Professional Context - Crossing Boundaries

Week 31:   Professional Context - Crossing Boundaries
                        


Andrews (1990) defines interdisciplinary collaboration as occurring “when different professionals, possessing unique knowledge, skills, organisational perspectives, and personal attributes, engage in coordinated problem solving for a common purpose” (cited in Berg-Weger &. Schneider, 1998).

My potential interdisciplinary connection from my map that I have choosen for my future goal is is our Whakcol (COL)- community of learning.

I have chosen this because this is our focus in the our area. This includes all of the primary schools in our town, intermediate school and both high schools. We have had a Maths focus so far , all of our major PD is COL based. 

It's been great to meet with other colleagues and moderate children's learning sharing and discussing  as a COL. I can see the benefits some are pooling resources ,money,expertise within our professional community. Pooling money for professional development allows schools to assess educational professionals that we would not necessarily have done in the past. 

Having a community focus provides a  wealth of knowledge and benefits all students.

“The  interdisciplinary approach has become an important and challenging technique in the in the modern curriculum.  The interdisciplinary approach synthesizes more than one discipline and creates teams of teachers and students that enrich the overall educational experience” (Casey Jones, 2010)

Being a primary school teacher I think that most classrooms run an interdisciplinary programme .

As mentioned in the video "Interdisciplinary Learning" the " Tip Curriculum"  is what we are trying to teach in our classroom, engaging ,meaningful learning, real world, using children's strengths and interests. These are some of our school's core values and is the basis of our mission statement. The benefits of Interdisciplinary learning  such as authentic learning is very important for our students to be able to face real day problems. 

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References:

Berg-Weger, M., &. Schneider, F. D. (1998). Interdisciplinary collaboration in social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 34, 97-10

Casey Jones (2010) Interdisciplinary Approach - Advantages,Disadvantages, and the Future Benefits of Interdisciplinary Studies. Education 1100.

Video"Interdisciplinary Learning"sourced from :  Lacoe Edu (2014, Oct 24) Interdisciplinary Learning [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA564RIlhME