Reflections on the "trans-formation" of the university through transdisciplinarity in teaching practices and research

Abstract

In higher education, the need for a change in the plans and strategies that teachers implement in their practices is evident, a renewal capable of addressing the complexity in which we live and that includes the protection of society and the environment as priority elements in the work of future professionals, so that they can respond congruently to current problems. The need for change is not a discovery of recent years, it is an issue that has been under discussion for a long time, however, the efforts and initiatives to move to a new model have been either ineffective or insufficient. The educational model based on designs structured exclusively with disciplines that are separated from each other makes it difficult to give an integral response to the complex social problems that are presented to us. Therefore, institutions of higher education consider the overcoming of the traditional educational paradigm, which involves separate teaching in disciplines (subjects), to give way to transdisciplinary models, which cover several disciplines in a transversal way, not only in name or with adjustments to the existing ones, but towards an approach that can transcend with a qualitative leap. The transformation implies that, from the classrooms, the teaching is assumed by approaching the subject or object of study in a way that integrates the diverse dimensions and areas of knowledge that compose it, in order to enable an understanding as close as possible to its complexity. To achieve this, the dialogue for the trans-formation of higher education must be opened, listening to different voices, not only academics, and including all the levels and actors involved in higher education. The proposal of this reflection suggests transdisciplinarity as a way to achieve this transformation.