Dear teachers, 

Make your students learning interesting, interactive and collaborative..........
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 realization of these objectives.

INTER- DISCIPLINARY APPROACH IN TEACHING

Definition:

—  Interdisciplinarity involves the combining of two or more academic disciplines into one activity.

—  “A knowledge view and curriculum approach that consciously applies methodology and language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, topic, issue, problem or work”.

-        By Heidi Hayes Jacobs 

Interdisciplinary Approach

     A unit of study that uses the inter disciplinary approach   enables teachers to teach the student and make links between   disciplines. One goal for this approach is to give students a more relevant, less fragmented and stimulated experience.

    This method can help to bring students to a new           awareness of the meaningful connections that exist among the disciplines.  

 - By Heidi Hayes Jacobs.

—  It allows for the combination of different subjects during one lesson or project.

—  It can be also an opportunity to team teach with another  teacher if so desired.

Three Part Structure

1. Content:

·       The topic, issues, themes or problems that becomes subjects of learning.

2. Skills and thinking Processes:

—  Developmentally appropriate benchmarks for student’s learning, such as critical thinking, Reading comprehension, Analysis, math skills etc.

3. Assessments:

—  Products that demonstrate skills and thinking processes, such as essays, productions, recitals, projects, note taking and in-class participation etc. 

Four Characteristics of the Inter- disciplinary Approach

—  1. Studies on topic, theme or Problem-centered.

—  2. Student diversity is easily accommodated.

—  3. Two or more academic disciplines and ways of       knowing are used to research the topic, theme or problem.

—  4. Equal emphasis is given to the learning processes and mastery of content.

Teachers need to have-

Inter disciplinary teachers need to have :

—  A complete, constructivist, philosophy.

—  Knowledge of child development and learning theory

—  A good fund of general knowledge

—  Good class room management skills

—  Skills in planning lessons as well as interdisciplinary units.

—  The ability to work collaboratively with other teachers and specialists.

Summary of the rationale for using an inter disciplinary approach:

Interdisciplinary instruction and constructivist methods:

—  Make it possible for young students- whose thinking tends to be centered-  to process information more accurately and effectively.

—  Foster social opportunities for students to interact with one another and to work together cooperatively.

—  Provide a meaningful context for teaching and practicing academic skills.

—  Make use of multiple sources of information.

—  Respond to core curriculum standards by stimulating critical thinking, questioning, and the search for supportive evidence.

—  Provide for the differentiation of instruction

—  Offer opportunities for students to work in all multiple intelligence areas

—  Include holistic studies for more efficient processing in the human brain.

—  Provide opportunities for students to learn in ways that are best for them. These include a variety of learning and reporting options.

Learning Processes

—  The Scientific Method

—  Research Processes

—  Brainstorming

—  Cooperative Learning

—  Role Playing

—  Study groups and others

Summary-Interdisciplinary  Instruction

—  Is topic Centered

—  Child Centered

—  Uses any disciplines and ways of knowing.

—  Accommodates student diversity  by providing for the differentiation of student investigating and reporting techniques.

—  Emphasises mastery of the learning process as the content to be learned.

Support for the Inter- Disciplinary Approach

—  Learning theories and constructs supporting the IDA include a number of recognised specialists.

—  Piaget described the thinking of young children as centered.

—  In a young child’s mind isolated concepts and information tend to remain unrelated to their previous fund of knowledge.

—  Interdisciplinary studies help young students to note relationship between their previous knowledge and the concepts in topics and problems they study.

—  Vygotsky and Piaget both emphasised the importance of students social interaction in learning

—  Inter disciplinary instruction provides many opportunities for students to work together cooperatively.

Now it’s your turn……….

—  Design an inter disciplinary lesson based on a topic of your choice. Map out the various issues involved and give specific activities that you could do to integrate and synthesise the information.

·       Correlate science with geography, history,   Mathematics, ICT, Evolution of earth and organisms, life skills, integration of Biology with physics and chemistry.

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