Running head: INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES IN THE CLASSROOM

Interdisciplinary Studies in the Classroom

Ivory Ysquierdo

Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio, Spring 2019

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Introduction

In this competency, I included two artifacts that show evidence of Content Knowledge in

Interdisciplinary Curriculum. I have included a project given to fourth graders that integrated

both Language Arts and Science. In this project, students were asked to use skills to research

Early Astronomers. The second artifact included here is a science lesson that integrated math

students were newly learning. The students were challenged to use their knowledge of fractions

and decimals to know the relationships of the Earth, Moon and Sun. This was important for the

students to know because without knowing what decimals were, which were taught the week

before, the students would not be able to understand the content needed such as the age of the

Sun, the distance between the Earth and the Moon and the size comparison of the Earth, Moon

and Sun. These two artifacts described how knowledge of one subject can be beneficial to the

students’ learning of another subject.

Rationale on Theory and Practice

In my first artifact, I have given an example of the research project I gave to students. To

introduce fourth grade Science Standard of Learning 4.8e, I decided to begin with a lesson on

Astronomers. This standard stated, the student will investigate and understand the relationships

among Earth, the moon, and the sun. Students will understand historical contributions in

understanding the Earth-moon-sun system. Astronomers are those that have helped contribute to

our knowledge of the Solar System. In this project, I assigned each student to an astronomer. I

strategically split the class into four groups called our “Expert Astronomers”. Each group had

one astronomer (Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Galileo) they had to research on their

Chromebooks through given links. These students would have time to research their astronomers

on day one. They would record their research for their astronomer in a shared chart online. On
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day two, the students were broken up into a different set of groups. In these groups, students

were in groups of four. These included an Aristotle expert, Ptolemy expert, Copernicus expert,

and a Galileo expert. We called these our “key groups”. In these groups, each student would be

given time to present the research they found on their astronomer. The other group members

would listen and copy into their chart the information. By the end of this research, the students

would have information on each astronomer by using research skills learned in their language

arts class. On the third day, as a class, we talked about our information gathered and created

another copy of the Astronomer Chart. This was done so we could be sure the information

gathered by the students was accurate and necessary. I selected this artifact because I found that

as the students were asked to individually research these astronomers, we were able to see the

strengths and weaknesses of their ability to research on their own. In fourth grade, according to

the research strand for each grade level, located on the Virginia Department of Education,

students should be able to create a research product.

In the second artifact, I included a lesson I did recently on the comparison of the Earth,

Moon and Sun. As we studied these comparisons, the students were challenged to use their

knowledge of decimals and fractions to know the differences distance from each other, size and

age. Without being introduced to decimals a week before and learning more about the meaning

of fractions, I found there to be a huge reliance of math in this objective. Knowing this, I created

a Nearpod for us to go through as a class that challenged students. I chose this artifact because

this showed the students how to apply the math they have learned about into real life scenarios.

In this case, students were not prepared to see decimals or fractions, but had to know in order to

properly compare the Earth, Moon and Sun.

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Reflection on Theory and Practice

In UED 405 Teaching Reading Across the Curriculum, I was shown how easy it is to

incorporate reading, writing, and research skills to so many areas of teaching. I was shown the

challenge this looked like for each grade level and learned a lot of new ideas that could be

implemented in my classroom in the future. Because of this, finding cool ways to incorporate it

into our science and math class almost seemed natural. In this classroom specifically, one of the

things my cooperating teacher mentioned she did before I arrived was asked the language arts

teacher to teach one her units of Social Studies. She was really behind in lessons because of bad

weather days in early Fall. The Language Arts teacher did this with ease, she taught the unit of

American Indians by incorporating it into reading material. By the end of the unit, my

cooperating teacher ended up just reviewing with the students and assessing the students.

Through this, I learned a lot more about interdisciplinary methods that could easily be used in the

classroom as well.

Specific to these artifacts, I found that as the students were asked to apply their

knowledge of math into our science lesson, they were excited to be able to use what they learned

recently and apply it. Specifically, as I went through the Nearpod with the students, we came

across a fact that stated that “Our moon is ¼ of our Earth.” A student asked, “What does the

denominator mean in ¼ again?” Before I could answer, another student was able to say, “It

means that we could put four moons in our Earth”. I loved that not only did this student state

what the denominator represented, but he was able to state it in a way that allowed the other

students to visually see the Moon as ¼ of the Earth. I found that this really backed up an article

from Open University, What are the benefits of Interdisciplinary Study?. In this article, they

stated that Interdisciplinary Studies, “[…] allows the student to learn by making connections
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between ideas and concepts across different disciplinary boundaries. Students learning in this

way are able to apply the knowledge gained in one discipline to another different discipline as a

way to deepen the learning experience” (OpenLearn). I saw how this instance definitely

deepened the child’s learning experience and the many weeks of practicing fractions was worth

the time.

Additionally, I thought the Astronomer research project was a way for the students to

take what they learned in a different class and apply it to another area of education. We were

then able to refine their skills by going through the information they gathered and kept only what

they needed to. In an article called, “Killing Two Birds,” by Seth Marie Westfall, the statement,

“The heavy focus on reading, writing, and mathematics leaves little time for science and social

studies instruction” (Westfall, 28), could not be more true in the classroom. We have found

ourselves continuously scrambling to find time for science and socials studies. In this article,

“Killing Two Birds,” the author talks about his experience of integrating science and language

arts into a single teaching times.

As I continue to reflect on the fourth graders’ assignment, the expectations were not to

research everything perfectly, but to push them to apply what they knew about researching and

apply it to science. I have found integrating subject with subject is such a great way to inforce

application of knowledge across the curriculum. In the book, “The Interdisciplinary Curriculum”

by Arthur Ellis, “We should not be surprised that when teaching and learning is purely academic

in the sense of ‘learn the material and show that you learned it on the test,’ students neither

expect to retain what they studied, not to use it in any particular way. This is not so much a way

of saying that the knowledge was trivial in the first place, or even that such courses have no
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value. The reason for the atrophy may be that, for most learners, the opportunity to apply the

information they, ‘learned’ never presented itself” (Ellis, 7). In reading this, it only leaves me

with a more reason to find opportunities to apply knowledge learned from a different subject into

another subject. Integration is a segway for application.

I think as I continue in the classroom, it is easy to find ways for Science and Social

Studies to be integrated into Language Arts and vice versa. However, I have found that math

integration can at times be challenging. I plan to continue to find ways to implement math into

other subject or find ways to add math to a reading lesson as I continue my Student Teaching.
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References

Ellis, A. K., & Stuen, C. J. (1998). The Interdisciplinary Curriculum. Eye On Education.

“What Are the Benefits of Interdisciplinary Study?” OpenLearn, 29 Apr. 2015,

www.open.edu/openlearn/education/what-are-the-benefits-interdisciplinary-study.

Westfall, Seth M. “Killing Two Birds With One Stone.” Science and Children, vol. 056, no. 02,

Sept. 2018, doi:10.2505/4/sc18_056_02_28.