Wayne Inwood and Andrew Weeding

Integrated Stage Curriculum

Why do it?

“In our everyday life we are constantly applying our knowledge and skills in an integrated way.”

What are the implications of the above for teaching as we prepare students for their future working life?

Whatever they will be doing in their future occupation or their daily life, they will need to apply their knowledge and skills in an integrated way. Therefore, integrating their learning program will better prepare students for real life situations

What it is!

“Integrated stage curriculum is an educational approach that prepares children for lifelong learning….education is a process for developing abilities required by life in the 21st century, rather than discrete, departmentalized subject matter.”

Integrated Curriculum, by Kathy Lake of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory,

Integrated Stage Curriculum:

“a curriculum organization which cuts across subject-matter lines to

focus upon comprehensive life problems or broad based areas of

study that brings together the various segments of the curriculum

into meaningful association”Dictionary of Education

Summary of Research Findings, Lipson 1993

Integrated curriculum helps students apply skills.

An integrated knowledge base leads to faster retrieval of information

Multiple perspectives lead to a more integrated knowledge base.

Integrated curriculum encourages depth and breadth of learning (through inquiry)

Integrated curriculum promotes positive attitudes in students (ownership, self-directed study)

Integrated curriculum provides for more quality time for curriculum exploration

What Integrated Stage Curriculum can do

It can embrace with ease Gardner’s Multiple intelligence theory

Encourage multiple learning styles Allows for inquiry based on the stage

needs and outcomes of our students Global connection Bloom’s taxonomy and higher order

thought occurs Real life applications results in retention

of acquired knowledge

Exemplars -

‘Sustainabilty Unit’ by Karen Yager

Other examples at; ‘Surfaid’ http://schools.surfaidinternational.org/

DET http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/gats/assets/pdf/pdh_wshop_book.pdf

Teachers move from Teacher to Facilitator

Pieces of a puzzle come together (COGS) “use the model of Connected Outcomes Groups (COGS)across

Key Learning Areas to develop integrated, Middle Years’ units of work in primary and early secondary years to foster both student engagement and teacher collaboration”. – DET 2009

Teachers also increase their own content knowledge and understanding.

Teacher

student

Integrated Stage Curriculum Design

Priorities that overlap multiple disciplines are examined for common skills, concepts, and attitudes

Encourages students to see interconnectedness and interrelationships among disciplines.

Students are motivated as they see these connections.

Requires interdepartmental teams with common planning and teaching time, or an individual teacher to show weaving throughout a given period of time.

Where to from here? Walk before we run – ‘a pilot Year 7

daVinci integrated unit of work.’ Suggested Unit Parameters;

Must encompass all Y7 subject areas Unit Concept – “Creativity through daVinci”

Essential Learning goal; Students to appreciate why and how creativity is a

powerful tool for change

Unit to run for six weeks in Term 2 of 2011 Unit to be worth 30% of Semester 1

assessment within each subject. Assessment grade delivered in 3 stages

across the time frame for the task i.e.. 2 weeks 1/3, etc.

Final task to be showcased via a presentation night at the end of the six weeks

Now running… An invitation is extended to teachers across Y7

subject areas to collaborate with the SAM team in writing an integrated unit of work for Y7 daVinci students.

It will need to be written by the end of this term Suggested planning time frame;

Week 2 (HODs meeting)  Overarching faculty learning statement (to complement

the overarching unit concept for the task as a whole) What students are to learn Key learning ideas

  Week 4 (HODs meeting) Outline of the task using the template provided by Karen

Week 6 (HODs meeting) Unit written with marking guidelines

Group work

What is Creativity?

Creativity has been defined as the ability to produce something new through imaginative skill, whether a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form.

The term generally refers to a richness of ideas and originality of thinking.

Group work

Who wants to take up the invitation within your subject area?

Already on board, Zac and Andrew

Possible unit overarching questions could be;1. How does creativity enrich our lives?

2. How can a review of the of Leonardo daVinci give us a window into the craft of creative thinking?

Do we need to tweak these? Can you come up with better alternatives?