Interdisciplinary Units

What research is there to support the idea of implementing Interdisciplinary Units? Interdisciplinary teaching helps students transfer skills across subject lines, helping them to think and reason in real world scenarios. This also makes learning more rewarding. (Marzano, Perkins-1991). Interdisciplinary teaching provides a meaningful way for students to use knowledge learned in one context as a knowledge base in other contexts in and out of school (Collins, Brown, Newman-1989). Students become more actively engaged because students see the value of what they are learning instead of learning only skills in isolation (Resnick-1989). Thaiss says "students learn more when they use their skills to explore what they are learning, write about what they are learning, and interact with their classmates, teachers, and members of the community". If teachers work cooperatively in interdisciplinary units, "they have a higher job satisfaction, more frequent contact with parents, and students experience higher achievement" (Flowers, Mertens, Mulhall-1999).

What is an Interdisciplinary Unit?

In order to accommodate interdisciplinary units, many schools are set-up using the "teaming" system. In this system, a particular group of teachers share a common group of students. Classrooms are set-up near one another for teachers to collaborate and work as a team. Collectively, teams teach the core subject areas: science, language arts, social studies, and math. An interdisciplinary unit has been constructed when a theme is chosen, and the team of teachers applies the theme to their subject. Teams often use interdisciplinary units in order to expose students to an idea more than once. Interdisciplinary units are found most often in middle schools because middle school curriculum is planned around the exclusive developmental needs of adolescents.

How is an Interdisciplinary Unit Used?

An effective interdisciplinary unit is used by two or more teachers on the same teaching team. Together they plan a strategy to teach the same topic using different subjects. The teachers make their subjects easier to understand by planning with each other and chunking the information for their students. Rather than learning about four completely unrelated topics, an interdisciplinary unit helps the students make connections. For example. the social studies teacher might be teaching about the Great Depression and the dust bowl and how it affected the United States. Together, they may study pictures, historical documentaries, and the history that led us up to the downfall. At the same time the language arts teacher might be reading a novel that takes place during the Great Depression like The Grapes of Wrath or Out of the Dust. They might study how an individual would have lived during the dust bowl. It gives a human portrayal of the difficulties people faced. Concurrently, the math teacher is teaching economics and how the stock market works. They may study graphs, money uses, and financial planning. Together the teachers cover the individual experiences of surviving every day life in the Dust Bowl, explore the results of the depression on the industry of the United States, and learn the importance of current and past economics of our country.

How does an Interdisciplinary Unit benefit children and teachers?

The benefits of interdisciplinary units are unlimited. They offer children multiple resources from which to obtain knowledge. Because the schoolwork is integrated, the student's mind is compelled to focus on the subject because it is reiterated throughout the theme. Each student has the opportunity to glean understanding as the information is presented in various ways. This reinforcement allows for connections, makes the student receptive to new information, and most importantly, applies that understanding to solving tasks.

As the frontal lobe of the brain develops in teens, abstract thinking skills also develop. Subjects like mathematics can be made more relevant to a student if the purpose of the problem solving is made clear. Furthermore, curriculum is no longer fragmented, and subjects are no longer isolated from one another. Not only do the students benefit, but an instructor's job is also easier since the student is exposed to similar concepts in all classes. Thus, it seems impossible that students would not achieve in all subjects because they have been exposed to it multiple times. With an interdisciplinary unit, students receive all the benefits that integrated curriculum teaching provides.