Recently, our school held its annual 3E Conference – a gathering of educators from several continents, all meeting to discuss ways in which we can further push the boundaries of education and support our students to become energized, engaged and empowered.
The focus of this year’s conference was on personalized learning and strategies for making learning more connected to the lives of our students.
* sidebar, the conference organizers showed an amazing sense of humour branding the conference with the tag line, “This time it’s personal”, and at the same time shouting out to Jaws: The Revenge, one of the ultimate good/bad movies of all time.*
During the course of the conference, I found myself in many conversations regarding the integration of disciplines in order to create more authentic and meaningful learning.
In other words, IDUs.
For those in the MYP community, IDUs (short for interdisciplinary units), are a requirement – one IDU (assessed using the special IDU criteria) per year level, each academic year.
Like so many things in education, IDUs are one of these items that we all philosophically get behind, yet practically, often find difficult to implement (again, it would seem, the enemy may be timetabling).
Finding time to plan, implement and assess an IDU can be a bear – to the point where it is potentially a deterrent to the teacher’s developing the unit.
So if the logistics behind IDUs are potentially a deterrent to their implementation, why not make “Interdisciplinary Studies” its own MYP course?
Why
Lionel Elvin has a very poignant thought about a model of disciplinary education:
“When you are out walking, nature does not confront you for three quarters of an hour only with flowers and in the next only with animals.”
This may sound silly, but he has a point.
While most of us are aware of Finland ditching traditional subjects in recent years in favour of a “Phenomenon based” education, curriculum specialists such as Heidi Hayes Jacobs have long advocated for a greater amount of interdisciplinary learning in schools. “Outside of school”, Jacobs writes, “we deal with problems and concerns in a flow of time that is not divided into knowledge fields…it is critical that students see the strength of each discipline perspective in a connected way”. She said this, by the way, in 1989 – this is nothing new.
In fact, you could make the argument that an integrated approach to education is the most authentic way in which we can learn things – in context, with multiple disciplines supporting us to create solutions to problems, express our creativity or satisfy our curiosities.
When you are out walking, nature does not confront you for three quarters of an hour only with flowers and in the next only with animals.
How
So how can MYP schools approach building Interdisciplinary Studies as a course of its own?
The sky is the limit to how we could approach this really. High Tech High in the United States provides one interesting model, Finland provides another.
But in the context of most MYP schools I have encountered, three initial ideas come tomind:
1. Interdisciplinary studies could become a rotational subject, experienced in a trimester or semester timeline. This would be fairly easy to plug into a schedule, however, it might make the course seem superficial – more of a “have to do”, hit-and-run experience than a sustained and meaningful approach.
2. Interdisciplinary Studies could become an alternate programme for students who opt-in. These students would naturally spend less time in other disciplines and more time satisfying requirements via more robust interdisciplinary experiences. Schools such as Shanghai American are currently following a model such as this. While this would be a good way to pilot the a new course, it does potentially lend itself to exclusivity.
3. Reduce the number of hours for traditional subjects and have Interdisciplinary Studies make up the majority of a student’s timetable. This would still allow for students to experience disciplinary learning (something Jacob’s highlights as critical to the interdisciplinary experience) and would allow schools to put into practice a framework for learning that is more authentic than traditional models. This might mean the MYP would have to give on its “All strands, twice a year” assessment model, but an argument can be made that the “sacrifice” of less exposure to the disciplinary strands would be more than worth it.
Day to Day
Students can, and, when possible, should be involved in the development of Interdisciplinary units. – Heidi Hayes Jacobs
In terms of how the course might look on a day-to-day basis, I will again pull from Ms. Jacobs who notes, “Students can, and, when possible, should be involved in the development of Interdisciplinary units”.
Within the classroom, we would see students identifying actual problems in their own lives/communities and seeking authentic ways to solve them. Students using design thinking and a process such as the one suggested in The Quest for Learning, to begin to design their own interdisciplinary units and success criteria.
In this model, the teacher becomes a servant leader – seeking out opportunities for students to go deeper with their thinking, supporting students in making the necessary connections to local and online experts and liaising with expert teachers in necessary areas of subject integration (it doesn’t take a math teach to recognize when math might be needed in an IDU).
In this model, teachers don’t need to be subject experts, just experts in supporting students to design their experience, connect with relevant experts and reflect on their indicators of success, by facilitating co-assessment between the student, experts and teacher.
Eventually, this course would not only promote more authentic learning and increased empowerment of learners, but may potentially push schools towards offering flexible timetables, purpose-built learning spaces and a community approach to teaching – one that goes beyond “team teaching” and extends into “it takes a village” territory.
Considering that life never presents itself to us in a silo-esque way, why should we present learning in this way to our students?
How does your school handle IDUs? What ways are you looking to increase student involvement in Interdisciplinary learning?
I am personally going to advocate to facilitate an Interdisciplinary Studies course option to be put into place at our school during the next academic year. I am excited to hear the feedback I get and will share any progress.
Resources:
Elvin, L. (1977). The Place of Common Sense in Educational Thought. London: Unwin Educational Books.
Jacobs, H.H. (1989). Interdisciplinary curriculum: Design and implementation. ASCD.
Educator Voices 