Curriculum integration.

I have long been a supporter of curriculum integration at middle school/secondary school level. Most examples of curriculum integration that I see at this level tend to be a couple of subjects (commonly two or more of English, Social studies, Outdoor education, health and science). The integration is based around a theme.

Kath Murdoch and James Beane support involving students as learning plans are developed for integrated teaching. I think what is missing from most models is the planning to teach for conceptual understanding. At the start of the planning process (and based on students interests and questions and curriculum guidelines) key concepts should be identified. The concepts can then be examined in a number of contexts to help students to really understand and apply them. The concepts should be explicit to the students and the teachers through learning activities and form the basis of student research plans.

Some reading or a starting point on curriculum integration:

Beane, J. (1991) Middle School: The Natural Home of Integrated Curriculum. Educational Leadership, October 1991.Beane, J. (1995) Curriculum Integration and the Disciplines of Knowledge. Phi-Delta-Kappan.

Murdoch, Kath (1998), Classroom Connections Strategies for Integrated Learning. Eleanor Curtin PublishingMurdoch, Kath and Hornsby, David (1997) Planning Curriculum Connections Whole-School Planning for Integrated Curriculum. Eleanor Curtin Publishing

Books by James Beane.

Photo: what seems impossible can sometimes happen. A Macrocarpa tree growing on the Southern coastline of Wellington.

xtimeline- develop a timeline collaboratively.

xtimeline lets your students create a timeline on any subject, linking in information and resources. They can work collaboratively on a project like a wiki.

Of interest to the teacher:

'There are privacy settings for the timeline creator, determining who can view a timeline, who can contribute to a timeline, and who can comment on a timeline. The layout for these timelines is clean, readable, and easy to navigate, which are all key functions to having a useful timeline on the Internet. The information for any given module on a timeline can be viewed along side the timeline, or as a full page, which has the formatting functionality of a blog entry.' (from http://mashable.com/2007/07/05/xtimeline/)

There are some interesting ones on the site including a timeline for the crisis in Darfur, history of music in the USA and various wars and historical events. A class or group in a class could develop one to show historical events, this could be added to over successive years...

Many thanks to Pam for letting me know about this tool.

Creative lesson starters.

The internet provides a range of thought provoking material. Here are a couple that could be useful:

Social studies or media studies:-

EPIC 2015- a short movie that looks at possible effects of journalists losing control of the media. Could be balanced with ideas from the long tail.

For maths-

The quadratic equation is one of the first challenging equations that students have to memorise and learn- this song has really helped at least one 16 yr old boy learn this equation.

Students co-constructing curriculum and contexts.

I believe it is important that students are involved in constructing the classroom curriculum that they are going to learn. In New Zealand, our national curriculum is flexible enough to allow students to have a big say in the contexts that will suit their learning needs and interests. It is not that difficult to do, and can be done with year 11-13 students where high stakes qualifications are included. Kath Murdoch and James Beane are two people who have inspired me in this area.

I was interested to read Marc Prensky's blog this week, advocating the inclusion of students at teacher education conferences. This is an idea worth further consideration.

I wonder how we could include a much stronger student voice in the process of the current tweak of our national curriculum.

Of course, this all assumes that we are ready to share or give up some of the power associated with being the teacher at the chalkface (or smartboard). Chris Sessums looks at the locus of control in his blog this week.