Reality: Skit

Reality: Our Stories

SMHS: The Challenge• Grade 9 students

– cohort group with numerous teachers who are unaware of assignments in other classes

• Grade 9 teachers – numerous teachers spread out within a city block and three levels (basement, main, top)

The Goal– implement cross-curricular learning

Underlying Passions/Values• Creating connections for deeper understanding

• Building relationships: • Student-student• Student-staff• Staff-staff

• Opportunity for all members of the group to experience success (challenge yet skills to match)

• feel valued/belong

• Choices: assignments, evidence of learning

The Benefits For Grade 9 Students

• Creates connections (ELA, Social Studies, Religion, Art, . . .)

• Increases engagement (social, intellectual, academic)

• Blocking of time for immersion into task• Combining/overlapping assignments in

numerous classes (tasks, deadlines, . . .)

The Benefits For Grade 9 Teachers

• Increases sharing of ideas, resources, strategies . . • Increases engagement (students/staff)• Increases collaboration• Increases connections (strategies, assessment, …)

• Allows holistic views of students (intellectual, emotional, strengths, weaknesses …)

Bull & Dupuis:Nonfiction and interdisciplinary inquiry:

multimodal learning in English and biology

“This integration of subject areas benefits both teachers and students, in that it is easier for students to see and make tangible connections between subjects, while teachers are building on one another’s ideas making them more focused, engaged, and supported.”

Bull & Dupuis:Nonfiction and interdisciplinary inquiry:

multimodal learning in English and biology

“Experiencing content in various formats and through multiple exposure (in both biology and English) will assist students in building, using, and maintaining their ‘hooks’ in content comprehension.”

Bull & Dupuis:Nonfiction and interdisciplinary inquiry:

multimodal learning in English and biology

“With this approach, students are not learning content in isolated pieces. Instead, they are presented with interesting and diverse texts across the curriculum, increasing their motivation, engagement, content-area knowledge, and writing skills.”

Bull & Dupuis:Nonfiction and interdisciplinary inquiry:

multimodal learning in English and biology

“Showing peers [teachers] how to find high-quality literature and sharing resources with peers is a perk of interdisciplinary collaboration that benefits all stakeholders.”

Monaghan & McConnell:English, history and song in Year 9: mixing enquiries for a cross-curricular

approach to teaching the most able

“Whilst students were exploring the psychological, legal, and economic forms of control and rebellion in history, in English they would be learning about the protest made against the constraints . . . It is vital for the most able students to be provided with opportunities to make their own connections.”

Monaghan & McConnell:English, history and song in Year 9: mixing enquiries for a cross-curricular

approach to teaching the most able

“the students were able to make connections between both subjects. This served to deepen their understanding, but they were also able to bring knowledge from history into English and vice versa, which developed our own teaching.”

Hardin & Cook:Cross-curricular portfolios: Time well spent

“By having all departments in the building share in the discussion, design, and implementation of the program, the ‘upstairs-downstairs’ mentality quickly dissipated and all faculty members became significant stakeholders.”

Pollard:Dare to be different

“I changed from being a ‘safe' teacher, obsessed with preparation and paperwork, to a maverick with subversive tendencies.Along the way there was exhaustion, frustration, doubts and the anxiety of having the rug pulled out from under my feet. But seven years later, I can safely say that I've had the time of my life.”

Passions into Practice• Cross-curricular theme project:

• ELA, Health, Religion, Drama/Art, Social Studies/Science

• Subject-specialty teachers would collaborate to design the tasks/evidence of learning/methods of assessment

Our Vision

Action Plan?

Benefits of Colleague Collaboration

Action Plan?

Have you ever been involved in a high school that implemented a cross-curricular theme project? If so, what were the positive aspects? Negative aspects?