MAIT Program 2012: Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning

As a Kindergarten teacher in the 21^st century, part of my curriculum includes getting students to write. As this is often a terrifying task, students need ways in which they stay actively engaged and motivated in writing. Additionally, this task can often be difficult in students who are lacking a command of their fine motor skills.

A few years back I started teaching about penguins and wanted to incorporate writing and art. Using a technique I had learned about at the California Kindergarten Conference, I decided to incorporate “interactive writing”. Interactive writing is a way in which to involve students in the process of writing. Through the use of interactive writing, students are able to hold the pen (marker) and be the writer without fear because we are all acting together to create a piece of writing. Before writing, as a class, we discussed what information we wanted to include in our writing, much of this being what was learned. We used many resources to build our knowledge. To start, we read non-fiction books on penguins, watched Happy Feet and March of the Penguins, in which we compared and contrasted reality vs. fantasy, and watched a live video feed from the Monterey Bay Aquarium of real life penguins eating and playing. After discussing and deciding what was most important information we wanted to include, the writing process began. Each student took turns writing. Depending on their academic level, students wrote either letters or entire words. This activity is multifaceted, while a student is writing on the poster the teacher can facilitate a mini-lesson on address handwriting skills to students who are on the rug using a small whiteboard. After we were finished writing we chorally read our piece, while tracking the print with a pointer. To foster student pride in what they had accomplished we hung the chart paper up for all to see when they entered the classroom. After the writing piece was finished, we made small penguins, which incorporated the use of their fine motor skills. Students did not use scissors to cut anything out; instead they tore the construction paper to make a penguin.

Many students in Kindergarten are excited to learn about animals. In the above case, I found that after the first day of reading about them students were hooked and were eager for more. Incorporating writing was useful in this particular situation because the students were enthralled with the subject matter and the writing portion was viewed as, “let’s look at what we know”. The interactive writing process was so engaging that after this lesson, many of my students would ask when the next writing time would be. Furthermore, art is a great way for students to build on, or in some cases, enhance their fine motor skills by cutting tearing and folding. Students created a penguin from sheets of construction paper into a 3-D penguin that was part of a bulletin board. Through the use of technology, I was able to provide students a well-rounded view of penguins and open doors to other means of getting information, i.e. documentaries.

The penguin lesson that turned into a unit of study was one of my favorite lessons to this day. I had a wonderful time planning and instructing this particular information. I was especially happy when the students were demonstrating their understanding through imitations on the schoolyard (huddling like penguins and articulating the why, etc.). However, a challenge to this approach is that it takes a great deal of planning and organizing to make sure the different parts are cohesive. I feel the integration of other subject areas can be a bit overwhelming if there are specific skills that some students are lacking. More often though, I feel that interdisciplinary teaching makes it easier to incorporate elements in the curriculum that may be skimmed over or deemed not a priority by others. The length at which science curriculum is covered is difficult to accomplish with the reading, writing, and math demands. With that said, interdisciplinary teaching allows a teacher the opportunity to incorporate everything from physical education to technology. More importantly, students can benefit from the plethora of information they obtain through this type of learning. Interdisciplinary teaching enables all students in some way, shape, or form to connect personally to the material. It’s like a buffet of learning!