I really enjoyed creating my map as there were things and people involved in my life that I had never thought about how they influenced the way I am professionally. It showed me that yes I do have a lot of specialist professionals coming through my door of the classroom and as I thought about them, it made me reflect on how they influenced my classroom programme for all my children.
Andrews (1990) defines interdisciplinary collaboration as occurring "when different professionals, possessing unique knowledge, skills, organisational perspectives, and personal attributes, engage in coordinated problem solving for a common purpose" (cited in Berg-Weger &. Schneider, 1998).
We have begun to think about this in our programme as my colleague has a strength on Science and we have been joining together to work through some Nature of Science activites. This has also been some of the best professional development for me - to observe her in action and the children benefit from her knowledge too.
In her paper The Natural Flow of Learning, Dr Julia Atkin (1994) looks at a connected curriculum as a means of making learning relevant and concludes that we need to approach the curriculum in a way that "connects the powerful ideas, models and processes within and across traditional disciplines; a curriculum which connects with, and then extends, the learners' personal, experiential knowledge." Thinking of this reference it makes me reflect on working to our passions and strengths and working smarter within our school.
References -
Atkin, J. (1994). The Natural Flow of Learning: Conditions which enhance and maximise learning. Retrieved from www.learning-by-design.com/papers/conds_learning.pdf
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
Thomas McDonagh Group. ( 2011, May 13). Interdisciplinarity and Innovation Education.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDdNzftkIpA
It is interesting that you have discussed using different strengths. That is what we do at our school, but unfortunately is serves to silo the subjects rather than integrate them. For me this is a work in progress!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't help thinking about the way that you integrate maths into your programme. I would love to have the courage to try what you have done. Has it helped the students build connections? Do feel it has led to greater understanding? Are the other classes doing a similar thing. One reason I put off trying is that I wonder if the students would get confused if they had integrated maths for just one year.
Thanks Sharon for you comments and questions. Yes I look at seeing as using strengths of other staff as professional development for me. For example, I like Science but am not very confident in my delivery of it so listening to Jo helps me with the questioning needed for such things as Nature of Science.
ReplyDeleteI love my maths programme in the way the children are independent. They are now able to work out what they know and don't know and often do not need to try all tasks to find out where they are at and for what workshops they need to come to. Jo ( the teacher for Years 6,7 and 8) does aspects of her programme like mine but is not exactly the same and the children don't seem to be confused as they know the expectations of each individual teacher. Mind you Jo is very interested in the thinking of Jo Bolar too. It's worth having a read of her work.