As someone who has been in teacher education for several decades, I often think about – teach about how to make curriculum engaging, fun, effective, authentic, and relevant for learners. I believe interdisciplinary or cross-curricular lessons have the potential to do so. I also add, when I am working with pre- and inservice teachers, that there is not enough time in a day to teach-learn everything that is desirable. Cross-curricular activities can help “create” more time as several content area standards can be addressed in one lesson.

Multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary learning is a “whole” or “comprehensive” method that covers an idea, topic, or text by integrating multiple knowledge domains. It is a very powerful method of teaching that crosses the boundaries of a discipline or curriculum in order to enhance the scope and depth of learning. Each discipline sheds light on the topic like the facets of a gem.

I created the following graphic to show the benefits of interdisciplinary standards.

An Example: Communicating with Parents

This past week I asked my freshman seminar class to do a few activities related to communicating with their parents. The goal of this lesson was, obviously, to have to students develop some more effective communication strategies.

Social Emotional Learning and 21st Century Standards

This lesson, at its core, falls into the areas socio-emotional learning and 21st Century Competencies. Ohio established their own set of K-12 Social and Emotional Learning Standards and the following are related to the goals of this lesson.

Actively engage in positive interactions to make connections with peers, adults and community to support and achieve common goals,
Establish and actively participate in a healthy network of personal, school and community relationships.

The Framework for 21st Century also identified communication as an important skill with the following standards.

Articulate thoughts and ideas effectively using oral, written and nonverbal communication skills in a variety of forms and contexts,
Listen effectively to decipher meaning, including knowledge, values, attitudes and intentions.

English Language Arts Standards

Because the learners were asked to do research and write a letter to their parents, English Language Arts standards were also addressed:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.7
Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

Communicating with Parents Poster

Learners were asked to review some online articles about communicating with parents and then make a poster that reflected strategies they believe to be important.

Letter to My Parents

Next, the learners were asked to write a letter to their parents that discussed:

What types of communications are going well,
What types of communications are not going well,
Suggested goals for improving communications.

They were told they were not required to share the letter with their parents. Some examples follow:

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