Inkwells & Acroynms - June 2008
More Than a Happy Coincidence:
Planning for Cross-Disciplinary Learning
By Jennifer Mangler, Middle School Teacher
Last year as I introduced my students to the Black Death epidemic that devastated Europe in the 14th century one of them interrupted me and said, “Hey, we’re learning about that in science right now, too!” Heather Wiges and I hadn’t planned it, but it worked out that her science and my social studies lessons complimented each other. As we discussed this happy coincidence in our 7th grade team meeting we all began to ask ourselves this question: could each of us plan to teach something related to the topic of epidemics this time next year? The 7th grade cross-disciplinary unit on epidemics and infectious diseases was born.
We initially chose epidemics because it was a topic already being covered in more than one class. But was that a good enough reason to keep going? We decided this was a unit worth pursuing when we asked ourselves two important questions: What do we want our students to know about epidemics? Why do we want them to know it? These questions helped us define the purpose of our unit and allowed us to brainstorm different learning activities across the disciplines that would encourage our students to explore epidemics from many different angles.
We knew working together to plan a cross-disciplinary unit could result in a powerful learning experience for our students. But why, and what is a cross-disciplinary unit anyway? Cross-disciplinary units are so powerful because they:
- Are built around a single theme. A cross-disciplinary unit brings together many different disciplines, like reading, math, social studies and science to explore a single theme or problem. Usually, cross-disciplinary units occur within an entire grade level of students. Teachers of that grade level work together as a team to design the curriculum, instruction methods, and assessment. This is different from regular lessons, which are often limited by the boundaries of the subject.
- Eliminate boundaries between subjects. Sometimes it makes sense to focus on one subject at a time. But incorporating cross-disciplinary learning experiences into the curriculum is based on the belief that learning is more relevant and powerful for students when they can see connections between the disciplines. In real life, most learning isn’t broken up into nice, neat packages by discipline. There are all kinds of connections between the disciplines, and the beauty of cross-disciplinary units is that they take advantage of these natural connections.
- Help Students Make Real-World Connections. Our students learn best when they can connect what they learn in school to what’s going on in the world around them. Cross-disciplinary units will often tackle an important topic or ongoing problem we face. Students see that what they learn in school really does matter and will be used in “the real world.”
- Encourage Teacher Collaboration & Flexibility: Teachers who might not get a chance to collaborate because they teach in very different disciplines get that opportunity to brainstorm together in a cross-disciplinary unit. These units require a great deal of planning and ongoing reflection if they’re going to work. As I write this the 7th grade team has just completed our first cross-disciplinary unit, but we’re far from done. We will continue to reflect on our experiences and student feedback to make changes to the unit for next year.
The 7th grade team is not alone in accepting the challenges of designing a cross-disciplinary unit. The 6th and 8th grade teachers have also been working together to create cross-disciplinary learning experiences for their students. In 6th grade the units have covered the Nile River system and _______???______. The 8th grade team has a science fiction unit already in place and plans to incorporate a unit on corn into their curriculum next year.
Our continued goal at the middle school is to work closely together to create meaningful learning experiences for our students. With this goal in mind we will continue to move from happy coincidences to deliberately planned cross-disciplinary learning experiences.
