Laura discussed the success she had when her students were paired with students in France in cooperative learning groups using both synchronous and asynchronous assignments. Students wrote to each other, shared experiences, and found a purpose for learning. If we are able to give people a purpose for learning, I think that they can learn about anything. We need to find balance. We can't ignore either, and both can augment each other.
Integration is an important concept in teaching and learning.
I heard today that integration works very well. We need to find ways to facilitate integration and to encourage cross-disciplinary teaching endeavors. We need to find ways to reward faculty who engage in integrated teaching, e.g., if two faculty from different disciplines develop and deliver a course both could count the course as part of their load. We need to encourage innovative approaches and realize that they involve risk on the part of the faculty member. It's not uncommon for SRTE scores to drop when trying a new pedagogical approach.