Middle
school education has fallen under scrutiny in recent years, as parents,
politicians and educational professionals alike have argued over how to create
effective learning environments and strategies for students. One such strategy
that exists is integrated curriculum. Since the time of its inception, the
strategy has only been used primarily as a periodical unit within schools, and
not as a school wide endeavor. Although many strategies have been proven
effective, integrated curriculum has been shown to be effective while also
creating more student interest in the various topics being taught, and should
be considered as a strategy to be used much more than it currently is.
In
order to understand the effectiveness of integrated curriculum strategies, it is
important to understand what integrated curriculum is. In short, integrated
curriculum takes various parts of curriculum and applies these aspects to
multiple subject areas. This allows students to gain multiple perspectives and
learn without being limited to a single subject at one time. This also allows
students who may have difficulties in one subject area or simply have a
distaste in that subject to gain appreciation of a topic or the subject area
when they otherwise would not.
The process for creating integrated curriculum units can be very simple. The unit simply takes a single topic of study(the Iditarod, for example) and uses unit and lesson formats from all educators involved to teach the topic from each subject point of view. A great resource is this article on designing integrated curriculum units. To sum up the article, it gives great ideas on various ways to instruct with various teachers, and shows that creating a system with integrated curriculum is very similar to creating a common unit for a class. By devising an essential question, sub questions, and finishing with a project to demonstrate learning, teachers generally won't need to change the way they formulate units. The only difference is the coordinated effort in which teachers will have to work in order to keep their lessons based toward the topic at hand.
When put into motion, integrated curriculum can create fantastic and new experiences for students, and is often a refreshing change of pace from the learning they have become accustomed to. One school, The Sharon Academy in Sharon Vermont, shows a variation on the practice that they have used in their middle school that has shown to be fairly successful. Personally, I have been a student who worked in this system during one unit in middle school. The unit was so successful that it was common for older students and siblings to talk to younger students about how much they enjoyed the unit and that the younger students should look forward to when the unit came. The unit gave us the opportunity to engage more with the topic we studied(which was the Iditarod) and brought much higher curiosity in a topic and in subjects that otherwise would have been brushed over. Another great resource showing success in other schools as well as other styles of teaching integrated curriculum can be found in this ASCD article on the subject.
Integrated curriculum learning is a simple way to create a more unique and often more successful learning experience for students. By simply creating a new outlet for students to use various subject to view the world around them, they can begin to see more creatively and find new paths they didn't know existed. It is my hope that in the future I can persuade my fellow educators into using this system to create a great learning experience for students that I will have the privilege of teaching.
If you wish to read more into the subject of teaching with integrated curriculums, I have included my annotated bibliography in the link provided.
