4-1. A rationale for “why” the ITU is developmentally responsive to English:
The interdisciplinary approach reflects the use and integration of analytical methods and frameworks across disciplines to insight into academic subjects, concepts, questions or ideas. The merit of interdisciplinary education is to integrate concepts and guiding principles of various disciplines to form a more complete and consistent framework of a systematic analysis to help students understand the topic or problem in a more diverse way. Students with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds have diverse academic backgrounds as well. They have diverse intellectual abilities and preferences and learning methods. Thus, by introducing interdisciplinary learning methodologies in which students can be educated with a variety of curriculums and instructions, students would be able to be encouraged to develop their learning skills more effectively. Students can use their past learning, intellectual experience and skills to learn and acquire new knowledge and skills. Through this process, students can be stimulated in their intellectual curiosity and ability, and they can enhance their confidence by actively applying prior knowledge and experience in their learning process.
4-2. A synopsis of the content you plan to address in the ITU:
The theme of this unit is Halloween. This unit consists of four lesson plans on instructing English Language Art: Reading, Writing, Art, Social Science, and
This learning experience is designed for a year 1 class (middle of the year) with diverse learning needs. The lessons take into account Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory and caters for EAL/D, students who are ready to move beyond the lesson and students who are not ready to move beyond the lesson. The activities seen in the three lessons may be modified to suit the needs of individual students (refer to catering for diversity).
For session three I read Walker the story The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. This story is one of my favorites and he really enjoyed it. It is about a little girl who does not have the confidence that she can paint. Once she overcomes it and starts painting her paintings are placed in an art museum. I thought this story could give Walker the encouragement he needed. After reading the story I gave Walker cut out lo-go’s of McDonald’s, Ward’s, John Deere, Ramey’s, Dollar General and Wal-Mart. Walker was able to read them all except Wal-Mart. He was so excited to read them to his mom whenever she came to pick him up. Teachers can use environmental print to relate the pictures to the letters they begin with. The McDonald’s logo can be used to teach
curriculum. Additionally, this enables for a higher than usual level of explicit teaching in all subject areas. However, it does not make integrated curriculum delivery very viable. Fortunately, Mrs. Bea has an innovative teaching style and adjusts her teaching to cater to Gardner’s multiple intelligences (1983) and diverse learning styles.
Harry Brighouse develops the idea that the contemporary education becomes more and more diverse and educators have to develop new approaches to teaching. In this regard one of the main ideas developed by Brighouse is the idea of the differential approach to students and learning process. Students have the different background and they need different approaches being applied to their learning. To put it more precisely, Brighouse argues that “people’s personalities vary on many dimensions: exuberance, spontaneity,
Purpose: To inform the audience of how Halloween started and transformed to what it is now.
The main example I can recall where I knew and recognized the “integration of learning” concerned westward expansion through Manifest Destiny in the United States. I had learned about this event previously in grade school, so this was not an unfamiliar concept. Yet every time I was taught it, it was viewed as a positive thing, how it settled the country and led to the building of countless railroad tracks and telegraph lines. However, in my Environmental Studies class this year, this event had a much grimmer picture. The desolation of tribes and the pure fact that we justified our horrible and extreme actions in the name of God defined this event. I had always had the inkling in the back of my head that something was wrong with the picture
Independent learning is a solution presented by DiCarlo and Lujan to fix the current curriculum problem: “it is clear that active processing of information and not just passive reception of that information leads to learning” (19). Students must become active learners to encourage cognition. Furthermore, students will succeed when they stop memorizing information and begin understanding it; this begins with shortening curriculums and encouraging independent
Integrative studies is the ability to form bridges between different areas of knowledge creating a network of information. Thus, allowing us to see each individual area in it’s own right but also how the areas do or do not function as a whole. A wonderful example of this would be a puzzle. Each individual piece is portraying a specific image or part of an image. Some puzzle pieces fit together while others do not. But once the puzzle is finished not only are you able to see how the individual pieces came together to form an image but you are also see how all together they form a whole a much bigger picture. Even the pieces that do not touch (relate) still have an impact on the situation as a whole. This is what integrative studies is. The ability to pull bits of information and assemble them to accomplish a goal or intent.
This artifact bookmaking lesson plan was created for my Language Arts for Young Children course. The purpose of the lesson plan was for children to demonstrate their understanding of basic plots of simple stories. The objective was to them to think up their own stories and put them into handmade books. I was able to implement this lesson plan in during my field experience for the advanced observation course.
Interdisciplinary utilizes different fields or disciplines together for a common goal. This concept provides a unique perspective on tackling issues. When implementing an interdisciplinary approach, communication can be challenging since the various disciplines have a unique set of terms and vocabulary that may not be common. Doctors, mathematician, and computer programmers to name a few all have a different way of communicating. Barriers such as these can slow the process equating to higher cost. However, the benefits of combining unlike fields can create a different experience by approaching the problem from different perspectives removing like-minded people from the trenches of their discipline.
iSci fits very well with my learning style in order to prepare me for a future in biology or potentially medicine. The interdisciplinary approach in iSci is ideal for each prospective career as scientific problems require the input of each field to come up with a viable solution. This program is also very appealing because of the application it has to today’s problems. Because of this, I would be getting the problem solving skills within the very field in which I would like to work. Additionally, this program has everything I need to practically apply all the skills I would be learning. Moreover the field trip opportunities in this program is very exciting. I believe that learning the practical application of certain skills is extremely beneficial,
Integrative studies will prove to be beneficial during my college career. My chosen major of University Studies requires three separate minors, I feel my selections, public relations, communication, and child development can easily flow into each other. But not all aspects of each minor can work in every situation. This is where learning the elements of integrative studies comes in. Depending on the circumstances I will need to be able to have a full perspective of how all of these minors work
Therefore, the U.S. educational system has the obligation to educate students to better understand the complexity of the world they inhabit to effectively address the challenges we can not anticipate today. Individual disciplines are the lens to understand the challenges of the world than when used with the awareness of the interdisciplinary perspective inform the student how to better address the multiple faceted global issues of the 21st century. Only interdisciplinary curriculums with an integrated learning
The increased diversification of the undergraduate student population in the United States’ higher education system has been well-documented (Barefoot, 2002; Hutchinson, 2010; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1998), and has resulted in greater access for marginalized populations (Kuh, 2008). Specifically, the number of undergraduate student parents has risen from around 3.2 million in 1995, to 4.8 million in 2012 – amounting to 26% of the total college population (Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2016). Despite this burgeoning group, student parent success as measured by retention rates are alarmingly low; only one-third attain a degree or certificate within six years of enrollment (Gault, Reichlin, Reynolds, & Froehner, 2014; Miller, Gault,
If a teacher is having difficulty reaching a student in the more traditional linguistic or logical ways of instruction, the theory of multiple intelligences suggests several other ways in which the material might be presented to facilitate effective learning.