Transdisciplinary Learning

As a future teacher I am constantly thinking about the best ways to structure my curriculum to provide the best opportunities for my students. Interdisciplinary curriculum is becoming more and more relevant in the 21^st century learning styles and is a style of teaching that I find very interesting. Interdisciplinary curriculum integrates concepts from different disciplines to make a synthesized whole in which many areas of study are considered (Drake, Reid, & Kolohon, 2014). There are several ways to do this but one of the best ways is through transdisciplinary curriculum. Transdisciplinary curriculum means going beyond the curriculum and planning with student interests and real world contexts rather than curriculum outcomes (Drake et al., 2014). Once a relevant theme is established teacher and students work together to decide what curriculum expectations fit their theme best. Since it is a real world context, many subjects are easily incorporated because a variety of ideas and skills are being implemented (Drake et al., 2014). Transdisciplinary curriculums include topics such as world hunger, gender inequality, and many other global issues. For example a question that could guide a transdisciplinary curriculum could be “why do some people in our community not have enough food? How can we change this?”. I wish that I had received this kind of education when I was in school. I feel like many teachers use the curriculum as the almighty guide for lessons and student expectations when sometimes the material is not relevant to the student’s lives. When teachers ask students questions like “what concerns you about yourself and the world around you?” they will be surprised by the immense awareness and knowledge students have about the world. Children are not little machines that you deposit information into. They think, have ideas and most of all care about the world around them and are interested in making change.

For Transdisciplinary curriculum a big idea acts as the overarching theme that leads the inquiry process

Retrieved from http://www.greenwichschools.org/page.cfm?p=6697

            To keep things in line with curriculum development, transdisciplinary curriculums have a very distinct set of know, do and be expectations. Learning to know involves making connections, adapting to changes and knowing how to learn new material. Learning to do involves performance tasks that demonstrate the ability to apply knowledge in a creative manner (Transdisciplinary Learning, 2006). Finally learning to be involves making connections on a local and global scale as well as being on a life-long journey of self-discovery (Transdisciplinary Learning, 2006). I thought I should include this information because it exhibits how possible a transdisciplinary curriculum is to implement. It seems a major risk to leave students to decide what the unit of study should be but through this KDB it is clear this curriculum is designed to implement many valuable skills that can used in the future.

            A great way implement a transdisciplinary curriculum is through project-based learning. In this, students tackle a local problem in the community with the guidance of their teachers (Drake & Burns, 2004). Teachers and students select a topic of study based on student interests, curriculum and local resources as a first step. Then the teacher works with the students to determine what they already know about the problem and help them generate questions and resources to tackle the problem. Finally, students share their work in a culminating activity where they share their results with the class and discuss strategies (Drake & Burns, 2004). Project-based learning has been proven to be extremely effective in that students are more attentive, ask open ended questions, make connections between curriculum and real-world events, and are generally more excited about school and the material that is being covered. I think in my future classroom I will have project-based learning activities in my classroom as it will help me have a transdisciplinary classroom. Using project based learning to help them environment would be useful in the Canadian context. Canada is known for its environmental beauty but pollution is slowly destroying it. As a project-based learning activity students could visit a local pond, forest, lake etc. and determine how they could use local resource to clean it up. Students would be making connections with the community and the real world through this form of curriculum which is knowledge that they will hold onto for a life time. I hope that this is a form of learning that other educators will use in the future because it’s really valuable J

Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARXs2cpzY3c

If you want to see a good example of transdisciplinary curriculum watch this video! It's really cool to see all these ideas come together in a real classroom!

References

Transdisciplinary Learning. (2006). Retrieved November 4, 2015 from: http://www.greenwichschools.org/page.cfm?p=6697

Drake, S., & Burs, R. (2004). What is Integrated Curriculum? In Meeting standards through integrated curriculum. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Drake, S. M., Reid, J. L., & Kolohon, W. (2014). Interweaving Curriculum and Classroom Assessment: Engaging the 21^st Century Learner. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.