INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION

All the experts work together like cogs in the greater scheme of things providing the best educational opportunities for our 21st century learners.

Now I read this and it screams everything we have done this year. It talks about Inquiry based learning (real in-depth inquiry), collaboration and learning communities and I have to say it excites me. Throughout this course we have picked up pieces of the puzzle, created some of the pieces and as time progressed we shaped the puzzle with our new found knowledge. Exciting stuff right!?

So let’s get stuck in, what is interdisciplinary learning? To me it screams inquiry based learning and then some! Firstly it is about picking a theme and not a topic to study, so rather than study a famous New Zealander, it’s more identify a New Zealander that has influenced your life and others. This gives authenticity to the task, provides the gateway for the student to connect to their topic and you still explore famous NZers. So straight away I can see links to reading, writing maths and social science. Dependent upon what the New Zealander is well known for it may link to other areas in the curriculum. The interdisciplinary part in my eyes is linking to the experts of these curriculum areas. Tapping into their knowledge and skills and adding this to your own personal kete of knowledge. Maintaining those connections and indeed adding your knowledge and skills into this intricate weaving, strengthens the community of learning you are creating.

With the development of these communities brings to the fore our skills in collaboration. Learning together not only face to face but online, through a variety of communities. This also includes online resources such as Youtube, Tedex to name but a few. What is becoming more exciting is our students are accessing these sources independently and bringing them to share. Collaboration encompasses our peers, students, whanau, community and experts. Developing the skills of communication, empathy, negotiation and self-awareness and so important to insure the collaboration is purposeful, positive and sustainable.

In our school we have curriculum teams and there are members of the core areas in each team. So our curriculum teams meet and then feed back into their syndicates. Each term we have a science or social science focus. As a syndicate we plan collaboratively, integrating all the core subjects through the inquiry. Each curriculum member feedbacks back into the integration insuring both coverage and authenticity of tasks. What is really exciting is teachers are not reliant on outside experts or providers but also finding and sharing of online resources through social media. Students are even beginning to feed back during the initial planning stage.

Is it yet another passing phase? The latest “fad” in teaching? Or is this the way of the future? Whatever it is I believe it has the potential to truly meet the needs of our learners, providing a gateway for greater involvement in the learning process for our learners, whanau and contributing experts. It also provides opportunities for teachers to share expertise and to learn from each other. I think if we plan this and teach the skills needed to insure its success we have a powerful tool that will produce learners best suited for our ever changing future.