Week 31 Crossing Boundaries
One of the potential interdisciplinary connections from my map which would serve as an important future goal is with the Years 7-8. This connection has been mooted for some time and it is with some urgency that it now needs to be addressed. The introduction of a Year 7-8 cohort has meant that here is an opportunity for students to have a more seamless transition from a junior school environment to Year 9. Traditionally this has been an issue for many students and schools. Students who were succeeding in the junior school environment found themselves struggling in Year 9 and teachers who were more used to the “siloed” approach of secondary school teaching found it difficult to motivate students who were anxious and lost in that new and untested environment. Taking these factors into account I would put my energies into this area rather than the other connections.
How might the joint planning, decision-making, and goal-setting take place?
Planning would need to start with meetings of staff with the Year 7-8 area, especially Year 8 teachers, and Year 9 and 10 teachers. It might also be a good idea to include any feedback from the students themselves. Also it would be a good idea to sound out schools which had already been through this process and invite staff from those schools to share with our staff.
One of the things which we would need to think about from the start is do we want collaboration/connections in just one area eg English. Do we want to start small with a couple of learning areas or do we want to think about connections across a wider range of subjects. Staff from the Years 7-8 would need to outline the curriculum they teach to as would the Year 9 and 10 teachers. A good understanding of the styles and format of what happens in each level would be very useful.
A useful approach I imagine at this level might be thematic. If Years 7-10 could work out a thematic approach which would be followed this would incorporate some form of interdisciplinary co-operation.
ACRLog. (2015). A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration. Retrieved from http://acrlog.org/2015/05/14/a-conceptual-model-for-interdisciplinary-collaboration
American Association of Colleges of Nursing.(2016). Interdisciplinary Education and Practice. Retrieved from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/publications/position/interdisciplinary-education-and-practice
Berg-Weger, M., &. Schneider, F. D. (1998). Interdisciplinary collaboration in social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 34, 97-107.
Hi Brian,
ReplyDeleteInteresting focus and topical. Although I teach year 7/8, I was talking to a friend in secondary just yesterday about the silo-ing. She mentioned that there was a lot of pressure from management to investigate an interdisciplinary approach, but that there was little in the way of teacher buy-in, the feeling being that too rapid a change was being suggested and not enough support and unpacking of what this could actually look like. I found the Ross spiral model intriguing and mentioned this to her; her feeling was that NCEA was a major barrier to cross-curricular links at secondary school. I wonder if you can see a way around this?
Cheers,
Simon
Hi Brian,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts, as a primary teacher it's great to hear secondary teachers thinking about interdisciplinary ways of teaching. I would strongly recommened you check out Rolleston College's (a brand new secondary school in Canterbury) model of interdisciplinary teaching or get your hands on a copy of Most Likely to Succeed (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4267108/). This movie/documentary gives a great insight into a high school in the States doing amazing things will curriculum integration.