Team-based Interdisciplinary Teaching Approach

Concerns in planning an MYP interdisciplinary unit

Planning the MYP interdisciplinary teaching and learning can be tricky, especially working out the schedule, the collaboration between teachers, the delivery of lessons in different subjects, assessment design and evaluation, etc. In Lenny Dutton’s blog post, “The Problem with IDUs“, she identified timing and teacher fear are the two main hurdles in implementing interdisciplinary units. The four teacher fears identified by Lenny are the same as I have observed. In addition to feeling afraid of not knowing much about other subjects, needing to collaborate with other teachers, sacrificing their own content-teaching time, lacking understanding of the interdisciplinary teaching and learning requirements within the MYP framework, I will also add that teachers are worried about the teaching and assessment marking load. The MYP requirements are:

• In each year of the programme, MYP schools are responsible for engaging students in at least one collaboratively planned interdisciplinary unit that involves at least two disciplines either from the same subject group (for example, history and geography) or from two different subject groups (for example, visual arts from arts, and biology from sciences).
• In each year of the programme, schools must address all three objectives (every strand) of interdisciplinary learning at least once per year. (page 10, Interdisciplinary teaching and learning in the MYP, updated July 2021)

Since the logistics are complex and complicated, many schools might implement only one formal interdisciplinary unit per MYP year. This makes it challenging for teachers who don’t teach all students in that MYP year to participate and plan an interdisciplinary unit. Thus, interdisciplinary teaching becomes the responsibility of some specific subject teachers who teach all students in that MYP year level. This could create stress for teachers, especially when they are also responsible for evaluating all students’ assessments that address all strands of the criteria. Another issue of only a few teachers implementing an interdisciplinary unit is that not all teachers understand the MYP interdisciplinary teaching and learning process and requirements. How can schools include every teacher in the planning process and help them understand the importance and the function of interdisciplinary learning? What might be an efficient way to implement interdisciplinary units while promoting collaboration among teachers? How can every teacher be included and teamed up for innovative learning?

Team-based interdisciplinary teaching approach

It is important to note that there are many different ways that the school can guide their teachers to plan for an interdisciplinary unit that is relevant and interesting to their students. This blog post shares a team-based approach to planning a one-week long MYP interdisciplinary learning unit that we piloted at KIS International School, Bangkok, Thailand before the pandemic. We decided to experiment with the team-based approach because of scheduling, assessment, and the need to include every MYP teacher in the process. In addition, I think it is so true that curriculum can stifle creativity, imagination and agency when teachers and students can not explore their interests and sense of purpose. Interdisciplinary teaching and learning provide an excellent opportunity for teachers and students to explore a topic or an issue that is relevant but not currently included in the written curriculum. In my opinion, a powerful interdisciplinary learning experience should lead to authentic service-learning actions for both students and teachers.

Curriculum is a powerful lever for changing student performance and well-being, and for preparing students to thrive in and shape the future. ….However, curriculum can equally limit the creativity and agency of students and teachers if there is not sufficient space for them to explore their own interests and sense of purpose.

(Curriculum (Re)Design a Series of Thematic Reports from the OECD Education 2030 Project OVERVIEW BROCHURE)

8 steps to team-based interdisciplinary Design approach

Assemble an interdisciplinary team

Start by assembling a grade-level team that includes MYP subject teachers and supporting staff (e.g. the EAL teacher, student support teacher) to help build a plan together. In our context, an interdisciplinary grade-level team consists of 7-8 teachers and brings fresh perspectives to improve an idea. We consider subjects teachers teach, their DP and MYP course load, and their expertise and interests outside the subject they teach to assemble the grade-level interdisciplinary team. Once the grade-level interdisciplinary team is established, it is important to allocate regular meetings to hash out ideas and create a solid game plan. It is helpful and necessary to solicit student input when developing an interdisciplinary unit and identifying critical content knowledge and skills. I made a simple survey asking students the following questions to get us started:

• If you have a chance to create a product or solve a problem, that would be…… Why?
• What are TWO subjects that can be combined to help you create this product or solve this problem? (Select two subjects ONLY)
• Tell your teachers why you think the two selected subjects can help you make the product or solve the problem.
• What might be the title for this IDU unit?

Most importantly, before the team brainstorms, it is crucial to establish norms of collaboration and ensure everyone feels safe to contribute ideas. It can be frustrating when specific team members dominate planning meetings and there are no clear agenda items for discussion. School pedagogical leaders should support the planning process by providing a clear structure. This is the lesson that I have learned. That’s also why I have tried to use conversation roles to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Identify a purpose and decide a context

One of the primary goals as a teacher is probably increasing learning, not just for our students but also for ourselves. When we integrate different disciplines in our teaching, we are helping students learn about content across subject areas and making connections between them. We, as teachers, also become learners and demonstrate our curiosity by teaching an interdisciplinary unit. We want to ensure that learning is meaningful and relevant to students and ourselves. In other words, it’s essential that teachers identify why integrating disciplines matters and then plan accordingly. Consider what types of content will be most relevant by analyzing student survey data; paying attention to current events; being aware of the community needs; identifying what skills students need; how students can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), etc., and then determine which subjects will contribute most to student learning.

This is an opportunity for teachers to address real-world issues or problems that are not currently in the written curriculum, and they feel passionate about and experiment with teaching the unit with creativity. It’s very often that teachers learn something new from teaching the interdisciplinary unit and learning alongside their students and colleagues.

Identify 2 or 3 disciplines

Once the purpose (context) for learning is decided, identify 2 or 3 disciplines the grade-level interdisciplinary team wants to integrate into the interdisciplinary unit. Think about how students can apply different methods and concepts learned across these disciplines. For example, consider how a student with a strong mathematical mind might integrate geometric shapes and patterns used in art and explore the positive and negative space, foreground and background by observing tessellations in their everyday surroundings. Or how students who might feel passionate about drama and interested in Charles Darwin’s life may gain deeper insight by creating a staged mini-production to help others understand the theory of evolution, the significant contribution of the scientist, and its impact. Here are some more interdisciplinary learning topics we piloted in 2019-2020 school year at KIS.

Once the main subjects are identified for integration, the participating subject teachers will become the IDU leads for this particular interdisciplinary unit and help coordinate the grade-level interdisciplinary teaching and learning.

Develop the content

To ensure the interdisciplinary learning is grounded in disciplines, it is important to explain how the distinctive contribution of the participating subjects will help students develop a new, more compelling, or nuanced insight. According to our previous BQC (Building Quality Curriculum) report in 2017, it suggests that teachers can structure the justification for integration in terms of three points:

• the rationale for including specific disciplinary perspectives and content from subject,
• the rationale for including specific disciplinary perspectives and content from subject,
• and an explanation of how the disciplinary grounding and perspectives of these two subject groups will combine to help students develop a new, more compelling or nuanced understanding of the topic and the statement of inquiry.

After teachers outline the rationales for including the two participating subjects, they can specify content to help students achieve the goal of the interdisciplinary unit. Content can be organized into knowledge, skills, and understandings. Teachers probably won’t be creating content from scratch, so look for existing learning materials that can be used or adapted. I would also encourage teachers to check out textbooks. Good textbooks can be great resources to support learning and reduce teachers’ stress finding lesson ideas and materials online. Like everything else, use textbooks with intention and learning objectives in mind. We will also need to be aware of the copyright issue and model academic integrity. Make sure that you don’t plagiarize. Create a better resource and present it in a way that will help students learn more effectively. When creating content, think about:

• How well-developed are these resources?
• Are they assisting students in making connections with the concepts explored in the participating subjects?
• What else could be added?
• Would the learning materials stretch students’ thinking and expand their perspectives?
• Are there opportunities for students to synthesize their thinking from learning the participating subjects?

If there are not enough materials on the topic selected, see if anyone has collected any information elsewhere online, such as Waklet or Padlet. Teachers have been sharing excellent resources via social media. Otherwise, selecting new participating subject(s) for interdisciplinary integration. If you have the opportunity to create something better, do consider sharing alike. Your resource might not be perfect, but it might be helpful to a teacher, and you end up saving their time and making their work more efficient.

Design summative assessment

When designing summative assessments for an interdisciplinary unit, consider using GRASPS or RAFT model that invites students to apply integrative insights to solve a problem, create a product, explain a phenomenon, raise a new question. For example, propose a sustainable garden or farm plan at school or design an awareness campaign to advocate changes in individual food consumption choices to ensure farm productivity in a sustainable way. It is beneficial to create an opportunity and a structure for students to showcase their learning after completing the summative assessment. Therefore, it’s not just another project students do at school. Through celebration of learning, we not only bring the school community together to build spirit and culture, but students can also educate others on a particular topic, correct misconceptions, inspire others to take action to solve a problem. 

Select media to build knowledge

Using more than one medium to build knowledge helps students retain information and develop a holistic understanding of an issue or a topic. For example, suppose MYP Year 1 students are learning about bullying behavior. In that case, students could watch the movie, Wonder, to discuss messages communicating through the film; read informational texts explaining facts on bullying; look at the artwork that communicates anti-bullying messages in paintings; study artist statements to identify the linguistic characteristics; participate in groups to discuss bullying scenarios. Students may even try to write about different aspects of bullying or research using different media sources. The possibilities are endless! We want to include other disciplines’ ways of knowing into student learning through interdisciplinary teaching.

Streamline learning

Integrating two or three disciplines into one unit of work and running the unit through a week with a group of students and teachers may seem complicated at first, but it’s not that intimidating when we break it down. Rather than forcing students to shift their attention from participating subject one to participating subject two like a game of ping-pong, we can weave different topics and learning objectives together to build their knowledge, skills and understanding. It’s all hands on deck as the gravel-level team collaborates to help students achieve the goal of the interdisciplinary unit and the learning objectives. For example, teachers who are not leading the content subjects in the IDU can explicitly teach students research skills using the MISO (Media, Interview, Survey, Observation) method. In addition, they can teach students how to comprehend an infographic by practicing THIEVES pre-reading strategy.

This will require intentional planning. Teachers plan backwards to chunk learning; structure sequential concept-based disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning; design formative tasks to develop metacognition and help students synthesize ideas; identify essential approaches to learning skills that will help students demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in the summative assessment tasks. The grade-level team designs the timetable for that week, identify suitable learning spaces and assign supervision duties. This requires lots of collaboration, negotiation of ideas, communication, and patience. It is paramount to ensure psychological safety before a genuine and thoughtful partnership can happen.

Prepare the syllabus on a Google Site

Before the interdisciplinary unit starts, we need to lay out a few things for students. One way to achieve this is to create a a ‘learning system’ and announce how teachers in the grade-level team will support their learning and what their learning will look like. Providing the timetable, listing all of the learning materials with links and information about assessment with due dates will help students navigate their learning more efficiently. There are many moving pieces, and it is helpful to contain communication and information sharing in one place. Through a ‘learning system’, we can also document students’ learning and help them visualize how their thinking has evolved as a result of bringing two subjects together to study a topic. This can be achieved via Google Site, Google slides, Google doc, Padlets, Trello, Notion etc.

Conclusion

We only got a chance to pilot the team-based interdisciplinary teaching approach once before Covid happened; hence, I don’t have sufficient data to conclude whether it is a better approach or not. Based on experiences shared by teachers and students, I know that both students and teachers enjoyed the process better. Students had a week to investigate an inquiry without worrying about completing other homework. Teachers share the responsibility of implementing interdisciplinary teaching and assessment grading. It’s no longer business between two or three teachers. IDU becomes everyone’s business! I also know It was a relief for teachers as they didn’t have to grade 60 plus student work. Instead, each teacher in the grade-level team was responsible for grading approximately ten students’ assessments. To ensure realizability and validity, teachers also organized standardization among the team. I hope our journey might be helpful if your school is also considering implementing a week-long interdisciplinary unit.

A well-balanced curriculum is an important part of education. Students should be exposed to many different disciplines as they grow, and interdisciplinary teaching and learning effectively achieve that goal. Every MYP teacher should be included in the interdisciplinary planning process and implementation and learn the why, how, and what. Even if teachers don’t plan a formal interdisciplinary unit with others in the future, they understand the purpose and function of interdisciplinary teaching and learning. It encourages teachers to introduce the topic from another perspective and promote TOK (Theory of Knowledge) thinking in their classroom.

Interdisciplinary unit team-based design approach