Benefits of Interdisciplinary Teaching
A school district in Michigan created integration plans for thematic units, based on the ideas of Howard Gardner about multiple intelligences, in a yearlong pilot program. The results of the program included “sustained enthusiasm” from the staff, parents, and students, increased attendance rates, and improvement in standardized test scores, “especially from students with the poorest test results” (Bolak, Bialach, & Duhnphy, 2005).
Flowers, Mertens, & Mulhall identify five important outcomes and findings of their experiences with interdisciplinary teaching and planning: common planning time is vital, schools that team have a more positive work climate, parental contact is more frequent, teachers report a higher job satisfaction, and student achievement scores in schools that team are higher than those that do not team (1999).
Additionally, Pumerantz & Galanto find that interdisciplinary teaching allows for students to, “Proceed at a pace commensurate with their interests, skills, and experiences” (1972).
Integrated instruction helps teachers better utilize instructional time and look deeper into subjects through a variety of content-specific lens. Another benefit of integrated instruction is that teachers can better differentiate instruction to individual student needs. Integrated instruction also allows for authentic assessment (Barton & Smith, 2000). A final benefit of interdisciplinary teaching is that students have a chance to work with multiple sources of information, thus ensuring they are receiving a more inclusive perspective than they would from consulting one textbook (Wood, 1997).
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