Importance of Interdisciplinary Curriculum

How does middle-level philosophy affect curriculum?

“Even though teachers work in different rooms and on different hallways, our individual subject areas should not be viewed as existing within rigid instructional walls.” (Dehart & DeHart, 2021)

 

              This module is probably my favorite to date. Why? Because I am passionate about finding effective, engaging and creative ways to get students excited about math. And I truly believe that this interdisciplinary model is a way to not only help students learn better across the entire curriculum, but it also helps students become more interested in content material they might otherwise dread (which happens to be math for a lot of people 😊) The quote above I believe captures this middle-level philosophy on why a curriculum should be integrated across disciplines… If we expect students to only focus on “our” subject when they are within the four walls of our classroom, do we also in turn expect them to not think about it when they have left? Similarly said in the article mentioned above, “In middle level schools—where the team model continues to flourish—teachers and students have an opportunity to make connections across the imaginary boundaries of content areas.” (DeHart & DeHart, 2021)

              Although I have yet to be in a middle school placement, my introduction to this type of integration across the curriculum was in my placement last year in a fourth-grade classroom. My CT was responsible for teaching history, science, and math and her partner teacher covered ELA. During history lessons I observed my CT referring to the books that were being read in the ELA classroom that reinforced some of the revolutionary time period concepts that they were learning about in history. The two teachers partnered for a fun week of upheaval as the students acted as colonists in the two rooms and the teachers were the queens. The students had to work together to agree to declare their independence. In another exercise in her math block, my CT asked the students to collaborate with peers to solve division problems in a variety of ways and create posters with their thoughts. They then practiced their presentation skills they had been working on in the ELA class to walk classmates through their problem-solving approach. This was such a great opportunity for students to creatively solve problems while also work on communication skills!

              The article, “Integrating Curriculum for Meaningful Learning” really took my understanding of this process one step further and I appreciated the straightforward outline the article provided on how a team of teachers might approach this process. In this example, how amazing was it that ratios proportions throughout EVERY content area that week? I have personally found how helpful this type of instruction has been throughout my classes at Otterbein. Although less surprising that these topics are repeated in education courses, things like distributed practice, metacognition, and formative assessments come up in courses from reading comprehension to educational psychology. Hearing them multiple times in conjunction with learning about them in various concepts really helps me not only understand the material but retain it. I also really appreciated how this article sheds light on the creative collaboration process this requires across the team. The idea of using ratios and proportions didn’t immediately jump out to the other content teachers but when they crucially looked across their individual units, they realized this was a thread that could be woven across the curriculum.

              Teaming and adult advocacy are cornerstones of the middle-level philosophy and through an interdisciplinary curriculum, it better equips educators to support and understand young adolescents of varying needs. In Vansant’s article about Integrating Curriculum, it even mentions how the first step of the team curriculum meeting should be to share specific students’ needs. Does the ELA teacher notice that a student is struggling in reading comprehension? That student can then be supported in math, science, and history more completely due to this knowledge when it comes to absorbing information through text. And if the curriculum is integrated so that text isn’t the only time they may be learning about a topic, like the proportionality listed above, that student will receive increased exposure and not have to rely solely on text to understand it. When you break down an integrated curriculum, it sounds like it could really benefit most people in gaining greater understanding about more complex topics. But at least for our young adolescents, it provides a support structure that helps their ever-changing needs before moving to the increasingly independent world of high school.

             

 

References

DeHart, J., & DeHart, C. (2021, March 15). Removing imaginary boundaries around content. AMLE. https://www.amle.org/removing-imaginary-boundaries-around-content/

Vansant, S. (2020, June 3). Integrating curriculum for Meaningful learning. AMLE. https://www.amle.org/integrating-curriculum-for-meaningful-learning/