INTERDISCIPLINARY LEARNING

Interdisciplinary learning constitutes a basic component of the Discovery Institute method for two different but closely related reasons:

The Discovery Institute strives to reduce student-alienation in several related ways. One of these is an effort to reduce the compartmentalized, unreal isolation of the subjects students study, especially in secondary school. Typically, students experience seven or eight academic subjects in separate 40 to 45-minute periods each day, through which they are guided, or driven, by the bell. They move from one to another, between different rooms and different subjects, each with its own ethos, rules and demands, and between different teachers, each committed to different teaching methods and even different teaching formats. Few, if any, connections between subjects are made, and the very isolation of each academic learning experience necessarily makes the content of each subject seem arbitrary, and ultimately of no practical importance, use, or interest. The Discovery Institute model accepts the status quo of separate academic subjects, classrooms, and teachers; however, to break down the resulting isolation, it builds bridges between the subjects, the classrooms, and the teachers themselves by creating intensive professional interaction among the teachers of disparate subjects. The Discovery Institute's professional development workshop model puts teachers of different subjects together in teams to mutually develop cross-disciplinary themes that they then implement in each classroom and make explicit to their students. All programs run by the Discovery Institute envision the instructional unit as a block of at least four different academic subjects taught by at least four different teachers who create a seamless academic program for their students. Each team chooses a common and unifying theme for the term's work on which it bases their development of integrated instructional units. Team members share their curricula, methodologies, and philosophies, and, ideally, write their lesson plans together. Each teacher makes the students aware of the common theme and its applications on an almost daily basis. As a result, students develop the sense that reality is interconnected, and begin to experience greater relevance and meaning in what they study. The Discovery Institute also strives to eliminate the sense of isolation and the consequent demoralization endemic to urban teachers themselves. It has found that the very fact of having teachers work together in teams to produce interdisciplinary themes and lessons has a profound effect on reducing this sense of isolation and increases a sense of common purpose and accomplishment. The teamwork brings teachers together in an open professional exchange, often for the first time, and empowers them with fresh perspectives and ideas as well as a new sense of common purpose and accomplishment. This revived enthusiasm for teaching, a sense of interest and contribution, rather than of boredom and frustration, communicates itself to the students. The net effect ends to be happier teachers, more interested students, and greater achievement in the classroom.