Why Integrate the Curriculumin Your Classroom

Michael Daugherty

Where is Arkansas?

WHERE

IS

ARKANSAS

How does Arkansas Compareto the Republic of Moldova?

About Arkansas

•3 million people

•Home of the only diamond mine in the United States

• Largest rice producing region in the United States

• Large forestry and lumber industry

•Walmart: The world’s largest company—employs 2.2 million people

•President Bill Clinton is from Arkansas

What Can you Remember?

What is An Integrated Curriculum?

•An integrated curriculum is one in which children explore knowledge in various subjects related to their community• Seeing links among the humanities,communication arts, natural sciences, mathematics, social studies, music, and art. • Skills and knowledge are developedand applied in more than one area.

An integrated curriculum cuts across subject-matter lines

Brings together various aspects of the curriculum to focus upon broad areas of study

Views learning and teaching in a holistic way and reflects the real interactive world

Seeing Teaching Through New Lenses

The integrated curriculum is a gift to experienced teachers.

It's like getting a new pairof lenses that make teaching more exciting.

It is helping students take control of their own learning.

Teachers & Students Express Widespread Enthusiasm for Curriculum Integration

•Research provides many examples of teachers who integrate subject areas and provide increased learning, additional levels of skill and knowledge development, and vastly increased levels knowledge of conceptual relationships.

The integrated curriculum provides thelearners with a unified view of commonly held knowledge (by learning the models, systems, and structures) but also motivate and develop learners' power to perceive new relationships and thus to create new models, systems, and structures.

An Interdisciplinary Curriculum Includes

•A combination of subjects

•An emphasis on projects

•Sources that go beyond textbooks

•Relationships among concepts

•Organizing principles (Themes)

•Flexible schedules

•Flexible student groupings.

In Non-integrated Classes

• It is taken for granted that students will see for themselves how subjects fit together.

• Unfortunately, students tend to learn what we teach.

• If we teach connectedness and integration, they learn that.

• If we teach separation and discontinuity, they learn that.

• To suppose otherwise would be incongruous.

Motivation for Integrating the Curriculum

• Almost every teacher has experienced the feeling that "there just isn't enough time to get it all in" or "the school day just isn't long enough for all that I'm supposed to do; it seems that every year there are more things added to the curriculum."

• This feeling of frustration is one of the motivations behind development of an integrated curriculum.

Transforming Learning

• An enduring argument for integration is that it represents a way to avoid the fragmented and irrelevant acquisition of isolated facts, transforming knowledge into personally useful tools for learning new information

Research SuggestsNo Detrimental Effects When:

•Students involved in an integrated curriculum in the following subject areas:• Reading;• Writing;• History;• Science;• Mathematics;• Literature;• Humanities;• Health;• Social studies;• Physical education; and,• The arts.

Research Also Suggests:

• Preferred to continue with the integrated program rather than return to the traditional curriculum.

• Liked working together and believed that they were able to teach more effectively when integrating subjects and courses.

• Indicated that they discovered new interests and teaching techniques that revitalized their teaching.

• Believed that students developed team spirit and improved their attitudes and work habits

After one year, 83 percent of

the teachers involved in a

major research study

indicated that they:

Essential Components ofan Integrated Curriculum

• Core skills and processes: These include basic skills, such as reading and mathematics, as well as social skills and problem solving.

• Curriculum strands and themes: These are the organizing principles around which the curriculum is built.

• Questions: Questions are used to further define major themes and focus activities.

• Unit development: Teachers plan activities that will lead to the development of knowledge and skills which will answer the questions. Teachers also collect resources and develop actual lesson plans and assessment strategies.

• Evaluation: Through an assessment of student progress the unit is evaluated.

Positive Effects of Integrated Curriculum

• Integrated curriculum helps students:• Apply knowledge and skills.• Retrieve information faster.• See multiple perspectives.• Develop a more integrated

knowledge base.• Develop more depth and breadth

of knowledge.• Develop more positive attitudes

about learning.• Explore subject areas previously

excluded.• See the relevance of all subject

areas.

What does Integrated CurriculumLook Like in the Classroom?

An Integrated Curriculum Involves:• Working in teams

• Solving real-world problems related to a big idea

• Encouraging creative thinking/innovation

• Applying important concepts to solve a problem

• Defending ideas

• Using tools and materials to solve problems (hands/mind)

• Illustrating the importance of the information being taught

• Expanding upon concepts delivered through reading and writing

• Using the thinking tools of scientists and engineers

Co

gnit

ive

Too

ls(T

he

engi

nee

rin

g d

esig

n p

roce

ss)

Sample: The Dream Weaver

Based on the book: Dream Weaver

• The relationship between nature and technology

• How humans learn from surroundings

• How humans solve problems

• How humans make tools and materials

• How human-made materials can be stronger than natural materials

These two pre-service teachers

developed the lesson

Reading the Book: Dream Weaver

Demonstrating HowSpider Webs Work

Testing the Strength of the Web

Challenging the Students to Make the Strongest Web Weaving

Testing

with

coins

Ultimate Goal

We need to prepare a generation of students who can “out innovate” the competition, who can adapt to vast advances in technology and engineering, who can apply known solutions to unknown applications , who readily cross disciplinary lines to gather the tools necessary to solve the problems of humanity.

http://stem.uark.edu/

INTEGRATED CURRICULUM RESOURCES