The Interdisciplinary Curriculum

"We need to prepare kids for their FUTURE, not our PAST." 

Daniel Pink (n.d)

"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."
Jacobs (1989) 

An interdisciplinary curriculum is a model that I think is already well established in the primary education system. Teachers want students to make real-life connections in their learning and inquiry-based pedagogy has been adopted by many schools to achieve this outcome. The by-product of this is the deliberate combining of curriculum areas. Mathison and Freeman (1997) support this and suggest in the majority of interdisciplinary models, development of inquiry skills are the main goal with the nature of the inquiry able to be varied and include inquiry into a social era, topic, theme or issue. 

The video clip "Interdisciplinarity and Innovation Education" also advocates this approach and discusses how it guides students in developing an awareness of the meaningful connections that exist among different subject areas. More importantly, it points out that real-life problems are "complex and multi-faceted rather than compartmentalised into neat subject matter packages. No single discipline can adequately describe and resolve challenging issues." 

Our community inquiry is based on real-life issues around sustainable practices both in our immediate environment, and globally.  It incorporates our school overarching inquiry theme of innovative and creative ideas may improve our future. Our learners have been investigating sustainable practices that we have within our school, and also what is happening globally to help improve our future. We have specific achievement objectives in Science, Social Science and English. 

My Interdisciplinary Connection Map

Potential Interdisciplinary Connections

The potential interdisciplinary connection I have chosen to further consider is "Other Primary Schools". The connection I would like to make is with another Enviro School. I think using Twitter would be an engaging and purposeful way of incorporating social media into the classroom as per my last blog. The students would then have access to other learners who are also having a real-world impact on sustainability. They would be able to share and discuss their issues and collaborate to find solutions. I envisage the learners being heavily involved in making the decisions based on the direction of their inquiries and the information they would like to gather from the new connection formed with other students.

The paper "The Logic of Interdisciplinary Studies" cites many benefits. Those which I see as particularly relevant to my students' connection are:

• a better overall understanding of global interdependencies (sustainability is a global issue)
• the development of multiple perspectives, points of view and values (communicating and explaining their own point of view and listening to others)
• an increased ability to think critically, creatively and synthesise knowledge (knowledge obtained from new connection needing to be synthesised with own prior knowledge)
• identify and assess information needed to reach solutions (research and discussions)
• increased motivation (new connection and use of social media) 

I believe the challenges would be minimal. The learners are already highly engaged in their inquiries, and the addition of a social media tool to communicate and learn from like-minded students can only increase their motivation. Challenges would mainly be related to the digital technology: having a reliable wifi connection when needed, transferring students Seesaw posting knowledge to a broader social media platform, and timetabling regular opportunities for students across the two schools to make their connections.

"Students and teachers will advance critical thinking, communication, creativity, pedagogy, and essential academia with the use of interdisciplinary techniques." Jones (2009)

References

Jones, C.(2009). Interdisciplinary approach - Advantages, disadvantages, and the future benefits of interdisciplinary studies. ESSAI7 (26), 76-81. Retrieved from http://dc.cod.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1121&context=essai

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:

ThomasMcDonaghGroup. ( 2011, May 13). Interdisciplinarity and Innovation Education.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDdNzftkIpA