Transdisciplinary

learning for subject

specialists (PYP
Workshop Category
3), Category 3
Workshop

Vancouver, Canada
1 - 3 February 2019

Language of delivery: English

Facilitator/s: Cathi Bremner

www.ibo.org/programmes/pd
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Mission statement

The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable

and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful
world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and

international organizations to develop challenging programmes of
international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active,

compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people,
with their differences, can also be right.
 Workbook Contents
OVERALL PURPOSE OF WORKSHOP...................................................................................6
Transdiciplinary Learning for Subject Specialists......................................................................7
2018 MTPYPH Graphic.............................................................................................................8
PYP Transdisciplinary Themes..................................................................................................9
Approaches to Learning...........................................................................................................10
2 Models of Transdisciplinary..................................................................................................13
Comparison Interdisciplinary....................................................................................................14
Single subject teacher Integration............................................................................................15
Collaborative Planning.............................................................................................................17
Structure of Knowledge............................................................................................................18
Concepts 5_Scaffolding thinking to complex Levels................................................................19
Concepts 7_Sample verbs scaffolding.....................................................................................20
Concepts in Varied Subjects....................................................................................................22
GRASP example......................................................................................................................23
Facets of Understanding -with example...................................................................................24
Graphic Organizer 3-2-1..........................................................................................................29
CONNECT, EXTEND, CHALLENGE.......................................................................................30
I use to think.............................................................................................................................31
Choose, Act, Reflect................................................................................................................32
Thinking Big copy....................................................................................................................33
The PYP planner......................................................................................................................40
OVERALL PURPOSE OF WORKSHOP

The PYP provides an extensive framework for designing and achieving transdisciplinary
teaching and learning. This workshop looks at tools to map local curricula against the PYP
scope and sequence documents. It analyses the transdisciplinary themes and examines how
effective, concept-based central ideas and lines of inquiry can be designed to address the
curriculum in a way that is relevant, challenging and engaging. Participants will also look at how
the transdisciplinary skills are an essential element of curriculum mapping. This workshop is
also suitable for those wishing to map national and state curriculum against PYP concept based
scope and sequences.

CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDINGS

1. The PYP provides an extensive framework for designing and achieving transdisciplinary
teaching and learning
2. Concepts are the key element around which a coherent transdisciplinary curriculum
connects
3. State and national standards can be mapped against the concept-based PYP scope and
sequence documents.
4. Students learn about and learn through disciplines
5. The transdisciplinary themes require learning about what is “real in the world” and
indicate the complexity and connectedness of the human condition
6. A coherent, transdisciplinary curriculum is based on collaboration between and across
the subjects and teachers in a school
7. Student learning and the likelihood of action are supported when students are able to
articulate the aims and framework of the PYP and to share in the planning process
8. Transdisciplinary learning is addressed in other IB workshops and PD opportunities.

Participants are asked to bring the following materials electronically or in print

depending on their learning preference.

• Relevant state or national curriculum documents

• Programme of inquiry
• Any related curriculum mapping documents from their school.
• The Primary Years Programme as a model of transdisciplinary learning
• Developing a transdisciplinary programme of inquiry (2012)
• Making the PYP happen: A curriculum framework for international primary education
• PYP language, mathematics, science, social studies, PSPE scope and sequence
documents
• Any other PYP scope and sequence documents of relevance to participant.

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Transdiciplinary Learning for Subject Specialists

CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDINGS

1. The PYP provides an extensive framework for designing

and achieving transdisciplinary teaching and learning

2. Concepts are the key element around which a coherent

transdisciplinary curriculum connects

3. State and national standards can be mapped against the

concept-based PYP scope and sequence documents.

4. Students learn about and learn through disciplines

5. The transdisciplinary themes require learning about what is

“real in the 
world” and indicate the complexity and
connectedness of the human 
condition

6. A coherent, transdisciplinary curriculum is based on

collaboration between and 
across the subjects and
teachers in a school

7. Student learning and the likelihood of action are supported

when students are 
able to articulate the aims and
framework of the PYP and to share in the 
planning process

8. Transdisciplinary learning is addressed in other IB

workshops and PD opportunities

9. In the PYP a balance is sought between acquisition of

essential knowledge and 
skills, development of conceptual
understanding, demonstration of positive attitudes, and
taking of responsible action

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Key Concepts Knowledge Approaches to Learning Attitudes Action
Form: What is it like?
Function: How does it
work?
Approaches to
Teaching are… Causation: Why is it
like it is?
based on inquiry
Change: How is it
changing?
focused on conceptual
understanding Connection: How is it
connected to other
things?
developed in local and
global contexts
Perspective: What are
the points of view?
focused on effective
teamwork and
Responsibility: What is
collaboration
our responsibility?
differentiated to meet Reflection:
the needs of all learners How do we know?
informed by formative
-----------------------------
and summative
assessment.
Related Concepts Principled
______________
______________
______________
______________
The Five Essential Elements
Thinking Skills
Comprehension
Who We Are Application Appreciation
Analysis
Synthesis
Where Are in Place Commitment
and Time Dialectical thought As a result of their learning,
Meta-cognition Confidence students take action
How We Express
Social Skills
Ourselves Cooperation The Action Cycl
Accepting responsibility
Respecting other
How the World Works Cooperating Creativity
Resolving conflict
An internationally-minded
How We Organize Group decision-making Curiosity
person lives the attributes
Ourselves Adopting a variety of roles
of the
Empathy Re+lect Choose
Sharing the Planet Communication Skills
The Learner Profile
Listening Enthusiasm
Speaking
Reading Inquirers
Independence Act
Writing
Subject Areas
Viewing Thinkers
Integrity
Presenting
Language Arts
Communicators
Mathematics Respect
Self Management Skills
Social Studies
Gross motor skills Knowledgeable
Science Tolerance
Fine motor skills
Personal, Social and
Spatial awareness Risk Takers
Physical Education Organization
The Arts: Music, Time management
Drama, Visual Safety
Healthy Lifestyle
Caring
Codes of Behaviour
Informed Choices
Open Minded
Research Skills
Formulating questions Balanced
Observing
Planning Reflective
Collecting, recording, organizing
and interpreting data
Presenting research findings
8/44
 PYP Transdisciplinary Themes (See Page 12 Making the PYP Happen)

Who We Are Where We How We How the World How We Organize Sharing the
Are in Place & Express Works Ourselves Planet
Time Ourselves
An Inquiry Into: An Inquiry Into: An Inquiry Into: An Inquiry Into: An Inquiry Into: An Inquiry Into:

• The nature of • Orientation • The ways in • The natural world • The • Rights and
the self in place and which we and its laws interconnectedness responsibilities
time discover and of human-made in the struggle
• Beliefs and express ideas, • The interaction systems and to share finite
values • Personal feelings, nature, between the natural communities resources with
histories culture, beliefs world (physical and other people
• Personal, and values biological) and human • The structure and and other living
physical, • Homes and societies function of things
mental, social, Journeys • The ways in organizations
and spiritual which we • How humans use • Communities and
health • Discoveries, reflect on, their understanding • Societal decision- the
Explorations extend, and of scientific making relationships
• Human , and enjoy our principles within and
relationships Migrations creativity • Economic activities between them
including of • The impact of and their impact on
families, humankind • Our scientific and humankind and the • Access to equal
friends, appreciation of technological environment opportunities
communities, • The the aesthetic advances on society
and cultures relationship and on the • Peace & Conflict
between and environment Resolution
• Rights and the
Responsibiliti interconnect
es edness of
individuals
• What it and
means to be civilizations
human
All from local and
global perspectives

9/44
 Approaches to Learning

Thinking Skills □ Acquisition of Knowledge: Gathering specific facts, vocabulary,

remembering

□ Comprehension: graphing meaning from material learned;

communicating and interpreting learning

□ Application: Making use of previously acquired knowledge in practical

or new ways

□ Analysis: Taking knowledge or ideas apart; separating into component

parts; seeing relationships; finding unique characteristic

□ Synthesis: Combining parts to create a whole; creating, designing,

developing and innovating

□ Evaluation: making judgments or decisions on chosen criteria;

standards and conditions

□ Dialectical Thought: Thinking about two or more points of view at the

same time; understanding those points of view; being able to construct an
argument for each point of view based on knowledge of the other(s);
realizing that other people can also take one’s own point of view

□ Metacognition: Analyzing one’s and other’s thought processes;

thinking about how one thinks and how one learns
Communication □ Listening: Listening to directions; listening to others; listening to
Skills information

□ Speaking: Speaking clearly; giving oral reports to large and small

groups; expressing ideas clearly and logically; stating opinions

□ Reading: Reading a variety of sources for information and pleasure;

comprehending what has been read; making inferences and drawing
conclusions

□ Writing: Recording information and observations; taking notes and

paraphrasing; writing summaries; writing reports; keeping a journal or
record

□ Viewing: Interpreting and analyzing visuals and multimedia;

understanding the ways in which images and language interact to convey
ideas, values and beliefs; making informed choices about personal
viewing experiences

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 □ Presenting: Constructing visuals and multi media for a range of
purposes and audiences; communicating information and ideas through a
variety of visual media, using appropriate technology for effective
presentation and representation

□ Non-verbal communication: Recognizing the meaning of visual and

kinesthetic communication; recognizing and creating signs; interpreting
and utilizing symbols

Research Skills □ Formulating questions: Identifying something one wants or needs to

know and asking compelling and relevant questions that can be
researched

□ Observing: Using all the senses to notice relevant details

□ Planning: Developing a course of action; writing an outline; devising

ways of finding out necessary information

□ Collecting data: Gathering information from a variety of first and second

hand sources such as maps, surveys, direct observation, books, films,
people, museums and ICT

□ Recording data: Describing and recording observations by drawing,

note taking, making charts, allying, writing statements

□ Organizing data: Sorting and categorizing information; arranging into

understandable forms such as narrative descriptions, tables, timelines,
graphs and diagrams

□ Interpreting data: Drawing conclusions from relationships and patterns

that emerge from organized data

□ Presenting research findings: Effectively communicating what has been

learned: choosing appropriate media

Self- Management □ Gross motor skills: Exhibiting skills in which groups of large muscles
Skills are used and the factor of strength is primary

□ Fine motor skills: Exhibiting skills in which precision in delicate muscle

system is required

□ Spatial awareness: Displaying a sensitivity to the position of objects in

relation to oneself or each other

□ Organization: Planning and carrying out activities effectively

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 □ Time management: Using time effectively and appropriately

□ Safety: engaging in personal behavior that avoids placing oneself or

others in danger or a risk

□ Healthy Lifestyle: making informed choices to achieve a balance in

nutrition, rest, relaxation, and exercise; practicing appropriate hygiene
and self care

□ Codes of Behavior: Knowing and applying appropriate rules or

operating procedures of groups of people

Social Skills □ Accepting responsibility: Taking on and completing tasks in an

appropriate manner; being willing to assume a share of the responsibility

□ Respecting others: Listening sensitively to others; making decisions

based on fairness and equality; recognizing that other’s beliefs,
viewpoints, religions and ideas may differ from one’s own; stating one’s
point of view without hurting others

□ Cooperating: Working cooperatively in a group; being courteous to

others; sharing materials; taking turns

□ Resolving conflict: Listening carefully to others; compromising;

reacting reasonably to the situation; accepting responsibility
appropriately; being fair

□ Group decision-making: Listening to others; discussing ideas; asking

questions; working towards and obtaining consensus

□ Adopting a variety of roles: Understanding what behavior is appropriate

in a given situation and acting accordingly

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 Interdisciplinary, Multidisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Approaches:A Comparison

Focus Multidisciplinary Interdisciplinary Transdisciplinary

Organizing Standards of the discipline organized Interdisciplinary skills and Real-life context with a
Center/Big Idea around a theme. concepts embedded in connecting inquiry issue –
disciplinary standards important, relevant and
meaningful to student.
Student questions
Conception of Knowledge best learned through the Disciplines connected by Inquiry issue or topic examined
Knowledge structure of the disciplines common concepts and skills through the lense of multiple
disciplines.
A right answer Knowledge considered to be
socially constructed Knowledge considered to be
One truth socially constructed
Many right answers
Many right answers
Starting Place Disciplinary standards and- Interdisciplinary bridge Student questions and concerns
procedures
Real-world context

Assessment Discipline-based Interdisciplinary skills/concepts Transdisciplinary

stressed skills/concepts and process
stressed

CONTENT Concepts and essential Concepts and essential Concepts and essential
understandings across disciplines understandings across disciplines understandings across
disciplines

SKILLS Disciplinary skills as the focal point Disciplinary skills as the focal Interdisciplinary skills and
Interdisciplinary skills also point disciplinary skills applied in a
included Interdisciplinary skills also real-life context
included
SEL SKILLS Democratic values Democratic values Democratic values

Character education Character education Character education

Habits of mind Habits of mind Habits of mind

Life skills (e.g., teamwork, self- Life skills (e.g., teamwork, self- Life skills (e.g., teamwork,
responsibility) responsibility) self-responsibility)
21st Century Skills Creativity, Innovation, Problem- Creativity, Innovation, Problem- Creativity, Innovation,
Solving, Critical Thinking Solving, Critical Thinking Authentic Problem-Solving,
Information & Media Literacy Information & Media Literacy Critical Thinking
Global Awareness Global Awareness Information & Media Literacy
Global Awareness
Constructivism
Project-Based Learning
Inquiry-oriented
Personal Relevance
Student Choice
Planning Process Backward Design
Standards-Based
Alignment of instruction, standards and assessment
Assessment Balance of traditional and authentic assessments
Culminating activity that integrates disciplines taught

Drake, Susan, and Rebecca Burns. Meeting Standards through Integrated Curriculum.
Chicago: ASCD, 2004. 14/44
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Collaborative Planning - School-Wide Assessment

Reflect on the collaborative planning process at your school.

Yes/No/Sometimes

There is strong collaboration between same grade classroom teachers.

There is strong collaboration between same grade classroom teachers

and single subject teachers.

Single subject teachers are always aware of the classroom unit of study.

Classroom teachers are always aware of what the students are learning
in various subjects outside the classroom.

There are consistent and sufficient opportunities to plan collaboratively

with same grade homeroom and single subject teachers
Single subject teachers lead units of inquiry

There is collaboration between classroom teachers from

different grades.

There is strong collaboration among school members: PYP coordinator,

head of school, curriculum leaders, classroom and single subject
teachers regarding the POI, essential agreements, PD, and other
school-wide issues.

At what level would you place your school at this point in time?

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

The school does not The school somewhat The school values The school values
value collaboration, values collaboration, collaboration, and collaboration, and
and does not provide and provides some provides collaborative provides sufficient
sufficient collaborative planning time for planning time for most collaborative planning
planning time for all. classroom teachers, staff, all year, but the time for all staff, all
but the time is time is insufficient. year.
insufficient, as well as
very limited planning
for other teachers.

What steps might you take to improve collaborative planning at your school?

17/44
18/44
 Scaffolding thinking to complex Levels

SO WHAT is
Level 3
the effect or
significance
of / that…

Level 2

HOW (or Why)

do / does…

Level 1

© 2012 H. Lynn Erickson Used with permission

19/44
 Verbs to avoid: Affect - are - influence - impact - is - have

Sample Verbs for Scaffolding Levels 2 and 3

H. Lynn Erickson © 2008

 Achieve  Compute  Enact  Increase

 Accelerate  Conceive  Encourage  Inform
 Accomplish  Condense  Enforce  Initiate
 Acquire  Conserve  Engineer  Inspire
 Activate  Consolidate  Enhance  Install
 Adapt  Convert  Enlist  Instil
 Address  Convey  Establish  Insure (ensure)
 Adjust  Cooperate  Evaluate  Integrate
 Administer  Coordinate  Examine  Interpret
 Advance  Create  Execute  Introduce
 Allocate  Cultivate  Expand  Invent
 Analyze  Deal  Expedite  Investigate
 Anticipate  Decide  Experiment  Judge
 Approve  Define  Explain  Justify
 Arrange  Delegate  Express  Keep
 Ascertain  Deliver  Facilitate  Kindle
 Assemble  Demonstrate  Fashion  Launch
 Assess  Design  Fix  Learn
 Assign  Detect  Follow  Lead
 Assimilate  Determine  Forecast  Lift
 Assist  Develop  Forge  Listen to
 Assure  Devise  Form  Locate
 Attain  Direct  Formulate  Make
 Attend  Discover  Function as  Maintain
 Balance  Display  Gain  Manage
 Bring  Distribute  Gather  Manipulate
 Bring about  Document  Give  Market
 Calculate  Draft  Generate  Master
 Challenge  Dramatize  Guide  Mediate
 Chart  Draw  Handle  Memorize
 Check  Draw up  Help  Mentor
 Clarify  Drive  Hypothesise  Meet
 Classify  Earn  Identify  Minimize
 Collect  Edit  Illustrate  Model
 Command  Elaborate  Image  Monitor
 Communicate  Eliminate  Implement  Motivate
 Compile  Empathize  Improve on  Move
 Compose  Employ  Improvise  Navigate

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 Negotiate  Re-evaluate  Stress
 Nominate  Refer  Stretch
 Observe  Refine  Structure
 Obtain  Regulate  Study
 Offer  Relate  Substitute
 Optimize  Remember  Succeed
 Orchestrate  Render  Summarize
 Order  Reorganise  Supersede
 Organise  Repair  Supervise
 Originate  Report  Supply
 Overcome  Represent  Symbolize
 Oversee  Research  Synergize
 Paint  Resolve  Talk
 Participate  Respond  Teach
 Perceive  Restore  Tend
 Perfect  Retrieve  Test
 Perform  Revamp  Tell
 Persuade  Review  Trace
 Photograph  Revise  Track
 Pilot  Revitalise  Train
 Pioneer  Rout  Transcribe
 Place  Save  Transfer
 Plan  Schedule  Transform
 Play  Secure  Translate
 Predict  Select  Travel
 Prepare  Sense  Treat
 Prescribe  Separate  Trim
 Present  Serve  Uncover
 Prevent  Service  Undertake
 Problem solve  Set up  Unify
 Process  Shape  Unite
 Procure  Share  Update
 Produce  Shift  Upgrade
 Prove  Show  Use
 Provide  Simplify  Utilise
 Publicise  Sketch  Validate
 Purchase  Sell  Verify
 Question  Solidify  Widen
 Raise  Solve  Withdraw
 Read  Sort  Win
 Realise  Spark  Work
 Recommend  Spearhead  Write
 Reconcile  Speak
 Recruit  Staff
 Rectify  Stimulate
 Redesign  Streamline
 Reduce  Strengthen

21/44
1. Look at the concepts 4.___________________ 7.__________________
below and identify the Character Culture
subject each group of Cooperation Language
concepts is representing by Voice Language families
writing the subject name on Background Vocabulary
the line above Relationship Phonics
Interdependence Sounds
2. Circle or highlight the Theme Language structure
macro concepts Motivation Verbal and non-
Movement verrbal communication
1.__________________ Balance Gestures,
Order Feeling/Emotion Symbols,
Organism Type/Role Values, traditions, beliefs
Population Body Position Social etiquettes
System Action/Reaction Family structures
Change Timing Geography; region.
Evolution Physical Expression Cultural elements
Cycle Direction
Interdependence
Energy/Matter 5._________________ 8.__________________
Equilibrium Rhythm
Habitat Conflict/Cooperation
Melody
Patterns
2.__________________ Harmony
System
Text Structure Timbre
Reading Rate Change/Continuity
Form
Directionality Culture
Self –regulation Cooperation
Supply/Demand
Phonics Dynamics
Civilization
Imagery
Articulation Migration/Immigration
Genre
Background Knowledge Tempo Interdependence
Summary Text Citizenship
Power
Mood Roles, rights and
Movement responsibilities
Spacw 6.________________
Action/Reaction
Perspective 9.__________________
Energy
Flexibility Prejudice
Speed Conflict
Strength
Cooperation
Patterns
Cooperation Power
Motion Relationships
Force/Power
Envy
Weight Transfer
Oppression

22/44
UbD Design Guide Worksheets - MOD M
© Wiggins & McTighe 2008 page 1

Goal:
The goal (within the scenario) is to create an illustrated brochure to teach
the 2nd graders about the importance of good nutrition for healthful living

Role: You are a teacher of nutrition

Audience: The target audience is a 2nd grade class

Situation: You need to show the difference between a balanced diet and an unhealthy diet.

Product/Performance and Purpose: You need to create a brochure that describes healthy
vs. un-healthy eating and shows at least 2 health problems that can occur as a result of
poor eating.

Standards & Criteria for Success:

•Your brochure should...
- contain accurate information
- easy for 2nd graders to read and understand

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28/44
3-2-1

Three things I found out

Two things of interest

One question I still have

29/44
WORKSHOP: CONNECT, EXTEND, CHALLENGE

CONNECT: How are the

ideas and information
presented CONNECTED to
what you already knew?

EXTEND: What new ideas

did you get that
EXTENDED or pushed your
thinking in new directions?

CHALLENGE: What is still

challenging or confusing for
you? What questions,
wonderings or puzzles do
you now have?

Source: Visible Thinking, Harvard Project Zero.

http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/VisibleThinking_html_files/03_ThinkingRoutines/03d_UnderstandingRoutines/Conn
ectExtendChallenge/ConnectExtend_Routi ne.htm

30/44
I use to think................

But now I think................

Question(s) I have ................

31/44
Choose: Choose one aspect regarding transdisciplinary
learning discussed during the workshop. Decide on a
knowledge/ skill/ attitude/ concept that you wish to develop
further, and articulate why in the space below.

Act: Plan possible actions you can take to achieve your goal(s).
Think about times of year, working environments (classroom,
meetings, online learning or discussions, etc.) to act in. Try to
identify mentors or partners for growth. How will you approach
them? Do you need to develop a plan with them?

Reflect: Identify the indicators that will be evident if the goal(s)

are sustainably realized. What might be some implications for
next actions that could come from your learning?

Source: Participant Workbook, Inquiry in the PYP, Hilton Head, Feb 2013, Jennifer Colleran, pg. 8 Source: Terborg,
Sonya http://sonyaterborg.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/screen-shot-2012-09-26-at-6-17-24-am.png?w=610

32/44
 Brady, M. 2004. “Thinking Big: A conceptual framework for the study of everything.” Phi Delta Kappan. Vol 86, number 4. Pp 276-281.

THINKING BIG:
A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Everything
Our current fervor for highly specified standards for each academic discipline requires
students to view reality as composed of fragmented and unrelated bits of information.
Mr. Brady argues that what students really need is a system for organizing and
integrating what they know so that they can understand the “big picture.”

B
BY MARION BRADY

UCKMINSTER Full- included college presidents. “What diocre minds and the dunderheads to
er once said, “Ameri- you fellows in the universities do,” become generalists who must serve
can education has de- he continued, “is make all the bright as college presidents . . . and presi-
veloped in such a way students into experts in something. dents of the United States.”1
it will be the undoing That has some usefulness, but the Generalists — people who strive
of the society.” Read- trouble is it leaves the ones with me- to see the “big picture” — don’t get
ing those words today,
many may nod in agree-
ment. Few, however, are likely to give
the same reason as Fuller did for so
bleak a prediction.
Fuller is most frequently remem-
bered as the inventor of the geodesic
dome — the lightest, strongest, most
cost-effective enclosing structure ever
devised. He was an inventive genius,
but he was also a college professor,
cartographer, philosopher, naval of-
ficer, mathematician, poet, research-
er, cosmologist, industrialist, engineer,
environmentalist, advisor to business
and government, holder of 25 pat-
ents, author of 28 books, and recipi-
ent of 47 honorary degrees.
He aired his views on American
education, including the judgment
I quoted above, in the late 1980s in
a speech delivered to a group that
MARION BRADY is a retired teacher and
school administrator and is currently a
columnist for the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel.

276 PHI DELTA KAPPAN 33/44

Posted with permission of Phi Delta Kappan International, www.pdkintl.org. All rights reserved. Further distribution is prohibited.
 Brady, M. 2004. “Thinking Big: A conceptual framework for the study of everything.” Phi Delta Kappan. Vol 86, number 4. Pp 276-281.
much respect in America. There is no listing for “Gen-
eralists” in the Yellow Pages, no places are reserved for
them on the faculties of high schools and colleges, and
no employment ads seek applications from them.
And what is the big picture today? Intensifying clash-
es on the “fault lines” between religions, societies, and
civilizations; continuing threats of terrorism; a shrink-
ing middle class and a widening gap between rich and
poor; the confusing of national power with national
greatness; dishonesty in boardrooms; violence accepted
as entertainment; vast wealth plowed into no-return-
on-investment armament and conflict; increasing en-
vironmental degradation; lobbyist-dominated legisla-
tures; unwarranted confidence in the world-improv-
ing ability of force; official tolerance of tax evasion and
a general decline in a sense of civic responsibility; and
an education system beset by ideologically driven poli-
cies.
These related, big-picture issues are parts of a sys-
temically integrated whole — a whole that the edu-
cation establishment is not addressing. We send our
graduates off with expertise in technology, banking,
politics, medicine, law, and myriad other fields, stak-
ing our collective fate on their ability to manage crises
as they pop up. But the old problems intensify and are
joined by new ones.
That the education system we have created might,
as Fuller said, actually be a major cause of those intensi-
fying problems does not seem to have occurred to us.
I can find little evidence of serious, ongoing dialogue
among policy makers about the wisdom of continuing
to educate students narrowly. Neither can I find evi-
dence of concern about potential societal chaos when
millions of narrowly educated experts pursue their pro-
fessions with little or no understanding of how their
actions interact.
Most of the college presidents and policy makers on
the receiving end of Fuller’s blunt accusation proba-
bly went back to their respective institutions and did
nothing. Those few who actually undertook instruc-
tional program changes probably played with course
distribution requirements; organized or expanded in-
terdisciplinary programs; focused instruction on proj-
ects, social problems, or themes; put a “capstone” course
in place; or tried to skirt the issue by emphasizing “process”
rather than “content.”
None of these actions do the job that needs doing.
All these approaches to broadening students’ ability to
deal with reality assume that the traditional academic
disciplines are the basic organizers of knowledge and
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that the main task of educating is to introduce those
disciplines to students. Wrong. The main task of ed-
ucating is to help students make more sense of the
world, themselves, and others.
Most educators no doubt share that aim and can
provide myriad examples of their favorite discipline’s
contribution to broad understanding. But that misses
the point. The problem is not the failure of biology,
economics, chemistry, psychology, and other school sub-
jects to expand our understanding of reality. The prob-
lem is the failure of schooling to pull these disparate
pieces together to address questions that few students
articulate but that all, at some level, ask: What’s going
on here? How did it come to be? How could it be dif-
ferent? How might I alter it?
For answers to questions like these, the disciplines
are too narrow. They can be brought to bear on hu-
man experience, but neither individually nor collec-
tively do they provide a coherent, holistic, comprehen-
sive, hard-edged, and intellectually manageable con-
ceptual framework that students can use to make more
sense of daily life. The disciplines have different aims.
They ignore much knowledge of great significance. Their
vocabularies are arcane and often incompatible. Their
methodologies are distinctive. They operate on differ-
ent levels of generality and abstraction. They have long
histories of competing for students and resources. Their
practitioners have little interest in integrating and rarely
even talk across disciplinary boundaries. Their support
systems — bureaucracies, professional organizations,
periodicals, funding sources, and so on — would op-
pose consolidation. Indeed, the trend is in the other di-
rection: toward ever greater fragmentation as disciplines
split and split again into subdisciplines.
Up to a point, all of this is a good thing, for it is one
way in which knowledge expands. But it is not the only
way, and it is certainly not the way to build a compre-
hensive, intellectually manageable conceptual frame-
work for organizing general education. What students
need is a “master” organizer — a mental filing system
or map they understand — that displays the general
layout of the mind and its system for integrating knowl-
edge. That organizer will recognize, encompass, and
relate the disciplines, but it will not be fashioned from
them.
AN ALTERNATIVE ORGANIZER OF KNOWLEDGE
Anthropology. Botany. Chemistry. Demography. Eco-
nomics. Geography. History. Language. Physics. Soci-
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 Brady, M. 2004. “Thinking Big: A conceptual framework for the study of everything.” Phi Delta Kappan. Vol 86, number 4. Pp 276-281.
ology. Zoology. We take the compartmentalization of
knowledge for granted. So deeply ingrained is the idea
that knowledge is best transmitted to the next genera-
tion in neat, discrete packages, that we can hardly imag-
ine schooling organized in any other way.
This is a recent and curious assumption. Through-
out recorded history, long before the academic disci-
plines took shape, great, noncompartmentalized minds
were at work in ways still admired. We may retroactive-
ly place Socrates, Jesus, Leonardo, Galileo, Benjamin
Franklin, de Tocqueville, and hundreds of other re-
spected thinkers within today’s disciplinary categories,
but that is not how they saw themselves. Indeed, if most
of the great minds of the past had been forced to func-
tion within the arbitrary boundaries of our narrow aca-
demic disciplines, we might never have heard of them.
Nearer at hand and hardly less impressive examples
of noncompartmentalized thinking are the intellectu-
al accomplishments of small children. Their formal in-
troduction to school subjects lies years in the future,
and yet, starting in infancy, they learn to organize and
integrate knowledge in situations whose complexity
we fail to appreciate only because the situations are so
familiar.
But for perhaps the most convincing evidence that
complex thought processes can be independent of the
disciplines, try introspection. Your moment-by-moment
functioning requires you to continuously select, organ-
ize, and integrate enormous amounts of information.
You do not do that by mentally moving between the
various academic disciplines. You use a different, far
more sophisticated, seamless approach.
We have created a way of life that makes discipline-
based, specialized study essential. But for general ed-
ucation — for the task of managing our individual
and collective affairs and exercising some control over
the future — fragmented, specialized studies are not
enough. There needs to be in place an overarching frame-
work enclosing the disciplines, expanding them, fill-
ing the gaps between them, putting what appears to
be random information in context, providing perspec-
tive, setting priorities, displaying the whole that the
disciplines illumine in part.
Scholars have always insisted that the familiar cur-
riculum of separate subjects is unacceptable. Daniel
Tanner of Rutgers University put it this way: “All of
our experience should have made it clear by now that
faculty and students will not derive from a list of dis-
jointed courses a coherent curriculum revealing the
necessary interdependence of knowledge.”2
278 PHI DELTA KAPPAN
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The University of Washington’s John Goodlad said:
“The division into subjects and periods encourages a
segmented rather than an integrated view of knowl-
edge. Consequently, what students are asked to relate
to in schooling becomes increasingly artificial, cut off
from the human experiences subject matter is supposed
to reflect.”3
And Stanford University’s Paul DeHart Hurd phrased
it: “Beyond tradition there are neither philosophical nor
psychological grounds for compartmentalizing knowl-
edge into islands of information that are presumed to
represent academic disciplines as school subjects are
currently conceived.”4
We have used the regularities and relationships we
see in various parts of reality to create the academic dis-
ciplines. We should now use the larger regularities and
relationships in reality to integrate disciplines, subjects,
courses, topics, themes, social problems, projects, and
other approaches to organizing instruction.
We all have a deeply embedded, probably hard-wired,
system for “thinking big.” If that system is not hard-
wired, it is certainly a cultural regularity with too much
instructional potential to ignore, for it is a key to solv-
ing a fundamental curricular problem.
OUR ‘NATURAL’ ORGANIZER
OF KNOWLEDGE
It is reasonable to suppose that a knowledge-organ-
izing and integrating system used by everybody, every
day, will be neither esoteric nor inaccessible. And in-
deed it is not.
Years ago, convinced of this fact, I began asking stu-
dents to engage in a very simple activity designed to
help them make explicit their implicitly understood
system for organizing knowledge. I put them in small
groups, told them to think about “an ordinary bit of
reality — this room, right now,” and instructed them
to write down as many facts about it as they could man-
age in five minutes. That done, I asked them to com-
bine their lists and devise a system of categories and
subcategories.
I have done this exercise with students from early
adolescence through adulthood. Without fail, a five-
part category system similar to that shown in Figure 1
eventually emerges as the major organizer. To make sense
of experience — an event, situation, or condition —
we set it off from other experience and lay our five-ele-
ment template over it. We locate it in time and phys-
ical space, identify the participating actors, and examine
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 Brady, M. 2004. “Thinking Big: A conceptual framework for the study of everything.” Phi Delta Kappan. Vol 86, number 4. Pp 276-281.
social patterns and assumptions that influence it.
These five concepts are the basic organizers of our
mental models of reality. All knowledge “fits” within
their collective boundaries. The traditional academic
disciplines elaborate and explore random conceptual
branchings of the five, but only familiarity with the sys-
temically integrated roots from which those conceptual
branchings spring enables students to capitalize on their
near-infinite relational possibilities. This, not interdis-
ciplinarity, is the key to the integration of everything
the student knows.
There can be no acceptable general education with-
out a discipline of general education, and there can be
no coherent general education discipline without a
framework of logically related organizing ideas. The
scheme in Figure 1 or a conceptual framework very
much like it is the foundation on which a general ed-
ucation curriculum can be built. It encompasses all
knowledge. Unlike the disciplines, its five elements re-
late systemically. It calls attention to currently neglect-
ed areas of study and to future possibilities. It provides
criteria for content selection and emphasis. It makes
clear the mutually reinforcing nature of the traditional
academic disciplines (but also their conceptual random-
ness). It is an extraordinary aid to memory. It facilitates
the expansion of knowledge by helping students en-
vision possible relationships between various aspects of
reality. It automatically adjusts to student ability. Being
conceptual rather than factual, it constantly adapts to
change. Not inconsequentially, it raises the level of so-
phistication of the curriculum beyond the easy reach
of well-meaning but ill-informed politicians and other
education policy makers.
Moreover, this knowledge-organizing and integrat-
FIGURE 1.
A Model of Reality
Time
Setting
That which is to
be understood —
an event, situation, Actors
condition, etc.
Social Patterns
Assumptions
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ing system does not even have to be taught. It is in con-
stant use by every student. An instructor’s job is mere-
ly to raise it in the students’ consciousness from that
which is implicitly known to that which is explicitly
known. When students move from knowing to know-
ing what they know, they are able to perform at intel-
lectual levels far beyond expectations.
TWO THEORIES
The present curriculum, made up as it is of sepa-
rate, specialized studies, exerts considerable pressure
on teachers to make major use of what could be called
“Theory T.” Theory T dominates American education.
It reflects the conventional wisdom about educating, un-
derlies much of the education-related legislation handed
down by federal and state governments, drives the cur-
rent top-down “standards and accountability” fad, gives
the publishers of textbooks and standardized tests a
central role in the making of education policy, and is
demonstrated daily in hundreds of thousands of class-
rooms — public, private, charter, parochial, and virtual
— as well as home school settings.
T stands for “transfer.” Those who accept Theory T
believe that knowledge is located in teachers’ heads,
textbooks, reference materials, and on the Internet and
that the instructional challenge is to transfer it from
these locations into the empty space in students’ heads.
The degree of success of the transfer process can be
measured with relative ease, which helps explains its
broad appeal. At some agreed-upon interval after in-
struction — usually a few weeks or months — students
are asked to recall what they have learned or at least to
recognize a correct version of it when it is placed along-
}
Point
Duration
Etc.
Climate
Terrain
Etc. Further
elaborated, in
Number part, by the
Distribution traditional
Etc. academic
Work disciplines
Worship
Etc.
Nature
The Supernatural
Etc.
DECEMBER 2004 36/44
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 Brady, M. 2004. “Thinking Big: A conceptual framework for the study of everything.” Phi Delta Kappan. Vol 86, number 4. Pp 276-281.
side other reasonable-sounding but false statements.
Evaluating performance is simple enough to allow stu-
dent responses to be scored by a machine.
In the traditional curriculum, the paraphernalia of
the specialized disciplines encourages the use of The-
ory T. Each field has its own vocabulary, conceptual
framework, methodologies, and so on. These must be
mastered, at least to some degree, before the discipline
can be used as a tool to make sense of the world. Since
students are required to work with several disciplines
at once, even gaining a minimal familiarity with them
leaves little time for the kind of real-world applica-
tions that lead to a useful level of understanding. How-
ever, when students need only master a single con-
ceptual framework for the whole of reality and when
that framework is the one they are already using, they
can immediately put the discipline to work.
Some educators — certainly a minority — reject
Theory T, subscribing instead to what might be called
“Theory R.” Socrates appears to have been among their
number, although it is unlikely that all those who ad-
mire his teaching style buy its underlying premise.
Theory R and our five-element model of reality are
highly compatible. Theory R assumes not that students’
heads are empty but that they are full. The primary in-
structional challenge, then, is not to transfer new knowl-
edge but to help students reorganize existing knowledge
to make it more useful, consistent, or true and to sup-
plement it with insights and skills that will help explain
more fully what they already know.
This rearranging process is complex, but far less so
for students in Theory R than in Theory T classrooms.
Students in Theory T classrooms are passive absorbers
of information. Students in Theory R classrooms must
be active processors of information. Theory T empha-
sizes recall; Theory R requires students to engage in
every known thought process. Theory T feedback to
teachers and peers is simple and straightforward, com-
ing in the form of either correct or incorrect responses.
Theory R feedback is often subtle and difficult to ana-
lyze, coming in the form of body language, dialogue, and
other indicators from which student thought processes
must be inferred.
Theory R requires students to make connections, to
perceive relationships, and to synthesize ideas. It sends
students searching the far corners of their minds with-
out regard for the artificial, arbitrary boundaries im-
posed by academic disciplines. Therein, incidentally,
lies a major and perhaps unexpected benefit of having
in place a conceptual map like the one in Figure 1. As
280 PHI DELTA KAPPAN
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any attempt to remember today the details of what we
once learned in school will demonstrate, the human
brain is very poorly equipped to store and retrieve ran-
dom information. Memory needs the help of logic, and
logic requires the use of a system of organization.
To illustrate that general education deals with the
kind of content and skills that Buckminster Fuller pro-
moted, let me share an example of an assignment for
middle or high school students. It can properly be called
“general” because it deals with matters of potential sig-
nificance for life as it is lived, requires the use of a full
range of thought processes, and touches on matters
that do not fit neatly into existing subjects or courses.
One of the many matters that has probably got-
ten less attention in your education thus far than it
deserves has to do with why and how the world chang-
es and the nature of the future. Here are several events,
ideas, innovations, or policies that could have conse-
quences beyond those which are immediately appar-
ent. Choose one, and construct a flow chart show-
ing its probable or possible consequences over time.
Extend the chart at least to a point at which a valued
local way of acting and/or thinking begins to be threat-
ened.
a. A 3º Celsius increase in average annual temper-
ature.
b. A five-gallon-a-day limit per individual on fresh
water consumption.
c. A $10 VSA (Voice Stress Analyzer), portable,
about the size of a pack of cigarettes. (Voice stress
analyzers indicate by a light or another kind of sig-
nal when a speaker is probably lying. They work di-
rectly or by telephone, radio, or television.)
d. An antipollution law prohibiting the use of
automobiles for commutes of less than one mile for
all able-bodied persons.
e. A mandatory year of public service at age 18
or after completion of high school.
f. A heavy tax on automobiles, calculated accord-
ing to the number of square feet or meters of road
surface occupied.
g. Zoning regulations that encourage a return to
the colonial-era arrangement of combined living and
working spaces in urban areas.
Students in Theory T classrooms would not expect
this assignment unless each of the items had been “cov-
ered” in class. However, students familiar with a con-
ceptual framework for organizing and integrating knowl-
edge would consider the assignment perfectly reason-
able, even if the items had never been mentioned in
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 Brady, M. 2004. “Thinking Big: A conceptual framework for the study of everything.” Phi Delta Kappan. Vol 86, number 4. Pp 276-281.

class. They would simply lay their five-element-model- thousands of standards being put in place ignore this
of-reality template over the chosen item and begin to fact. Those who wrote them for various subjects ob-
generate hypotheses about probable and possible causal viously did not talk to one another, much less recog-
relationships suggested by the template’s myriad “files nize the systemically integrated, mutually supportive
and subfiles.” nature of knowledge. The result is the perpetuation of
The breadth of a true general education discipline an intellectually unmanageable, “mile wide and inch
and the specificity of the elements of such a discipline deep,” artificially compartmentalized curriculum, a cur-
riculum acceptable not because it is theoretical-
ly sound, not because it is intellectually challeng-
Bringing market forces to bear will not ing, not because it meets individual or societal
needs, but because its familiarity blocks recog-
improve education. Indeed, present federally nition of its fundamental inadequacy.
mandated “reforms” will do just the opposite. Public education is imploding, at a rate accel-
The mandates attempt to force teachers and erated by the reactionary education legislation
coming from various levels of government. Even
students to do the wrong thing better. the best schools are squandering their students’
potential at a prodigious rate. It is far past time
for leaders — principals, superintendents, col-
make it easy to endlessly generate instructional activi- lege presidents, union officials, school board members,
ties that even the most skeptical or jaded student will trustees — to realize that they must act, that teachers,
see as undeniably relevant and that all students, even curriculum coordinators, department heads, and others
the most brilliant, will find intellectually challenging. traditionally in charge of deciding what is taught are
ill equipped by background, training, job description,
and inclination to think about the whole of which their
WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
narrow areas of expertise are parts.
If Buckminster Fuller were alive today, he would sure- True leaders will hammer federal and state legisla-
ly accelerate his timetable for “the undoing of [Ameri- tors until the innovation-stifling provisions of present
can] society.” Today’s major education-related debates legislation are repealed. They will then work with their
— about vouchers, choice, competition, merit pay, re- faculties and other stakeholders to create a true general
wards, school shaming, discipline-based standards, high- education curriculum, a curriculum that respects hu-
stakes tests, accountability, privatization — do not even man nature and the brain’s holistic approach to mak-
hint at the problem to which he was calling attention. ing sense of experience.
No major participant in those debates is raising a sin- Buckminster Fuller was dead right. American edu-
gle question about the aims of education, its proper cation has developed in a way that, left unchanged,
scope, the validity or relative importance of particular will be the undoing of the society. But even educators
standards, or the deeper meanings of “quality.” It is and policy makers who do not accept Fuller’s bleak pre-
being assumed, wrongly, that the institution is basical- diction are not off the hook. Schools are in the knowl-
ly sound, that it merely needs a tune-up, which can edge business. Any school that does not send its grad-
be provided by the play of market forces. uates off with a thorough understanding of the seam-
But bringing market forces to bear will not improve less, systemic nature of knowledge — and the ability
education. Indeed, present federally mandated “re- to use that understanding to live life more fully and
forms” will do just the opposite; they will freeze even intelligently — is failing.
more rigidly in place the very curriculum — aimless
and fragmented — that prompted Fuller’s warning. 1. Quoted by John A. Howard in “Higher Education and a Civilization
The mandates attempt to force teachers and students to in Trouble,” Officer Review, March 1989, p. 5.
do the wrong thing better. 2. Daniel Tanner, “The American High School at the Crossroads,” Ed-
For proof, one need only look at the so-called stan- ucational Leadership, March 1984, p. 10.
3. John I. Goodlad, A Place Called School (New York: McGraw-Hill,
dards and the high-stakes tests being used to measure 1984), p. 266.
progress toward meeting those standards. Knowledge 4. Paul DeHart Hurd, “A Life Science Core for Early Adolescents,” Mid-
is “all of a piece.” Humans learn seamlessly. But the dle School Journal, vol. 20, 1989, p. 22. K

DECEMBER 2004 38/44

281
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Brady, M. 2004. “Thinking Big: A conceptual framework for the study of everything.” Phi Delta Kappan. Vol 86, number 4. Pp 276-281.

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of Everything," Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 86, No. 4, December 2004, pp.
276-281.

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Planning the inquiry

1. What is our purpose? Class/grade: Age group:

To inquire into the following:
School: School code:
- Transdisciplinary theme:
Title:
- Central idea :
Teacher(s):

Date:

Proposed duration: number of hours over number of weeks

summative assessment task(s):
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the central
idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?
2. What do we want to learn?
What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective,
responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?

What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?

What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?

40/44
3. How might we know what we have learned?
This column should be used in conjunction with “How best might we learn?”
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and skills? What evidence will
we look for?
4. How best might we learn?
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to encourage
the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving questions?

What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines of inquiry? What development of the attributes of the learner profile?
evidence will we look for?

5. What resources need to be gathered?

What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available?

How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community to used to facilitate the inquiry?

41/44
6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?
Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students’ understanding of the
central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the planning and teaching of the inquiry
should be included.
7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
● develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to
learn?”
● demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?
● develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
In each case, explain your selection.

How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more accurate
picture of each student’s understanding of the central idea.

What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the
transdisciplinary theme?

42/44
8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning? 9. Teacher notes
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that
were incorporated into the teaching and learning.

At this point teachers should go back to box 2 “What do we want to learn” and highlight
the teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries.

What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?

Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to
reflect, to choose and to act.

© International Baccalaureate Organization 2011 43/44