Abstract
When the students are taught using a class by class, subject by subject basis, they learn less than using whatʼs called integrated curriculum. An integrated curriculum places less emphasis on teaching just the subject, and more emphasis on the connections that exist among different subject areas. An integrated approach to teaching helps students learn to put a variety of ideas together. Integrated approach to learning involves planning for learning experiences and allow children to explore topics as a whole and in meaningful content and not by subjects. We can say that all the definitions of integrated curriculum or integrated teaching include the following: a combination of subjects, flexible student groupings, more than one curricular subject, an emphasis on subjects, sources that go beyond textbooks. The integrated approach is similar to the unit study approach, but takes it one step further, focusing on thinking skills as well, helping children understand connections between the subjects, and not just focusing on the how or the what, but also on the why. It is necessary to explain the concept of integrated learning, its needs and relevance, to describe different types of integration and their use in meaninful learning, to use the techniques to integrate learning experiences within one subject and integrating different subjects, to identify the characteristics of integrated textbooks and learning materials.
Keywords: Integrationcurriculuminterdisciplinarysynergylearningteaching
Introduction
When we try to choose something by ourselves, we find it fixed to anything else in the universe. (Muir, 1911)
Is there really a need to develop an integrated curriculum or is it just another passing trend? This question deserves careful consideration. We live in a global world characterized by more and more changes, advancing technology, an explosion of knowledge, economic and social realities, and perhaps an imminent environmental catastrophe. The education system seems to be constantly attacked. Critics claim that students drop out of school at an alarming rate. Those who stay in school do not do well enough to be able to compete in a global economy and maintain a high standard of living (Drake, 1993).
Problem Statement
Efforts to integrate the curriculum have a long history. Stack (1961) followed the philosophical and psychological antecedents of the core curriculum from the writings of Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). Harville (1954) mentioned trends in education, psychology and anthropology. Fraley (1978) described the work of Hollis Caswell and Harold Alberty as regards the integration of the core curriculum. In their vast activity on the core curriculum, Faunce and Bossing (1958) presented a variety of national curriculum reforms between the 1930s and 1940s. The most important of these, progressive education, included a strong emphasis on the student, integrated approaches to education, usually under the name of the core curriculum (Vars, 1972).
The evolutionary concept of the core curriculum was tested in the famous eight-year study of the Progressive Learning Association (Akin, 1942). Since then, over 80 normative or comparative studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of integrated programs (National Association for Nuclear Curriculum, 1984). In almost every case, pupils in various integrated/ interdisciplinary programs responded as well or better to standard purchase tests than students enrolled in the separate, customary themes (Vars, 1991, p. 14).
Today some people criticize teachers because they do not adequately teach basic skills; others argue that the basic skills students need for 21st century are not the same we are teaching now. The component of knowledge, practically of each thematic area, is proliferating at an increasing rate. Paradoxically, as thematic areas become overloaded, a surprising number of overlaps take place in classes. Educators are trapped in a dilemma. Integration by reducing the overlapping of both abilities and content starts to allow us to teach more. It also gives us a new perspective on what constitutes basic skills (Drake, 1993).
Research Questions
This study was designed to explore the following questions:
What is integrated teaching and learning?
Why is integrated teaching and learning important?
How does integrated teaching and learning look in practice?
Which would be the authentic challenges of integrated design?
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study was to explain what is an integrated aproach and to find the possible challenges in pedagogical design of learning. From the study, it is evident that, further research in this area is warranted. In particular, insights generated in relation to student engagement and participation through the integration of subject areas demonstrates the value associated with such an approach for student learning and the teachers’ professional development.
Research Methods
The idea of this work is justified by the theoretical and practical relevance of the integrated approach, not only for the education, but especially for its direct beneficiary, the student. Methodological, the main role of the discourse is to solve the possible options and alternatives to the meaning of messages subject to reflection. In order to facilitate the process of approaching the presented problem, the methods of research I established are: narrative analysis, the content analysis, focused on qualitative aspects of messages, generalization, interpretation, and a descriptive but also hermeneutic intervention, with the intention to develop an analytical, critical approach, capable of generating alternative designs (Berg, 2001).
Findings
6.1. What is integrated teaching and learning?
To try to define the integrated curriculum it is necessary to refer to related terms:
A basic definition is given by Humphreys, Post, and Ellis, (1981): ”An integrated study is one in which children explore broadly the knowledge on various topics related to certain aspects of the environment” (p. 11). He sees linkages between the humanities, the art of communication, the natural sciences, social studies, music and art. Skills and knowledge are developed and applied in a larger field of study.
Shoemaker (1989) defines an integrated curriculum as education organized in such a way that it crosses the barriers of the subject in question, bringing together various aspects of the curriculum in meaningful associations to focus on broad areas of study. It refers to teaching and learning in a holistic way and reflects the real world, which is interactive. Dresselʼs definition (1958) goes beyond linking the domains to creating new models of understanding the world. He states that in the integrated curriculum, planned learning experiences not only endow students with a unified vision of commonly held knowledge (learning models, systems and structures of culture), but motivating them and developing them also the power to perceive new relationships and thus create new models, systems and structures.
Another term that is often used, synonymous with the integrated curriculum, is the
These definitions support the idea that the integrated curriculum is an educational approach that prepares the child for lifelong learning. There is a strong belief among those who support curricular integration, as a process of developing the skills needed for 21st century life, rather than discreetly, divided the subject. In general, all definitions of the integrated or interdisciplinary curriculum include: a combination of themes, a focus on projects, sources that go beyond manuals, concepts, thematic units as organizational principles, flexible schedules, flexible groups of students (Lake, 2001, pp. 190-191).
This work was also supported by others involved in the implementation of the integrated curriculum (Jacobs, 1989; Shoemaker, 1989) These differentiations can progress from teaching the same subject by two teachers (for example, literature and history teachers to teach about the same period historical), to the project of the thematic units of a team, to courses or to the interdisciplinary thematic units, to a fully integrated curriculum, which is also referred to as
6.2. Why is integrated teaching and learning important?
Loepp (1999) stated that regardless of the chosen integration model, there are some common elements that arise: teachers need to change their belief system from one that is primarily of a didactic nature, one who has a foundation in constructivism, need a broad professional development, must become members of study communities, become skilled in facilitating small group learning, manage experience-based training, learn to use authentic evaluation strategies such as portfolios, performance exams, and headings to document student progress; school administrators and councils must be geared to provide teachers with the necessary resources and permanent support; public information strategies require implementation to inform the community and parents about the use of a new educational paradigm. Finally, changing to an integrated curriculum requires systemic reform. This includes how teachers are trained, qualified, and evaluated. Attention should also be paid to national student assessments and the process by which teacher credentials are renewed.
The concern to connect things with ideas of integration into and beyond subjects and with elements of non-school life is inherently a preoccupation to understand in a broader and deeper sense. Consequently, there is a natural alliance between those who make a special effort to teach for understanding, and those who make a special effort to integrated education (Perkins, 1991).
Teachers should continue to create their own models of curriculum integration. The process itself never ends. It is a cycle that offers a renewed energy to each new school year as teachers help the young mind to discover ”roots running underground through which contradictory and abstract things bind and bloom from one stalk”( Emerson, 1909; Fogarty, 1991, p. 65).
6.3. How does integrated teaching and learning look in practice?
There are different levels of integration, illustrated by Palmer (1991, p. 59), which describe the following practices:
Develop inter-curricular sub-objectives within a given curricular guide
Developing lesson models that include cross-curricular activities and assessments
Development of improvement and development activities with a cross-curricular focus including suggestions for cross-curricular ”contacts” after each goal
Developing cross-curricular evaluation activities
Inclusion of sample planning mechanisms in all curriculum guidelines (Lake, 2001).
Several authors have gone from a single definition of integrated curriculum to an integration (Lake, 2001). The ten visions of Fogarty and Stoehr (1995) for curriculum integration are the most commonly used plans in this field. They define different types of integration examples and varied configurations for designing the integrated curriculum. For the teacher, the teaching team or the entire staff, the models are a means of assessing the current practice, drawing a course of action for future integration and evaluation of a new class or unit (Merickel, 1998).
Thus, if the integration takes place within a single discipline, there are three models:
When the integration takes place by crossing disciplines, are presented five examples of integration:
Another situation, where integration takes place in and between students, includes two other integration models:
6.4. Which would be the authentic challenges of integrated design?
In the opinion of the founder of ”Khan Academy”, Salman Khan (Khan, 2015), education does not happen out of the blue, it does not take place in the empty space between the teacherʼs lips and the studentʼs ears; it is born in the minds of each of us. Itʼs not a metaphor but a reality. It seems that the optimal way in which the human brain retains information in the long term and certainly seems to suggest that the best teaching method is one that highlights the continuity of a subject, the chain of ideas that associates two or more concepts. Unfortunately, however, the standard teaching model does exactly the opposite.
This can best be seen in the artificial separation of traditional materials. We separate them arbitrarily; we isolate them. All these divisions limit understanding and transmit a false image of how the universe actually works. Connections between concepts - or rather their lack - are what separates students who memorize a formula for an exam and forgets it until next month and those who internalize concepts and are able to apply them at the required time and ten years later. In our misguided efforts to create well-defined categories and teaching modules perfectly compatible with the length of a course, we refuse pupils the benefits - the physiological benefits - of recognizing connections. The traditional approach tends to be frighteningly consistent; takes a piece of a subject and treat it as if it were in a vacuum: teaching the subject for two, three or six weeks, passing a test and moving on. No wonder the students say they forgot a topic as soon as they passed the exam.
Given that learning produces physical changes in the structure of the brain and that the idea of knowledge does not imply a linear evolution, but a gradual understanding of an extensive network of concepts and themes, a surprising conclusion emerges: each education is different. Although we have standardized our curriculum, we cannot standardize learning. No brain resembles another; no way through this tremendously subtle network that is knowledge does not resemble the next. Even the most standardized tests recognize that there will inevitably be a set of ideas that every student understands according to their own intellectual structure. Individual responsibility for knowledge goes hand in hand with the recognition of the uniqueness of each student.
In the traditional school curriculum, vast and miraculous aspects of human thinking are artificially condensed into pieces called ”school disciplines”. Concepts that should otherwise be intertwined as marine currents are separated into ”lessons”. The classic model is extremely schematic and masks or even deny the infinite possibilities of teaching and learning.
School learning involves responsibility for involving students in a transformative approach permanently regulated by predetermined endpoints (skills). From this point of view, the key role of the teacher, teaching, is resized at the level of significance and, implicitly, of practice. Teaching will become an act of delegation. Responsibility, first of all. And awareness of this responsibilities (Petre, 2016).
Conclusion
The conclusions that can be drawn are the following: during the first years, teaching should take advantage of the childʼs natural curiosity, the active search for knowledge should result from projects or subjects of interest to him and an integrated and suitable thematic approach. In addition, because not all children develop at the same rate and do not have the same curiosities, working in small groups - and sometimes individual work - normally associates with an integrated approach to the program, allows the process to be carried out educational experiences that correspond to the needs of each child and take advantage of their curiosities whenever they occur. Thus, the child can develop a sense of trust and security, since he can discover what he can do, instead of being discouraged by constantly being reminded (as in teaching traditional school) which he is not able to do.
In the classroom we have the opportunity to unite the disciplines in what they have simpler and clearer. If one provides students a sufficiently rich experience and if they are encouraged to consider the relevant phenomena from very different angles, to explore and examine them without the shackles of traditional subject-matter definitions, one can create in them the ability to look beyond the interdisciplinary barriers and to recognize the relationships and associations that exist between them. If this faculty is properly developed, it will be able to withstand the rigorous systematization, overabundance and complexity of the data and experience that will inevitably arise as the process of education unfolds.
The complexity of the mass of knowledge and capacity implied by such an approach, represents in a way a condense of everything human knowledge as it is reflected in the lives of children. If we will succeed in showing children from a young age that we can look at the same phenomenon from all angles, we will come to a better understanding of the world through cooperation instead of continuing a dialogue where everyone speaks without understanding what the other person is saying.
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Peicu*, V. (2019). Integrated Approach - Challenges In Pedagogical Design Of Learning. In E. Soare, & C. Langa (Eds.), Education Facing Contemporary World Issues, vol 67. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 1029-1037). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2019.08.03.125