by Alicia Moore, Professional Learning Specialist
Standard #1: Content knowledge aligned with appropriate instruction
Quality Indicator #4: Interdisciplinary instruction
As a third grader, I was awed by a Weekly Reader article about the giant sequoias and redwoods of California. There was a picture of a car driving through a tunnel in the trunk of a redwood. Another tree was so big that my entire class would have barely been able to encircle it holding hands.
If we borrow an old analogy, teachers plant seeds of knowledge in young minds. And aren’t we all hoping to grow some metaphorical redwoods and sequoias? How exactly can we cultivate minds that reach such unbelievable heights?
One characteristic of those towering trees offers insight for educators. It turns out that they grow to such amazing heights not because of their innate strength, but because they depend upon each other. Each tree stretches out its roots, and the roots fuse with all the other trees in the area. The result is a forest of giants with the stability and resourcefulness to live thousands of years.
This idea relates to one especially helpful framework for thinking about student learning—the structure of observed learning outcomes, usually called the SOLO model (Hattie, 2012, p. 54). This model names four levels of learning:
- Uni-structural: one idea
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Multi-structural:
many ideas
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Relational:
relating ideas
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Extended
abstract: extending ideas
Learning surface level concepts is an important first step, of course. As John Hattie and Gregory Yates say, “you must have something to think about before you can relate, extend, critique, and enquire” (2014). Helping students to transfer their knowledge to new situations can be a daunting task, though, so deeper learning sometimes feels out-of-reach.
Project-based learning (PBL) includes an interdisciplinary teaching philosophy, and that’s one reason that it has generated a lot of excitement among educators. This approach to learning provides a template for bringing different content areas together so that students can find a relevant application for what they know. If you’re interested in learning more about PBL, check out this 4 minute video.
When we help our students apply their learning to various contexts, we help them cultivate a forest of knowledge. Their scientific reasoning skills lend clarity to writing; their writing skills give voice to their political stances. One idea supports and is supported by all others, creating students whose learning is as impressive as the redwood forests.
References:
Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. New York, NY: Routledge.
Hattie, J., & Yates, G. (2014). Visible learning and the science of how we learn. New York, NY: Routledge.
