsalso steered the RFP process to enlist higher educa-tion faculty members who need sponsorship for run-ning their transdisciplinary training programs. Sofar, the Promotion Office has sponsored 54 projectsfor curriculum innovation within transdisciplinaryeducation. Moreover, faculty members from 68 uni-versities in Taiwan have also expanded their propos-als. By introducing their transdisciplinary curricu-lum, the candidates also discussed the topics thatthey wish to design in their transdiciplinary trainingprograms. Some projects are more comprehensiveand covering more topics than others. Most teach-ers involved in transdisciplinary training programsexpressed interest in the issues relating to naturalresources depletion and appropriate usage of naturalresources, technology and social symbiosis, concernswith eco-innovation and sustainable development,and demographic change. Table 2 shaws the break-down of interest shown in each topic in the RFPs:

In the proposals, there were courses related tophilosophical propositions, such as truthfulness, righ-teousness, and beauty being proposed. They wereidentified as “other issues” by different programs.Among the 54 projects, five of them are much morewell organized than the rest. They provide real-world problem-oriented course clusters with morethan 20 courses for each cluster to their partici-pants. Each course cluster focuses on one of theparticular issues - “impact of global change on peo-ple in Taiwan”, “appropriate usage of informationtechnology”, “aging population society”, “rural re-generation”, and “marine resources depletion”. Theauthors have concluded that the success of these fiveprojects is due to a better administrative support incurricular innovation and modification by a univer-sity or an interdisciplinary research center operatedin a university.

The Program Office also invited participants (seeFigure 3) to serve as consultants to evaluate the exe-cution of the SHS Program, especially the implemen-tations of the sub offices and the transdisciplinarytraining programs. These participants have becomethe core group to provide support to the transdis-ciplinary education movement in Taiwan. Figure 2.The subsequent contributions of the participants in0.com activity to SHS program.


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Figure 2: Most important issues identified in the transdisciplinary training programs in Taiwan.

Figure 3: The subsequent contributions of the participants in “0.com activity” to SHS program.

4 Conclusion and Future Goals

This intellectual collaboration in“0.com activity” hasnot only helped transform Transdisciplinarity fromthe big picture to the operational details, but alsofacilitated improvement in curriculum developmentand design. It was also valuable for the pragmatic de-velopment of teaching materials and teaching meth-ods regarding to transdisciplinary (sciences, human-ities and social) implication. Also, the goals for theSHS Program to fulfill the validity claims were met:

• Sincerity: The ”O.com activity” served asa palpable exemplar for collaborative inquiry.Scholars in the field of academia establisheda mutual understanding about knowledge inte-gration. In terms of sincerity, the participantsshared a common objective to build mutualtrust for openness. Hence, a collaborative in-quiry was able to make headway and recog-nize common principles of humanity. The SHSProgram provides an importance to the socialawareness for the students.


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• Comprehensibility: It is necessary to inte-grate professional literature with general litera-ture by drafting a transdisciplinary curriculum.The SHS program aims at training studentsto enhance their oral expression so that knowl-edge transfer could be fulfilled by experts fromvarious disciplines.

• Rightness: The participants were willing totake part in knowledge integration with the col-lective intelligence aiming at achieving commongood. With regards to curricular contents, itwas recognized that the transdisciplinry train-ing programs should be real-world- problem-oriented. Furthermore, the collaborative inquiryshould also be introduced in the path of teachingand learning.

• Truth: The participants employed realisticpropositions to identify the most important is-sues in Taiwan and their possible solutions. Bysharing their professional diligence, the partici-pants were devoted to factually valid arguments.Thus, Transdisciplinary Education is deemedto focus on teaching and researching, extend-ing the concept of the “Flipped classroom” [34],and developing alternative methods for teacher-student co-learning in the various disciplines inuniversities.

The SHS Program applies the theory of transdis-ciplinarity with the goal to train students to employtrans-disciplinary thinking when solving problems.Moreover, the training program serves as an educa-tional platform for both teachers and students toengage in critical local and global issues. Therefore,another objective of the SHS program is to educatestudents to conduct transdisciplinary research whichis “frequently associated with pragmatic or solution-oriented research” [12]. However, as the projectunfolds, the authors have detected potential chal-lenges of implementing transdisciplinary educationin Taiwan.

First, based on the existing examples of commu-nicative action in“0.com activity”, transdisciplinaryeducation advocates collaboration among intellectu-als in the field of higher education. In spite of thepositive outcome in the event “0.com activity”, theauthors still ponder about ways to optimize the othersub offices, like Regional Promotion Centers, to helpteachers, students and build and maintain cohesivetransdisciplinary teams and put their projects into

practice.

In regards to Habermas’s communicative action,scientific knowledge alone cannot explain everything[12, p. 479]. The “0.com.activity” is therefore justthe start point of transdisciplinary education move-ment, otherwise the SHS program represents onlya case of elitism [35, pp. 1-4]. To fulfill the objec-tive of transdisciplinary research, the training pro-grams need to involve various stakeholders outsidethe academia as reviewers in their projects. Withimpartial perspectives, the training programs hopeto bring their students’ to research results to optimalfruition.

The SHS program in Taiwan continues to grow.The goal for the next phase is to collect data onstudents’ performance after being trained in trans-disciplinary thinking. Inspired by TED Talk3 thatputs forth a great influence worldwide, the SHS pro-gram employs an unconventional method to showstudents’ performance. The program promotes SHSTalk to offer a forum for teachers and students inthe SHS program to share their results of transdisci-plinary research in the form of public speaking.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank all participants ofSHS program. Above all I am grateful to the chiefinitiator of SHS Program, Professor Jwu-Ting Chen,for his support and insightful advices.

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3TED stands for technology, entertainment, and design 36.Donovan, J., How to Deliver a TED Talk: Secrets of theWorld’s Most Inspiring Presentations. 2013, New York,USA: McGraw-Hill.. 36. Ibid.


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About the Author

Dr. Kung-Pei Tang is an Assistant Professor in theCenter for General Education at Taipei Medical Uni-versity. In 2011, Kung-Pei received his PhD of SchoolEducation at University of Worzburg in Germany. From2012 to 2014, he worked as postdoctoral research fellow forthe Trans-Disciplinary Education Program Office at Na-tional Taiwan University. In this program, it is expectedthat with such transdisciplinary learning path, studentswill be able to adopt inquiry thinking and hands-on ex-perience with pluralistic perspectives, particularly withengagement in learning to solve critical local issues. Sincethen he is devoted to identify useful didactic strategiesfor facilitating transdisciplinary learning.

Copyright c© 2015 by the author. This isan open access article distributed underthe Creative Commons Attribution License(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, andreproduction in any medium, provided the originalwork is properly cited. e


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