Focus on learning
‘Integrated learning with a purpose may motivate students to take some action in school, at home or in the community.’
Interdisciplinary learning and the real world! Malcolm Nicolson applies some context to a key curricular theme Many educators have spent the last two decades or more telling colleagues, parents and students that interdisciplinary learning is crucial and must be incorporated in any quality curriculum. We point to skills, knowledge and attitudes that deepen understanding, and we emphasise solving of global issues. However, saying that interdisciplinarity is required to provide solutions for global challenges such as poverty and climate change has always felt like a throwaway comment. It seems intuitively right, but if we were to dive deeper, can we really explain what that means and why? The International Baccalaureate (IB) defines interdisciplinary learning in the Middle Years Programme (MYP) as “the process by which students come to understand bodies of knowledge and ways of knowing from two or more disciplines or subject Winter
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| 2017
groups and integrate them to create new understanding” (IB, 2014). As guided by Veronica Boix-Mansilla, they describe three qualities of interdisciplinary learning: integrative, purposeful, and rooted in the disciplines. How does this theoretical description relate to life beyond the classroom? How does it relate to the students of today addressing the challenges of tomorrow? Do we really need interdisciplinary learning to address global issues? The development of Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills across IB programmes has supported the possibilities for unlocking interdisciplinary learning through subjectspecific and generic skills across five skill categories: thinking, social, communication, self-management, research and communication.
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