Team Teaching
In an effort to give students a more integrated freshman year with math, science, ELA and Social Studies, three other teacher, and I, created an inquiry-based learning team, sharing common teachers, integrated curriculum and block scheduling. The unifying theme is centered around a growth mindset and critical thinking. This group utilizes blended learning (a combination of digital and traditional instructions with cross-curricular integration) and a mastery learning idea to allow students to work at the pace necessary for each individual student’s educational path.
COMPONENTS OF WHAT WE DO:
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Design: We use an integrated design model on this team. Like engineers, artists, and scientists, our students use a design process that is connected across all disciplines. We strive to use common language across the team, to allow students to make those connections.
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Mastery Learning: Grades reflect mastery of skills and standards. Students have multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery of required coursework.
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Honors Weight: Rubrics will be used to allow students the opportunity to earn honors weight for courses.
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Conduct team activities, designed to enrich, facilitate connections with the larger world and the current day, and/or enrichment activities built to create a familial atmosphere, espirit de corps, expose students to different cultures, and empathy.
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Meet daily to collaborate on student needs, intervention strategies, student successes, inter-curricular integration, team activities, parent communication, and to coordinate our courses for optimal student success.
Practices: A big part of what we do is integrating our curriculums. This model is one we use to see overlaps in practices in the classroom.
In addition, the Language Arts teacher and I, many years ago decided that, since we were already helping students learn to merge ideas from history and Language Arts, combining the individual classes into one course would allow students to see them, not as two separate entities, but complex and interrelated.
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If 21st-century learning is about inquiry, problem-solving, and real-world application of academic content, then interdisciplinary teaching and learning are essential. Rarely are the significant issues in our world addressed through a single disciplinary lens. The field of social studies is inherently interdisciplinary—combining the lenses of history, geography, political science, sociology, economics, and the arts. Adding the richness of language, literature, and composition through English classes can further enhance the interdisciplinary humanities learning experience.
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Our class focuses on students' college and career readiness by focusing on:
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encouraging higher-order thinking
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involving collaborative learning
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valuing evidence
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understanding other perspectives and cultures
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demonstrating independence through choice and constructivist projects
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instilling self-sufficiency
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comprehending, as well as critiquing
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using technology
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making real-world connections
Students are assessed in a project-based learning environment, purely using a standards-referenced model.
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