Week 31: APC Activity 7: My interdisciplinary connection map
Week 31: APC
Activity 7: My interdisciplinary connection map
- Identify two of the potential connections from your map as your near future goal(s).
- Critically discuss the benefits and challenges of working in a more interdisciplinary environment.
The following diagram is an representation of my interdisciplinary connection within my professional context
At Homai, teachers and leaders constantly work towards building professional content knowledge and keeping up to date with educational initiatives, using both traditional and 21st century skills. Digital technologies and collaborative connections have been the major focus on our own learning this year. As the instructional leader at Homai, I must constantly seek learning to keep myself at the forefront of the ever changing face of education and technology. This is goal one from my "potential" connection on my map.
My second goal is to continually seek opportunities for my professional context, Homai School, to be a visible, collaborative, connected school using a variety of digital and non-digital platforms. It is important for us as educators to support our students to become 21st century learners. This means up-skilling ourselves to be technologically sound, and digitally confident. Everyone being an expert rather than only one or two experts holding all the knowledge. This is continually evolving at Homai, as more teachers enroll onto Mindlab or other useful learning platforms.
Why an Interdisciplinary Approach?
Interdisciplinary Teaching Increases Student Learning
Engaging students and helping them to develop knowledge, insights, problem solving skills, self-confidence, self-efficacy, and a passion for learning are common goals that educators bring to the classroom, and interdisciplinary instruction and exploration promotes realisation of these objectives.
Benefits:
In most interdisciplinary models inquiry skills are a primary goal. The nature of that inquiry varies, and includes hands-on problem-solving activities, inquiry into a social era or topic, or inquiry into a theme or issue. Integrated mathematics and science proponents cite their similar reasoning strategies, inquiry methods, and content as the reason for their integration (Berlin & White, 1994; Davison, et al., 1995; McBride & Silverman, 1991). On the other hand, it is the similarity in objectives, such as cultural awareness, critical thinking, and informed decision making, that typically bind language arts and social science (Norton, 1988; Farivar, 1993). Both contexts, however, seek to emulate the real world while providing students with an arena for problem-solving and decision-making activities.
Students learn by making connections between ideas and concepts across different disciplinary boundaries. Students learning in this way are able to apply the knowledge gained in one discipline to another different discipline as a way to deepen the learning experience.
Studying topics thematically is one way to bring ideas together resulting in more meaningful learning. This can occur by allowing students to choose their own subjects and their learning is deepened when they reflect on the connections between what they are learning in different disciplines.
At the beginning of each year, all Homai staff (teachers, teacher aides, leaders) work collaboratively to plan our curriculum coverage for the year. We use student and whanau voices collected the previous year to help plan content relevant to our learning community. We call this planning our "connected curriculum", and interdisciplinary connection across the NZC curriculum. I have made a youtube link for you to view what our connected planning at a term level looks like.
This years theme is about our Homai Warrior going global. The warrior comes from our local story of how Manurewa got its name, which tells the tale of 2 brothers and their kite flying skills. We acknowledge these tupuna and their achievements, throughout our school whakapapa and values. Last years theme on the warrior was the, "Warrior Within" and each term our teaching and learning programmes focus on the the individual and the different worlds they walk within - Home, School, Church, Sports, Culture, etc... We use these themes across the curriculum to enable learners to make connections across the different disciplines. An inquiry question is sought and learners use problem solving skills, critical thinking, etc to deepen their understanding of the learning.
Barriers
One of the biggest barriers to achieving true interdisciplinary environments is the necessity for collaboration of educators. This can be difficult to achieve, but not impossible. Interdisciplinary teaching and learning is maximised when professionals from different disciplines work together to serve a common purpose and to help students make the connections between different disciplines or subject areas. Such interaction is in support of the constructivist paradigm which allows for new knowledge construction and a deeper understanding of ideas than disciplinary study, (Michelle Applesby, Open Learn 2015).
Even in Primary Schools where all the curriculum areas are taught by the one teacher, the barriers are the same. In the past, at Homai and Im sure at many other schools, teachers worked in isolation either by choice or not. Planning was done alone, not shared and there was no school wide consistent themes or units. Today, planning is collaborative, open and transparent. Student and whanau voices are pertinent to our connected localised curriculum.
Another barrier is "planning too much". We can get carried away with the themes, or try to make too many connection across the disciplines and lose the authentic learning experience.
Although this can become challenging at times, the key is to stay focused on what is to be taught, assessment connection (pre and post-test), and timely check-ups and check in points.
Differentiated instruction, where students are offered many ways to learn, and hopefully find their best learning style, can best be achieved through collaborative and interdisciplinary teaching. Bringing more than one area of study, into a problem-solving student assignment, or project isn’t new, but for some educators, adding the use of technology in that process, with students, can be. The teaming of different departments: science, mathematics, social studies, language arts, music, art, and others to create experiential, or project-based tasks and projects has been a common goal and school experience for teachers and students since the chalkboard days. Early on, it may have been a direct mandate from administrators, and or discovered by teachers to be a better way to do projects with students. This style of teaching and learning for students fits perfectly into differentiated instruction models.
There really are no boundaries for connections that are both positive and valuable with in-context learning activities for students. For instance, there are no reasons why a project about climate change and weather shouldn’t include musical weather renditions, along with how weather affects sport, or ways in which weather has been portrayed in art, either. Digital tools can enhance all those things. Students anywhere, today, can virtually first-hand experience what weather is like from Manchester, UK, to Maine, USA—without leaving their seats, using technology. Science combined with geography, and all the other disciplines makes the reporting extensions in text, audio, and video perfect—and without a stretch of its education importance. The best part of that, is it can be done in real-time, and assessed in real-time, using digital devices and education solutions that are specifically designed for those purposes, (Ken Royal, Connect Learning Today).
References:
Pedagogy in Action: the SERC portal for Educators - http://serc.carleton.edu/1310
Michelle Applesby, Open Learn, The Open University - http://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/what-are-the-benefits-interdisciplinary-study
Differentiated & Interdisciplinary Instruction, Ken Royal - http://connectlearningtoday.com/differentiated-interdisciplinary-instruction/
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