Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching

Events and Activities

Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching

MYP Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching One of the highlights of the MYP programme is its emphasis on interdisciplinary learning and teaching, which reflects the challenges and opportunities of educating students in, and for, an interconnected and complex world.

Although the MYP organizes learning into disciplinary subjects, it requires creative and authentic integration and collaboration across disciplinary subjects so that students can understand and work on more complex issues and ideas. Interdisciplinary learning at Concordian ranges from small-scale occasional links to large-scale IDU units and projects.

Cartoonist Talk Hero’s Journey Framework G6-12 Design and Technology, I&S, G6 English and Design and Technology Thai and English

Concordian welcomed two guest speakers to kick off the beginning of the year. The talk featured Nicolas Verstappen, a lecturer in comic arts from the Faculty of Communication Arts, Chulalongkorn University and Tanis Werasakwong (Sa-Ard), an International Manga Award winning Thai cartoonist. This event was jointly organized by the Library and the English Department for an IDU with Ms. Min Design and Technology, I&S, Thai and MYP Vice Principal of Teaching and English.

Learning To extend students’ understanding of visual expression and interpretation which are important skills in the IB programmes, Nicolas taught our students about comic composition, narratives and stories behind the pictures while Tanis inspired them through his ideas and live drawings.

Ending the day with a casual talk show, our guest speakers poured their hearts out, sharing their personal stories and favorite reads.

Grade 6 English students wrote short stories based on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey framework while using the same framework to create video games in Design. Characters were created using Pixelart.com and game platforms were coded through Scratch. mit.edu.com. Incorporating elements of the written narrative from English LL and some English LA classes into their games helped students develop more engaging storylines and gameplay.

Mr. Luke

Mr. Roxy

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Week Without Walls at Sukhothai: Dawn of Happiness G6 I&S and Thai

Forces in Sport G7 Science and PHE

On November 18-22, 2019, Grade 6 students visited Sukhothai, Thailand during the WWW. They collected data and used artifact analysis to learn about the development of Thai language and Khmer architectural influence during the Sukhothai period. In the end, students created their own brochure to showcase their understanding of Thai culture and language including sketches of artifacts, composition of text and analysis of historical artifacts. This integration supports both Individualities & Societies and Thai course objectives.

Supported by their science and PHE teachers, the 7th grade students were given the opportunity to connect their learning of forces and motion in science with ball games in PHE. Their goal was to see if a deeper knowledge of the science underpinning the activities in PHE could lead to an improvement on the field. Students were given a choice of scenarios to explore, a tactics board to construct and explain mathematically, and a reflective piece to discuss their findings.

Mr. Aaron

Mr. Michael and Mr. Toni

Events and Activities

Geeking Over Graphic Novels!

G10 English and I&S G10 English Language Acquisition students in Ms. Michelle and Mr. Stephen’s classes combined forces for a unit on the language of graphic novels. To fuel their stories and inspire creativity, this unit ran alongside the MYP 5 I&S unit on Imperialism and used the countries they learned about in I&S to create the setting and backstory for their own graphic novels. After weeks of preparation, they had the opportunity to meet with professional writers to get feedback on their ideas before creating their original stories.

Mr. Steve and Ms. Michelle We Are Family G9 Thai and Chinese

History is Alive in the Arts G10 Arts & I&S

“We Are Family” is the G9 IDU theme that combines Thai LL/PLL/LA and Chinese LL/ LA. This unit utilized the key concept of creativity to explore the relationship between related concepts from Chinese and Thai subjects in order to achieve a deeper understanding of the cultural roots of the immigrants in Thailand. Students created a new combined menu to raise awareness of the issues in their local community and to explore alternative solutions.

The arts influencing society and society influencing the arts. We often shrug off or don’t even notice the effects of global history all around us, especially those of the industrial revolution. G10 students dove into a creative interdisciplinary unit between the I&S and fine arts departments, which let them truly explore the historical context of popular art and plays. They explored Henry Ford’s innovations, delved into Freud’s concepts of psychoanalysis, Kru May and Ms. Rong and wrestled with concepts of global economics.

These students explored art techniques of surrealism and cubism, opening their eyes to the amazing richness of these historical art movements; while their I&S classes pushed them to ask questions and better understand the historical events and ideas that gave birth to those art styles. The combination of the Arts and I&S classes lent the students a clear understanding of the upheaval of industrialization had on society, reflected in the art, theater, and music of that time.

Visual Text Types in English G8 Design and English In the Grade 8 Design and English IDU, Design students created graphic novel excerpts, while deriving inspiration from various text types in their English Language and literature (LL) and Language Acquisition (LA) classes.

Mr. Luke

Mr. Nathan

Covid-19 Training

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n March 6, 2020, the nursing department organized a Covid-19 training for staff. Covid-19 is still worrisome, and the management is concerned about the health of all staff, so they want the staff to know about the disease as much as possible and apply that knowledge to their everyday lives.

Khun Alice

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