Module IV

Integrating New Literacies in the Curriculum

o discuss the concept of integrated

curriculum
o distinguish the different curriculum
integration approaches, methods and
types
o identify lessons or course disciplines
that may be appropriate for curriculum
integration
o draw relevant life lessons and significant
values from curriculum integration
experiences in class
o analyze research abstract on curriculum
integration and its implications on
teaching-learning process
o make a lesson plan with thematic
integration across related disciplines

Concept Exploration

Innovative educators concerned with improving student achievement seek ways to

create rigorous, relevant, and engaging curriculum integration. Today, the subjects in the
curriculum should not be taught singly and compartmentally but rather become integral
towards total development of the child.

The Concept of Integrated Curriculum

In retrospect, the introduction of an integrated curriculum gained greatest support in the 1960s.
based on the essential organization of content, the design emphasizes the role of diverse entities called
academic disciplines clearly defined in terms of knowledge, skills and values.

Thus, an integrated curriculum …

• Focuses on basic skills, content and higher-level thinking;
• Encourages lifelong learning;
• Structures learning around themes, big ideas and meaningful concepts;
• Provides connections among various curricular disciplines;
• Provides learner opportunities to apply skills they have learned;
• Encourages active participation in relevant real-life experiences;
• Captivates, motivates and challenges learners;
• Provides a deeper understanding of content;
• Offers opportunities for small group and industrialized instruction; and
• Accommodates a variety of learning styles/theories (i.e., social learning theory, cooperative
learning, intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy) and multiple intelligences.
(http://online schoool7.blogspot/2016/04/components-of-integrated-curriculum.html)
Approaches to Integration
The association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (2004) presents three approaches to
integration and these are multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary.
Multidisciplinary integration
Focuses primarily on the disciplines. This approach relates different subject around a common theme. In
this approach, teachers fuse skills, knowledge, or even attitudes into the regular school curriculum. In some
schools, for example, students learn respect for the environment in every subject area.
Interdisciplinary integration
In this approach to integration, teachers organize the curriculum around common learnings across
disciplines. They chunk together the common learnings embedded in the disciplines to emphasize
interdisciplinary skills and concepts.
Transdisciplinary Integration
In the transdisciplinary approach to integration, teachers organize the curriculum around student questions
and concerns. Students develop life skills as they apply interdisciplinary and disciplinary skills in a real-life
context.

Source: Melissa King bportfolio – Wordpress.com

Interconnecting the Tree Approaches

These approaches offer an excellent fit for standards through a backward design process as teachers
integrate standards-based planning with effective teaching and learning practices. Thus, the multidisciplinary,
interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary perspectives offer different maps to begin the design process. Teachers
can use any of the approaches at any level of education in a single classroom or in a team approach.
Despite, some differences in the degree and the intent of integration, the three approaches share many
similarities. As such, the centrality of standards and the need for accountability bring the three approaches closer
together in practice (ASCD, 2004).

Figure 1.4. Comparing and Contrasting the Three Approaches to Integration

Multidisciplinary Interdisciplinary Transdisciplinary

Standards of the Interdisciplinary skills and
Organizing • Real-life context
disciplines organized concepts embedded in
Center • Student questions
around a theme disciplinary standards
• Knowledge best learned • Disciplines connected by • All knowledge interconnected
through the structure of the common concepts and skills and interdependent
Conception of
disciplines • Knowledge considered to be • Many right answers
Knowledge
• A right answer socially constructed • Knowledge considered to be
• One truth • Many right answers indeterminate and ambiguous
• Procedures of discipline
Disciplines identified if
Role of considered most important Interdisciplinary skills and
desired, but real-life context
Disciplines • Distinct skills and concepts concepts stressed
emphasized
of discipline taught
Role of • Facilitator • Facilitator • Coplanner
Teacher • Specialist • Specialist/generalist • Colearner
 • Generalist/specialist
• Student questions and
• Interdisciplinary bridge
Disciplinary standards and-
Starting Place concerns
procedures • KNOW/DO/BE
• Real-world context
Degree of
Moderate Medium/intense Paradigm shift
Integration
Interdisciplinary Interdisciplinary
Assessment Discipline-based
skills/concepts stressed skills/concepts stressed
Concepts and essential Concepts and essential Concepts and essential
KNOW? understandings across understandings across understandings across
disciplines disciplines disciplines
• Disciplinary skills as the • Interdisciplinary skills as the
Interdisciplinary skills and
focal point focal point
DO? disciplinary skills applied in a
• Interdisciplinary skills also• Disciplinary skills also
real-life context
included included
• Democratic values
• Character education
BE?
• Habits of mind
• Life skills (e.g., teamwork, self-responsibility)
• Backward design
Planning
• Standards-based
Process
• Alignment of instruction, standards, and assessment
• Constructivist approach
• Inquiry
• Experiential learning
Instruction
• Personal relevance
• Student choice
• Differentiated instruction
• Balance of traditional and authentic assessments
Assessment
• Culminating activity that integrates disciplines taught

Source: Meeting Standards Through Integrated Curriculum

by Susan M. Drake and Rebecca C. Burns

Methods of Curriculum Integration

1. Fusion. In this multidisciplinary approach, teachers fuse skills, knowledge, or even attitudes into the
regular school curriculum. In some schools, for example, students learn respect for the environment in
every subject area. At Mount Rainier Elementary in Washington State, teachers incorporate the theme of
peace into every thread of the school's curriculum (Thomas-Lester, 2001). Students begin each week
promising to be peaceful, respectful, and responsible. They follow a list of responsibilities and learn about
peace in their classes. In reading, for example, students analyze positive characteristics of people in stories;
in social studies, they learn the importance of cultures working together. The school records the number
of days without a fight as “peace days”; teachers write the accumulated number of peace days on the
blackboard in every classroom. Teachers wear peace signs, and students greet each other with the peace
sign.
2. Service Learning. Service learning that involves community projects that occur during class time falls
under the category of multidisciplinary integration. At Spring Valley School in Columbia, South Carolina,
more than 1,200 Spanish-language students engaged in service learning projects. In one project, they
distributed 20 tons of food, clothing, medicine, and household products to needy new arrivals in the area
with the fastest-growing Hispanic population (Glenn, 2001). At Topa Topa Elementary School at Ojai,
California, 5th and 6th grade students created pamphlets on the pros and cons of pesticides to explain how
crop pickers can protect themselves against the substances. Students passed out the brochure, written in
Spanish and English, to workers and consumers throughout the Ojai Valley. Through the project, students
fulfilled state-required standards for language arts, science, and social studies (Ragland, 2002).
3. earning Centers/Parallel Disciplines. A popular way to integrate the curriculum is to address a topic or
theme through the lenses of several different subject areas. In an elementary classroom, students often
 experience this approach at learning centers. For example, for a theme such as “patterns,” each learning
center has an activity that allows the students to explore patterns from the perspective of one discipline—
math, language, science, or social studies. As students move through the learning centers to complete the
activities, they learn about the concept of patterns through the lenses of various disciplines.
4. Theme-Based Units. Some educators go beyond sequencing content and plan collaboratively for a
multidisciplinary unit. Educators define this more intensive way of working with a theme as “theme-
based.” Often three or more subject areas are involved in the study, and the unit ends with an integrated
culminating activity. Units of several weeks' duration may emerge from this process, and the whole school
may be involved. A theme-based unit involving the whole school may be independent of the regular school
schedule.
5. Project-Based Learning. In project-based learning, students tackle a local problem. Some schools call this
problem-based learning or place-based learning. According to Chard (1998), planning project-based
curriculum involves three steps:
• Teachers and students select a topic of study based on student interests, curriculum standards, and
local resources.
• The teacher finds out what the students already know and helps them generate questions to explore.
The teacher also provides resources for students and opportunities to work in the field.
• Students share their work with others in a culminating activity. Students display the results of their
exploration and review and evaluate the project.
Studies of project-based programs show that students go far beyond the minimum effort, make
connections among different subject areas to answer open-ended questions, retain what they have learned,
apply learning to real-life problems, have fewer discipline problems, and have lower absenteeism (Curtis,
2002). Newsome Park Elementary School in Virginia, described in Chapter 9, successfully embraces the
project method.

Other types of Integrated Curriculum as mentioned by ASCD (2004)

1. Connected. This happens when topics surrounding disciplines are connected, which allows students to
review and re-conceptualize ideas within a discipline.
2. Sequenced. This is observed when similar ideas ar5e taught together although in different subjects, which
facilitates learning across content areas, but requires a lot of communication among teachers of different
disciplines.
3. Shared. This is when teachers use their planning to create an integrated unit between two disciplines.
Although in some ways, this method of integration requires a lot of communication and collaboration
between two teachers.
4. Webbed. This reflects when a teacher plans to base the subject areas around a central theme that will tend
students to see the connection within different subjects.
Benefits of Integrated Curriculum Model
1. It focuses on basic skills, content, and higher-level thinking.
2. It provides deeper understanding of content.
3. It encourages active participation in relevant real-life experiences.
4. It provides connections among various curricular disciplines.
5. It accommodates a variety of learning styles, theories and multiple intelligences.
 Module IV Activity Sheets
Name: __________________________________ Subject: Building & Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum
Subject Facilitator: Dhareen O. Laguing, MAT
LEARNING REFLECTION
DIRECTION: Write your learning concepts on four types of curriculum integration on the four corners below.

Theme-based Topic Based

Concept: _______________________________________________________ Concept: _______________________________________________________
Application: Application:

Theme-based Theme-based
Concept: _______________________________________________________ Concept: _______________________________________________________
Application: Application: