Jacobs (1989) defines interdisciplinary curriculum as “a
knowledge view and curriculum approach that consciously applies methodology and
language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, issue,
problem, topic or experience.”
As a syndicate team we try and plan across the curriculum to
link our literacy programme to our inquiry.
We also work to try and link to real world problems. I feel we definitely do this well in inquiry
and literacy, but need to move on now to incorporating maths within the
interdisciplinary approach. At this stage my maths is still very much a separate
subject.
The Los Angeles County education video talks about preparing
our students with 21st Century skills. Collaboration, communicating, creativity and critical
thinking. All these skills are easier to teach when the approach is
interdisciplinary and students learning is linked through a common theme or inquiry,
relating to real life problems. I can
certainly see the benefits in this and need to increase these within my programme.
This year I have used an increased amount of collaboration after learning more
about it through my Mindlab journey. Students’
collaborate through more group work and on google docs.
Watching the video on the Ross Spiral Curriculum was
inspiring. A curriculum that the whole school works towards, real life problems
and field trips both locally and internationally as well as passionate
staff. Huge amounts of money and professional
development investments must have been dedicated to get this system up and
running. We are a long way off this type
of model. All staff would need to be on board as well as the students and
parent community. Our students have four
different technicraft subjects which are all run separately from our school
wide inquiry.
As a syndicate team we try and plan across the curriculum to
link our literacy programme to our inquiry.
We also work to try and link to real world problems. I feel we definitely do this well in inquiry
and literacy, but need to move on now to incorporating maths within the
interdisciplinary approach. At this stage my maths is still very much a separate
subject.
The Los Angeles County education video talks about preparing
our students with 21st Century skills. Collaboration, communicating, creativity and critical
thinking. All these skills are easier to teach when the approach is
interdisciplinary and students learning is linked through a common theme or inquiry,
relating to real life problems. I can
certainly see the benefits in this and need to increase these within my programme.
This year I have used an increased amount of collaboration after learning more
about it through my Mindlab journey. Students’
collaborate through more group work and on google docs.
Watching the video on the Ross Spiral Curriculum was
inspiring. A curriculum that the whole school works towards, real life problems
and field trips both locally and internationally as well as passionate
staff. Huge amounts of money and professional
development investments must have been dedicated to get this system up and
running. We are a long way off this type
of model. All staff would need to be on board as well as the students and
parent community. Our students have four
different technicraft subjects which are all run separately from our school
wide inquiry.
My own interdisciplinary connection map was interesting to
make. I had not ever stopped to see how
many connections I have both professionally and personally that guide me on my teaching/learning
journey. My school connections are huge
and we have many opportunities within the school for connecting through
syndicate meetings, staff meetings and curriculum meetings. A couple of areas I
marked in red are to move on are; connections with our local iwi and COL
(Community of Learning). We are in the initial stages of expressing an interest
in being part of a COL. As an intermediate school and in my role as Head of
Literacy it is important for us to make links with college and prepare our
students for the transition to college. A goal I have is to meet more with the Head of
English at our local college and find out more about what level 5 looks like,
looking at what else we can do to help with the transition.
References
Lacoe Edu (2014,
Oct 24) Interdisciplinary Learning [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA564RIlhME
Mathison,S.. & Freeman,
M.(1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the Annual
Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997.
Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf:
Ross Institute. (2015, July 5). Ross
Spiral Curriculum: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Science. [video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHZhkB0FJik
No comments:
Post a Comment