KYLENELSON

One of the key features of the MYP is its emphasis on interdisciplinary teaching and learning. This is the process by which students come to understand knowledge and ways of knowing from two or more disciplines or subject groups and integrate them to create new understanding. Students bring together concepts, methods, or forms of communication from two of more subjects and solve a problem, create a product, or raise a new question in ways that would have been unlikely through a single discipline.

 

This last part really resonated with me while reading , specifically “raise a new question in ways that would have been unlikely through a single discipline.” As part of a non-verbal engagement we were asked to create based on our choice reading (see left), I created an image that shows multiple subjects and disciplines entering a funnel and yielding a question mark. For me, when students make meaningful connections and are interested in what their learning, it sparks creative thinking and leads to further inquiry. It makes me wonder what my students would be capable of by adding the ability to communicate in Spanish to their current understanding of the world and what that could lead to when studying other subjects together.

 

With the departmentalized learning in which most high schools are organized, students have a difficult time making connections to other content areas; when they leave their classes, they leave the subject. It interests me to see what students would be capable of in a transdisciplinary/interdisciplinary setting.