Activity Five: Professional Connection Map

Activity Five: Professional Connection Map

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Goals: 
Becoming fluent in the use of digital devices is an overarching goal for me personally this year. While creating my Professional Connections Map, and in fact completing the blogging assignments for the course, I have come to realise that my professional development and connectedness would be greatly enhanced if I continued to blog and comment and follow other educational professionals. So my first goal is to continue to blog and comment within the Ako Hiko Google+ Community, in particular, to build up connections with teachers that are in this cluster. My other goal is to attend Toolkit Workshops run by Ako Hiko and Manaiakalani twice a term, targeting new digital skills. This also allows me the opportunity to put faces to names and blogs I have interacted with online, and who are all new connections made in the last six months.

Interdisciplinary Environments
Moving into teaching a class that has 1:1 devices and an ILE environment later in the year lends itself to working in a more interdisciplinary environment. In Mathison and Freeman (1997) review on interdisciplinary approaches to curriculum delivery I was interested to read about the different layers, and how they look in a classroom setting, from those that involve relatively little risk to others that need huge systemic changes to curriculum delivery. My understanding from the article is that interdisciplinary teaching is when two or more disciplines are consciously brought together and taught simultaneously, keeping them distinct and in focus, but allowing for content to be co-ordinated and run along a connected theme.

 We have been talking about 21st Century skills frequently over the past nine months and it would seem the benefits from this style of delivery is that students gain skills that lie within this realm; the ability to adapt, to analyse and organise, and to interpret fast-paced multidimensional information. (Mathison & Freeman, 1997). When Inquiry learning brings together different disciplines and is cemented in real life themes or activities it provides more meaningful learning experiences and links students to the real world. They are not just learning abstract, arbitrary facts and strategies, but have a reason that is obvious to them for the learning they are doing. An example for me was students setting up small companies to fundraise for their school camp and then selling their products at a market day. There was some teacher direction and requirements and even direct teaching of content that would be needed, but students also needed to plan, collaborate and problem solve all manner of things to actually 'present' on the day. The experience was more hands on and required the students to make decisions, and then change direction if those decisions weren't right.
Other benefits to teaching this way, would be the sharing of strengths, ideas and subject matter with colleagues, the greater understanding of different disciplines and how they link together and the motivation of students who feel they have greater autonomy over their learning journey.

The challenges that arise I think are definitely around choosing themes or connections that promote the educational standards that are required and desired in students at the level I have. Also the ability to maintain the structure of learning and create balance between a general education and in-depth coverage of different disciplines. How do I decide what is important for students to know and do and what can be left out? As the teacher I would need to be flexible and explore ideas and ways of achieving goals that are different to what I may have done in the past, which I could find difficult to do.  Another challenge is answering to parents who are worried their children are not getting the basics and a traditional grounding like they did. Finally, knowing what level of ability to expect and how to evaluate if the task or activity has been successful also needs to be discussed and considered.

References:

Mathison, S. & Freeman, M. (1997). The Logic of Interdisciplinary Studies. Retrieved from
                https://app.themindlab.com/media/9266/view