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Thematic Teaching Methods

By David Gitonga, eHow Contributor

Using real-life objects in a classroom environment adds life to what is taught.

Thematic teaching involves the use of real-life, easy-to-visualize themes to explain concepts in basic disciplines such as math, science and reading. This teaching approach is more natural to a student and such information linking and association allows ideas to be connected and flow easily. The basic idea in thematic teaching methods is to be specific yet broad enough to allow creative exploration of a particular subject.

Drama
This thematic teaching approach is used for subjects that involve historical characters where students work in a scenario and try to reenact historical facts. Students can create costumes, materials and props to give the drama life. The teacher can then initiate a group discussion where students discuss to what extent the drama reflects the facts, and the thinking skills used. This approach can present a seemingly meaningless historical fact into something relatable.
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Model
A thematic approach that uses a model as a central display to present ideas can be used to teach young children. A model of a space station, restaurant or an underwater scene can stimulate the imagination and help students visualize a presentation. A model can be a 3D display with the important parts labeled. Discussions can revolve around the model and students can describe its sounds and smells.
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Independent Writing
This involves allowing students to visualize the topic under discussion and write in their own words what they see and observe. Discussions can revolve around each student's thoughts and the teacher, acting as the discussion moderator, can determine the accuracy of the writing projects. This approach can take different forms and is limited only by the imagination of both the teacher and students. Examples of independent writing include writing a personal blog or presentation papers to be shared before the class.
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Celebration
Celebrations like Halloween or a local festivity can be used as the foundation for a theme-based topic. This approach allows others outside the classroom environment to be involved. In some cases, inviting guest presenters or organizing a school trip around the theme can be an effective approach. Learning that revolves around a celebration is fun, interesting and more likely to be remembered. Students also tend to look forward to this kind of learning.
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Theories of Thematic Instruction

By Jessica Honiotes, eHow Contributor

Thematic instruction helps students relate school subjects to one another.

Thematic instruction is a teaching method that links a single theme to a number of different subject areas, such as math, science and English. The Northwest Educational Technology Consortium states that when done properly, thematic instruction helps students understand new material by asking questions based on an initial theme. In order to teach thematically, an educator must be aware of the basic theories behind this type of instruction.

Understanding Content
Thematic instruction begins with a clear understanding of what needs to be taught. In her Integrated Thematic Instruction Model, The Center of Effective Learning founder Susan Kovalik claims that thematic instruction is best achieved if taught by educators with extensive experience in creating what is being taught. Having a clear understanding of the material helps educators plan what ideas need to be taught and how best to teach them.
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Understanding Students
According to the NETC, thematic instruction benefits students because it takes what they already know and shows them how their knowledge relates to a new topic. In order to help students make these kinds of connections, educators must know how students learn what they already know and how much more they need to learn. For example, if the theme is the ocean, an educator can begin by asking students what they think of when they think of the ocean.
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Encouraging Student Interaction

The themes used in thematic instruction should be ones that interest students and encourage their participation. If students are interested in a theme, they will want to learn more about it and research it to the fullest, as stated in MaryEllen Vogt's article, "Cross-Curricular Thematic Instruction." For example, students who are interested in the ocean may be excited to share what they know with other students. By participating, students are forced to make choices and answer questions that will increase their knowledge of the theme.
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Incorporating Multiple Intelligences

Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences states that all learners learn by communicating, listening, thinking, watching, moving around, working independently or in groups, as educator Patricia J. Stephens of the Teachers' Network Leadership Institute explains in her research. By including the multiple intelligences in thematic instruction, educators can help students remember new information in a variety of ways.
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The Advantages of Thematic Planning

By Nicola Jones, eHow Contributor, last updated September 24, 2011
Thematic planning involves integrating curriculum areas around topics or themes, making it possible to classifying instructions along core areas such as science, arts and social studies. Thematic planning is effective in teaching a variety of skills by using theme projects, units and teaching in covering various topics. Thematic planning seeks to view teaching and learning in an interactive and holistic way that reflects the real world. Many teachers plan the theme-based units on their own or after consulting with other teachers. However, developing thematic units in consultation with student is might be more advantageous.

Interactive
During the process of developing thematic units, students come up with innovative strategies, ideas and resources, which might make them more committed to the learning process, since it is driven from their individual interests. Learning is made more consequential by thematic planning as learners chose the topics and the methods of studying. Thematic planning is an interactive process that improves the interpersonal skills between students and teachers, since teachers become more of collaborators than authority figures.
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Curriculum Coverage
Thematic teaching units are made up by a variety of interconnected activities that are formulated around themes or topics, covering several areas within the curriculum. This integrated approach promotes wider coverage of the curriculum since teachers create learning activities that fulfills numerous purposes, as opposed to preparing separate experiences for a single subject. Additional concepts are introduced to the curriculum, since teachers consult with the students before building webs containing the themes that interest the students.
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Relevance
Integrating the diverse subjects in the curriculum into themes brings out the inter-relationship of the different school programs, making learning more relevant. Thematic planning is aimed at helping students in contextualizing what they learn and applying it in real life situations. It also provides an avenue for integration of content area in a realistic manner that helps children in applying the knowledge they acquire significantly in their daily lives.
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Interest
Thematic units are powerful tools for building and maintaining students interest during learning. They are diverse since the teacher can expand the content and ideas after receiving inputs from students, as opposed to teaching from a file that carries the same content from one year to the next. Varied responses given by each class after every year makes the curriculum more rich and diverse. This diversity of curriculum also allows the utilization of different methods of teaching and learning styles in class.
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What Is a Thematic Unit Plan?

By Marisa Hefflefinger, eHow Contributor

Students may rotate through centers in groups, but they should still complete the work individually.
Thematic instruction is a method of teaching in which learning is centered around one unifying theme or topic. It is a very natural way for students to learn, as the whole is broken down into smaller pieces, making knowledge more attainable for all students. From its structure and benefits, to its implementation and assessment possibilities, thematic units are an excellent way to teach any student in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.

Structure
A thematic unit plan covers multiple content areas. The unit is designed to thematically teach and/or offer practice in skills from all subject areas. For instance, a thematic unit on sea turtles could have students reading an article or short story about turtles and answering comprehension questions for language arts; graphing the population of sea turtles and figuring the differences in numbers from year to year for math; mapping their locations around the world for geography and learning about the sea turtle life cycle for science. Thematic units are generally developed around highinterest topics, but most any theme can work.
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Benefits
As a benefit for students, thematic units help demonstrate how learning is interrelated. Math, science, reading and social studies are not just independent classes; instead, they are dependent upon each other to create a holistic learning experience. For teachers, thematic units allow a larger number of standards to be covered in less time. Their structure calls for more integration of technology and they serve as good examples of inquiry-based research, a process often difficult to teach students.
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Implementation
Thematic units can be implemented in several ways. Individual activities can be completed in their corresponding classes; for instance, the math assignment is done in math class and the science activity done in science. Another option for implementation is to set up the unit in learning centers placed around the room. This works well in an elementary setting, where students are fairly stationary throughout the day, by having students rotate to the different activities. A third option, suited for junior high and high school students, is to complete the unit as learning centers in the language arts classroom only. Especially when the unit is based around a piece of literature, the other content activities can be done in relation to that reading.
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Assessment
Thematic units do not lend themselves well to objective testing, as they are teaching skills that must be applied, rather than simply facts to be questioned upon. Instead, projects and presentations are better ways to assess student learning in thematic units. Slide shows, speeches, essays, posters and journals offer truer assessments of what students learn when working thematically.
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How to Write a Thematic Curriculum

By Audrey Akins, eHow Contributor

When writing a thematic unit, make sure the theme is age appropriate and aligned with state standards.
Choosing to teach thematically requires gathering lots of materials and organizing them in such a way that instruction revolves around a central idea while students learn. You may have to invest a lot of time to plan instruction, but the amount of knowledge students gain learning material that's connected is much more than when subjects and instructional concepts are not connected. PBS Teachers states, "thematic units provide one of the best vehicles for integrating content areas in a way that makes sense to children and helps them make connections to transfer knowledge they learn and apply it in a meaningful way."

Things You'll Need

State standards Paper Pen or pencil Storybooks

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Instructions
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9 Think of a theme. A thematic curriculum usually has a reoccurring concept. Possible theme ideas are the ocean, space, farms or pond life. Other ideas for a theme are the jungle and rainforest. Make sure you choose a theme that will keep students interested.

Review the standards for your grade level set by your state. Use the standards from the various subject areas to base your thematic curriculum.

Choose a subject to begin with. Use the standard from a subject area and begin listing activities that can be done to teach that standard. Write down the subject, the standard, activities and resources. For example, if creating a unit about pond life, write Reading as the heading and then the standard. Choose stories that take place near a pond and vocabulary words that can be introduced using the stories. Also list reading concepts that can be taught with the stories such fact and fiction, main idea and details or cause and effect. Look for resources in your school and local library such as story books, movies and teacher resource books. Also search the Internet for streaming videos and ask other teachers you work with for ideas and resources related to your theme. Apples 4 the Teacher has a list of books that can be used with themes about things such as bats, bears and dinosaurs.
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Continue with the next subject. Write the heading for the subject, standard, list of activities and resources. Do this for as many subjects included in the thematic curriculum. Make sure that the activities in the thematic curriculum are connected. Continuing with the pond life theme example, in Reading, allow the students to read a book about pond life, in Language Arts, allow students to learn spelling words based on pond life, in Math allow students to create a graph based on a picture of animals at a pond and in Science, allow students to read about the habitat of a pond during different seasons. The key idea is that the theme is represented and connected to each subject.

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How to Teach the Thematic Units Theory

By Diana Zwinak, eHow Contributor

Using the Thematic Unit Theory can create an engaged classroom.

Students learn better if they feel they are doing something "real" and not just an exercise. When a student feels that the skills he learns in one class are useful in other classes, he values those skills a bit more and allows them to become a solid part of his academic routine. The theory of teaching using thematic units across a grade level's curriculum helps teachers make this happen. It is not enough to tell a student she will use a subject outside your classroom, you need to show how this happens.

Instructions Decide on a Theme

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11 Create a question or topic. The theme is the key to the success of this style of teaching. Come up with a broad question or problem that will incorporate aspects of math, science, language arts, literature and social studies. With thematic units, students can show their knowledge of the theme no matter where they are developmentally.

Select a theme appropriate for the grade level. Fourth-graders have a different level of understanding and a different skill set than high school seniors, yet both can study a topic such as how current water conservation strategies will affect the planet in the next 50 years.
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Clarify the objectives and skills to be mastered by the completion of the unit. Thematic units can fulfill state standards and objectives while keeping the students so interested in what they are doing that they are almost unaware that they are learning.
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Write a focus sentence. This sentence will define the question the students will be working to answer and, if written correctly, will ensure that they will want to, maybe even need to, use the methods and resources you provide.

Gather Materials and Resources

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Provide handouts to students. Detail the unit and what needs to be done to complete it. Create contracts if desired, spelling out the grade students will receive for the work that they do. Design a rubric showing that if students select a series of easy projects, they will receive a lower grade than students who choose a more complicated series. This way students become participants in their own education and the grades they receive, and learn to prioritize what they do.
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Provide copies of background materials on the topic at hand. This lets students begin with a basic knowledge of the issues. Encourage students to make notes on the background material as they consider questions or angles they wish to pursue.
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12 Find computer and CD-ROM resources. Students need to develop a familiarity with technology, and many states have requirements in every subject area to incorporate technology in the classroom and curriculum. Many textbook manufacturers provide computerized resources.

Use the Internet and web pages. Find pages to use to create a Webquest, or look for a pre-made Webquest that another teacher has created. Webquests can introduce students to aspects of the topic that they may not have considered before.
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Find audio/visual resources. Documentaries, exceptional episodes of educational television and sometimes resources from cable can make the subject come alive in a way that printed material often can't.
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Locate community resources. Documentaries can seem unreal and separated from a student's world, but guest speakers from the community can show students that real people are dealing with the issue they are studying daily. Field trips can also make the information more concrete and vivid to students.

Design the Unit's General Activities

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Design broad-based activities. The activities should span as much of the curriculum as possible and be accessible to as many students as possible. Some assessments can be simple, such as quizzes or brief responses, Others can be more complicated and challenging like projects, speeches and videos. Student can create fiction, artwork and poetry to demonstrate their understanding of factual situations.
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Incorporate all curriculum areas. Some tasks should require number crunching, statistics or graphing. Require students to write, to think about the topic historically or culturally, and to see how it has been addressed in fine arts and literature. This may include protest songs, parodies or changes in the way artwork was created in general. For example, World War I had a vast impact on all the arts, spawning the modernist movement in many art forms.
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13 Find novels, short stories and poems that deal with the theme.

Create Discussion Questions and Determine Assessment Method

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Create questions that engage students for each step of the unit. Show them how each of the resources is taking them closer to answering the thematic questions or creating the final work for the unit.
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Create a database of questions. The questions should challenge students to process their knowledge at each level on Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning. Make sure that they demonstrate they can remember, understand and apply what they learned.
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Determine how you will assess skills achieved. Decide on the product students will need to deliver to demonstrate they have mastered the unit. Sometimes a project will be the ultimate goal. Other times a test or exam will prove competency. Or, use a combination of assessments.
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Verify that the assessment meets the requirements of the department or school board.

Tips & Warnings

Thematic

units work well if you can get the other teachers who teach your grade level to work with you. A single teacher can do it alone, but should seek advice from colleagues as he incorporates pieces from colleagues' areas of expertise.
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every unit needs to be thematic. Work on one per school year until you have a collection that you can use as often as you like. thematic unit may take a considerable amount of time to complete. Make sure that you can show how standards and skill sets that are required by your state, school board or department are being taught and met in order to justify the time the unit takes.

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How to Teach Math Effectively

By Dana Rongione, eHow Contributor

Effective math teaching takes time and preparation

While it is true that mathematics can be difficult and confusing with its many facts and formulas, it is also true that it can be made much simpler if it is taught in the right way and with the proper attitude. As a teacher, remember that your attitude toward the subject will be evident to the students, and negative attitudes will often be transferred to the students. Approach the subject with eagerness, and your students will be more likely to follow your lead.

Instructions
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Set your goals for the class hour, the week, the month and the school year. Is your goal simply to complete the textbook, or is it to teach the students everything they can learn no matter how far you get in the textbook? Once you've established your goals, let the students know what is expected of them.
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15 Set up realistic problems. Many of the workbook problems in today's curriculum are based on things your students probably perceive as irrelevant. Instead, substitute these problems with topics that interest them. For example: If the local shoe store is running a 40 percent off sale on all athletic shoes and the pair you want is regularly $49, how much will the sale price be?

Explain the "how" and the "why." Don't get so bogged down on teaching the procedure that you forget to teach the concept. Make sure the students understand what they're doing as well as how to do it.
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Use various teaching methods throughout your math class. Charts, videos, songs and hands-on activities are a welcome reprieve from lectures and worksheets.
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Incorporate mathematics into other subjects throughout the course of the day to help students see the uses of math outside of math class. Math concepts can easily be added into science, history and even English lessons.
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