How can small secondary schools support the implementation of interdisciplinary units?

What is it about?

The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP), for students aged 11-16, requires teachers to include interdisciplinary units in each year of the program. These units are created by teachers and are specific to the context of each school. This paper reports the impact of this requirement on the workload and perspectives of teachers who worked in five small MYP schools in Norway and Denmark. These schools all had fewer than 100 MYP students. It found, on average, that teachers estimated that over 17 hours were required to design and evaluate an interdisciplinary unit, and a further seven hours were required to assess and moderate student reflections. Although the collaborative process of developing unique, school-based interdisciplinary units was consistently valued by teachers, school administrations typically allocated three hours of collaborative planning for this task. Strategies that would support their practice, suggested by teachers in this study, include allocating additional collaborative planning time, organizing teaching schedules around the interdisciplinary subject linkages, providing collaborating teachers with spatial proximity in their shared workspaces, and offering teachers involved in interdisciplinary unit implementation greater flexibility to attend staff meetings.

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Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Interdisciplinary teaching is relatively rare in secondary schools. However, because it prepares students for education futures, modern curriculum movements are advocating interdisciplinary connections. Small schools are uniquely enabled to offset some of the complexities of interdisciplinary practice that frustrate larger schools. When staff collaborate, this builds consensus cultures in schools. In isolated, independent international schools, such cultures contribute to the longevity of their professional communities.

Perspectives