Interdisciplinary Curriculum in K-12 Schools

2017 ◽  
pp. 125-143
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
Content Knowledge ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Interdisciplinary Curriculum ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Grade Levels ◽  
The Arts ◽  
K 12

Creating a multidisciplinary curriculum may be challenging for some teachers due to a variety in grade levels, subjects taught, time allowed or devoted per subject or course, and class size combined with the emphasis on high stakes testing and content knowledge in other subjects. However, since all teachers have the potential to create integrated STREAMSS (science, technology, reading-writing/language arts, engineering, the arts, mathematics, and social studies) lessons, teachers may find the assistance they need by collaborating with teacher colleagues, connecting with parents and community members, and exploring available resources. A simplified “how to” list on creating a multidisciplinary lesson and examples of how STREAMSS concepts could be intertwined within and among topics is provided in this chapter.

Community responsive literacies: the development of the Ethnic Studies Praxis Story Plot

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward R. Curammeng ◽  
Daisy D. Lopez ◽  
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Educational Partnerships ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Language Arts Teachers ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Arts Teachers ◽  
K 12

Purpose Momentum around the institutionalization of Ethnic Studies in US K-12 classrooms is increasing. Opponents have argued that Ethnic Studies does not challenge students academically and prepare them for high stakes testing (Planas, 2012; Sanchez, 2007). Conversely, research continues to show ways Ethnic Studies contribute to students’ academic achievement, especially for students from marginalized and vulnerable communities (Cabrera et al., 2014; Halagao, 2010; Tintiangco-Cubales et al., 2015). This study aims to demonstrate the possibilities and potential of Ethnic Studies-framed tools for English and Language arts teachers. This moment concerning Ethnic Studies in schools illuminates an important opportunity to demonstrate how Ethnic Studies-framed tools positively affect learning mainstream school content, namely, English and Language Arts. The authors consider the following point: To what extent can Ethnic Studies-framed tools affect approaches for learning English, writing and reading while simultaneously being responsive to a community’s needs? The authors maintain the importance of such tools that exist in how they support the development of community responsive literacies (CRLs). Design/methodology/approach This paper examines CRLs through the Ethnic Studies Praxis Story Plot (ESPSP). The authors begin by exploring the development of the ESPSP, first used in Pin@y Educational Partnerships (PEP), an innovative K-college Ethnic Studies teaching pipeline. Next, the authors examine each coordinate of the ESPSP, examining their purpose, theoretical underpinnings and ways the ESPSP offers nuanced approaches for learning literacies. Findings The authors then discuss how CRLs emerged to support PEP teachers and students’ reading and writing skills using the ESPSP. Originality/value Finally, the authors learn from students’ experiences with the ESPSP and offer implications for English and Language Arts teachers in the pursuit of teaching and serving students in more socially just and community responsive ways.

scholarly journals When STEM leads to the Rest: A Reflection on STEM as the HUB for Curriculum Integration

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-38
Author(s):  
Douglas Price
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
Curriculum Integration ◽  
Journal Article ◽  
Content Delivery ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Content Areas ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Subject Areas ◽  
K 12

Within this journal article, I seek to promote K-12 educators to think consciously and cognitively of their subject areas on how STEM can be initiator of content-delivery. STEM is still fresh within the confines of the traditional K-12 education field, and many are seeking to understand its relation to the real world as well as other subject areas. Within this article, I seek to prove how STEM steeps itself throughout three other content areas often separated: Language Arts, Social Studies, and the Arts. If we as educators as to enhance and entice our students to think intrinsically and deeply about their learning, it is important that we search to understand how STEM can derive to and from these inherent content focal points.

scholarly journals Advocacy of an Exit Test for History/Social Studies in New Jersey

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 303
Author(s):  
William Gorman
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
New Jersey ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
The State ◽  
Graduation Requirements ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
And Algebra ◽  
Civic Duties ◽  
High School Diplomas

As states like New Jersey navigate the issue of graduation requirements, most states have gone to what is called “high stakes” exit testing for the purpose of awarding high school diplomas. These tests typically emerge to be Mathematics and Language Arts/Reading based. In states like New Jersey, though, these exit tests have given way to subject based tests in things such as Biology and Algebra. Social Studies is not tested, but should be, if the state claims to care about producing well-rounded students prepared to fulfill their civic duties as voting adults. William Gorman, an educator with 30 years’ experience, lobbies for such testing in this editorial.

A Comparison of Burnout Experienced by Family and Consumer Sciences Teachers With Other Content Teachers During COVID- 19 Remote Teaching

2021 ◽  
Vol 113 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-35
Author(s):  
Tony Durr ◽  
Nicole A. Graves ◽  
Alison Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Family And Consumer Sciences ◽  
Personal Accomplishment ◽  
Consumer Sciences ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Remote Learning

During the spring of 2020, K-12 schools were turned upside-down. The COVID-19 pandemic essentially forced all schools across the nation to close their doors and move their learning environments online. The switch to remote learning put a great deal of stress and responsibility on teachers at all levels. The content taught by family and consumer sciences (FCS) teachers presented those teachers with unique challenges that differentiated them from other content teachers in programs such as math, language arts, and social studies. With a sample of 97 teachers from Midwestern states, this study found that FCS teachers reported higher levels of depersonalization and lower feelings of personal accomplishment.

Teaching World History in a Swirl of Standards

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Common Core ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
World History ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
State Standards ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
History Teaching ◽  
Single State

Standards-based education reform efforts that began in the 1990s resulted in social studies standards by grade level in every single state, stretching from kindergarten to grade 12. All of these standards single out history as a separate subject or strand, and many include world history as a subset within history as a whole. These standards are highly variable, idiosyncratic, and sometimes error-ridden, and they have been the source of enormous controversy. Some world history standards are completely skills-based, with only one sentence about content, and many are very Eurocentric, especially in the lists of individuals and events students should know. Recent efforts to develop better standards, such as the C3 Framework, have become embroiled in the controversy over Common Core, but because high-stakes testing is often based on state standards, world historians should get involved in improving them, and advocate for better world history teaching.

STEM Education

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M. Ritchie
Keyword(s):  
Stem Education ◽  
International Comparisons ◽  
Continuing Professional Development ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Education Quality ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Integrated Stem ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Future Challenges

STEM education in schools has become the subject of energetic promotion by universities and policymakers. The mythical narrative of STEM in crisis has driven policy to promote STEM education throughout the world in order to meet the challenges of future workforce demands alongside an obsession with high-stakes testing for national and international comparisons as a proxy for education quality. Unidisciplinary emphases in the curriculum have failed to deliver on the goal to attract more students to pursue STEM courses and careers or to develop sophisticated STEM literacies. A radical shift in the curriculum toward integrated STEM education through multidisciplinary/ interdisciplinary/ transdisciplinary projects is required to meet future challenges. Project-based activities that engage students in solving real-world problems requiring multiple perspectives and skills that are authentically assessed by autonomous professional teachers are needed. Governments and non-government sponsors should support curriculum development with teachers, and their continuing professional development in this process. Integrating STEM with creative expression from the arts shows promise at engaging students and developing their STEM literacies. Research into the efficacy of such projects is necessary to inform authorities and teachers of possibilities for future developments. Foci for further research also are identified.

scholarly journals Policy in the Way of Practice: How Assessment Legislation Is Affecting Social Studies Curriculum and Instruction in Ohio

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Misco ◽  
Nancy Patterson ◽  
Frans Doppen
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Citizenship Education ◽  
Instructional Strategy ◽  
Curriculum And Instruction ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
National Context ◽  
Social Studies Curriculum ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
The Social

In a national context of standards and high-stakes testing, concerns are emerging about challenges to the already tenuous position of the citizenship mission in the social studies curriculum. In this qualitative study, the authors administered a survey to social studies teachers in Ohio and conducted follow-up interviews focusing on the present purposes of social studies and the ways in which standards and testing are affecting instructional practice. The findings reveal a perception of standards as being of high quality, yet ultimately undermined through changes in scope and se-quence, narrowing of the curriculum, and a paucity of time to enact them. In addition, respondents indicated that high-stakes testing has become the primary curricular focus, which impacts instructional strategy decision making and frustrates citizenship education.

Integrating Curriculum through Themes

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 408-415
Author(s):  
Robert M. Horton ◽  
Traci Hedetniemi ◽  
Elaine Wiegert ◽  
John R. Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
Real World ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
The Other ◽  
Grade Levels ◽  
Natural Choice ◽  
Principles And Standards

Integrating mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies within the middle school curriculum can be an important and worthwhile endeavor. With integration, students realize that, at least in the real world, disciplines do not exist in perfect isolation and that the separations so often seen in school are arbitrary and, at times, unnecessary. Although any one of these disciplines can be the center of the integration, mathematics may be the most natural choice, especially when we focus on mathematical models, descriptions of real-world phenomena through mathematics. The Connections strand of Principles and Standards for School Mathematics states that students across grade levels should be able to “recognize and apply mathematics in contexts outside of mathematics” (NCTM 2000, p. 64). Students can naturally make connections when the mathematics they are learning is presented through problems emanating from other disciplines, particularly in science. In turn, students may grasp underlying concepts of the other disciplines better when they view them through a mathematical lens.

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