Cross-curriculum teaching

Cross-curricular teaching is a concept that has been discussed for over 100 years. From earlier, Dewey (1902) believed that the robust links between subjects would take account of discrete learning and relating them through children’s experiences. Over the last few decades, cross-curricular teaching has been widely debated as the best method to use in schools (Rowley, 2009). Beginning with the idea that learning is an interpretative network which spreads across domains (Kerry, 2015; Clyde, 1995). It means the more you connect knowledge, the better you learn. Nowadays, a lot of educators are doing researches, trying to create the best teaching-learning method for education in the future. Kerry argues we need to accept that in an information world, knowledge itself will be beyond the capacity of the human brain and that the important skills will be in evaluating and applying knowledge (2015, p.15). Also, “schools need to embrace cross-curricular learning and move away from reform that positions subjects in ways that hark back to some imagined past, rather than forwards to more globalised times” (Power, 2002, p.103).

What is Cross – Curricular teaching?

According to Hayes (2010, p.382) “cross-curricular teaching as the combination of one or more subject areas which integrate a central theme, issue, process, topic or experience with the aim of enhancing more than just subject knowledge”. In other words, Cross - Curricular teaching is using one theme and making it work across several subjects. For example, you can pick one book about Cat, then you make that book work in phonics (C-A-T), art (drawing a cat), large motor (imitating a cat), and science (learning about lion, tiger and leopard)

Another example, we can choose a theme as a letter of the week. This week we have letter “I” and we will do “insects”. Following the theme, activities for children can be counting how many body parts, how many legs, how many antennas. For vocabulary, they learn the body parts, what they were called. Also, children can do art by drawing or making the bugs. Basically, we can cover all the subjects with just one thing.

In addition, there are many advantages and disadvantages to teaching in a cross-curricular way. There is no doubt that children are the most important one to consider when it comes to teaching. Therefore, it is essential to look at how the cross-curricular teaching affects them

Advantages

Firstly, there is normally no time restraints as learning in cross-curricular can range from a day, term or even a whole academic year

Secondly, cross-curricular learning is a powerful way to generate creative thinking (Barnes, 2012). And because everything in the world can be seen and understood from different perspectives (Barnes, 2015), it is important that children are able to think in different ways and apply the knowledge they gain into different areas in their lives

Thirdly, cross-curricular makes learning more relevant, building and reinforcing key concepts, providing contexts for using and applying subject-specific skills and concepts, coherence in learning between subjects (Chard, 2000; Dean, 2001; Barnes, 2007). It makes learning process become easier because it ties everything in for the children and easier for them to learn through repetition. By doing cross-curricular, only teacher know that he/she is teaching them something else, but children don’t know it, they are just learning it

Fourthly, Price (2010) said children become more aware of the thinking skills they are using and will be able to apply the knowledge more easily thus improving confidence.

Fifthly, Cross Curricular methods have been argued to provide high degrees of motivation in children (Barnes, 2011). Young people are rarely out of the news but rarely in it positively, endless stories of young people’s lack of attention and motivation to attend school, yet the future of the planet depends on their learning (James, 2009)

Sixthly, “Learning happens when brain and body combine to make experience part of the conscious memory to be recalled to solve future problems” (Barnes, 2011, p.129). Through repeated neural connections we create permanent changes in the brain but context-free memory exercises are not the best way to generate mind change (Gardner, 2004). Therefore, through Cross-curricular teaching, students can revisit conversations, make links between present and past class activity and link to real life situations which all build memory in the brain

Disadvantages

Firstly, we still have not had any official national guidance for this type of teaching. It leads to a challenge for schools and teachers when applying the cross-curricular teaching in school. “There is too much prescribed content in the current curriculum. The trend – usually motivated by the desire to strengthen particular aspects of learning – has been to add more and more content with too little regard for the practicalities and expertise needed to teach it effectively” (DfE, 2009)

Secondly, many teachers have had limited experience of cross-curricular teaching, either as pupils or subsequently during their school-based training (Barnes and Shirley, 2007). As a result, teachers will meet the difficulty with planning a cross-curriculum activity which should be included balancing knowledge and skills with a clear progression but also challenging and meaningful.

Fourthly, Subject progression is difficult to achieve, even when only two subjects are involved, it is almost impossible with three or more (Barnes, 2012). Therefore, tracking progression as well as doing assessment will be very difficult as planning

Fifthly, “in the absence of high standards, a progressive programme can rapidly become an excuse for laziness, laissez-faire procedures (leaving things to take their own course), and even anarchy” (Gardner, 1993, p.195)

Conclusion

In the modern education, we are not teaching for the test, we are not teaching job skills. We are helping children to explore themselves and the whole world by promoting them learn on their own (Noam Chomsky, 2012). Children are naturally born in the world using all the different senses, so why would education not.

References

Barnes, J. (2011) Cross-curricular learning 3-14 (2^nd edn). London: SAGE

Barnes, J. and Shirley, I. (2007) Strangely familiar: cross-curricular and creative thinking in teacher education, improving school

Gardner, H. (1999) Intelligence Reframe: Multiple Intelligence for the 21^st Century. New York: Basic Books.

Kerry, T. (2015) Cross-curricular teaching in the primary school: Planning and facilitating imagination lessons. 2^nd edn. London: Routledge

Clyde, M. (1995) ‘concluding the debate’, in Fleer, M. (ed.) DAP Centrism: Challenging Developmentally Appropriate Practice. Watson, Australia: Australia Early Childhood Association

Dean, J. (2001) Organising Learning in the Primary Classroom. 3^rd edn. London: Routledge

James, O. (2009) Britain on the couch: How keeping up with the Joneses has depressed us since 1950. London: Vermilion

Barnes, J. (2012) Cross-Curricular Learning 3-14. 2^nd edn. London: SAGE

Dewey, J. (1992) ‘The Child and the Curriculum. Chicago: University Chicago Press

Hayes, D. (2010) The seductive charms of a cross-curricular approach. Education 3-13: International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Year Education, 38(4): 381-7

Rowley, C. and Cooper, H. ed (2009) Cross Curricular approaches to Teaching and Learning. London: SAGE

DfE (2014) The National Curriculum in England: Framework document. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum#content Accessed: 12/12/2017

Collaboration in education

We are living in the 21^st century, this is the world of science and technology where creative idea can come from individual but the product is from a process of collaboration (Broers, 2005). Therefore, to be successful in the future, we need to see ideas in different ways, we need to work together. This blog post is going to explain what collaboration is, why it important and introduce different types of collaboration in education

What is collaboration?

Collaboration is an active engagement and interaction among group member to achieve a common goal (Dillenbourg, 1999)

Collaboration is the ability to share ideas and thoughts with other people then come up with a combined answer or solution about a particular issue (EdTechReview, 2014)

Also, it is the ability to combine different notions, beliefs and theories into one concrete explanation and that is reflective of the diversity of the group itself (EdTechReview, 2014)

Why collaboration is important?

We are surrounded by thousands of people all with different perspectives and standpoints. What happens when you are placed in a position with someone of opposing viewpoints. If you know how to deal with the situation and have an ability to collaborate, communicate and work together, you will have an easier time integrating and understanding the other person’s position.

Collaboration allows all individuals ability to voice their own opinions and openly work together towards a common goal. Collaboration is not just about getting information from different angles and understanding something new. It also helps with communication, time management, problem-solving, resource allocation and many more skills. The benefits of collaboration are endless.

Collaborative learning has been shown to result in higher student achievement, higher self-esteem and higher motivation for all students, across socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds (Johnson and Johnson, 2009)

Different types of collaboration

There are many different types of collaboration. Within this post, I am going to introduce three main types of collaboration in education which are:

Student - Student collaboration

As we can see, most of the time students are working independently and the key reason for that is it is easier to assess students for their own individual abilities.

Kutnick & Thomas (1990, p.399) found that “students working in pairs performed significantly better than those working individually and pairs improved upon initial performance no matter whether they are placed in equal and unequal matched pairings”.

By teaching other people, children understand the material that they are teaching even more than normal because they have to break it down into smaller components which forces them to try to understand at a higher level what they are actually teaching rather than assume that they understand.

On the other hand, the one who is receiving help of study also gets benefit from this process. For example, there is only one teacher in the classroom, and there are 30 students. Those numbers mean that the chances each student get in help anytime he/she is in class are quite minimal. Therefore, it is better to get help from a peer than no one else. And another great aspect of peer teaching is that the person teaching you is going to teach you at your mental level even though they may be better at the subject. They are going to communicate with you like you speak with yourself. In other words, you can understand 99.9% of everything they say.

This teaching – learning process is not about one person understanding and the other student doesn’t. The thing is that no one truly understands and they will both understand better than they did before.

Student - Teacher collaboration

The main aspect of student - teacher collaboration is that both the students and the teacher share a responsibility in the learning - teaching process. In other words, accountability is not placed on only teachers shoulders. For example, the students can tell the teacher when they don’t understand something or suggesting a different way of explaining a topic or suggesting different uses of technology and then the teacher would obviously be receptive to that and maybe debate those ideas. The students can also bring up things that they want to learn about.

The main point here is communicating. Students should have the right to speak and give out their own opinions instead of following teacher’s instruction only as the way it was in the past. In the past, students were not allowed to talk in class because people believed that talking would interfere the lesson and distracted others attention. However, talk is vitally important to learning, it is the tool which we use to interpret, communicate, work through and make sense of our experiences (Lloyd and Beard, 1995). In other words, teachers and students can be able to understand others needs more if they communicate in class.

Teacher - Teacher collaboration

This is where teachers have time to co-plan a curriculum, giving feedback to another, to debate or discuss student needs, sharing challenges and ways to be better in classes, better in their teaching style. And there is no better person to do that with than a colleague who is in the same profession and understands your position as well as has the same level of expertise.

Conclusion

In all aspects, collaboration is about self-improvement by helping other people but also being challenged to go to another level, you are forced to improve to be better yourself, you broaden your horizon. In other words, you develop horizontally and vertically. And collaboration helps us to become mentally stronger and this is quite controversial because, at the moment, we believe that the more independent we are the stronger we are because we believe that we have to be superior to others at everything and that comes down to insecurities where we afraid of someone being better than us. However, unless we are willing to collaborate, we are not going to improve. We need people around us with different abilities, better abilities in order to improve ourselves.

A vision for collaboration in education in the future

References

EdTechReview (2014) Collaboration: Vital Skills for 21^st century students. Available at: http://edtechreview.in/trends-insights/insights/1420-collaboration-vital-skill-for-21st-century-students (Accessed: 11/12/2017)

Broers, A, (2005). The Triumph of Technology. {The Reith Lectures} 4^th May.

Dilenbourg, P. (1999) Collaborative learning: Cognitive and Computational approaches: Advances in Learning and instruction. Pergamon: London.

Kutnick, P. and Thomas, M. (1990) ‘Dyadic pairings for the enhancement of cognitive development in the school curriculum’. British Educational Research Journal. 16(4).

Lloyd, C. and Beard, J. (1995) Managing classroom collaboration. (Cassell Practical Handbook). London: Cassell.

Johnson, D.W. and Johnson, F. (2009) Joining together: Group theory and group skills. 10^th edn. Boston: Allyn&Bacon.

Creativity in education

Nowadays, we hear a lot about how students need to be more creative, how creativity enables students to solve problems more effectively, how creativity helps prepare students to find innovative and imaginative ways to solve unique situations and circumstances in real life and so on. In addition, if we speak to business leaders they would say they want people who are creative, who can innovate, who can think differently, who can work in teams and communicate effectively. The key term we are expected in school and after school is “creative” or “creativity”. In this blog post, I will present the definition of creativity, introducing some myths about it and discussing how to teach creativity in school.

What is Creativity?

In fact, we can find a lot of definitions of creativity. For example, Koestler (1964, p.95) defined “Creativity is the ability to make connections between previously unconnected ideas” while NACCCE (1999, p.30) said “Creativity as imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value”. Or from Ken Robinson (2011) view, he saw Creativity as a process (of trial and error) of having original ideas (may not to the whole world but to yourself) that have value. He also emphasised three important terms in his definition are process, original ideas and value. However, I think that creating a definition for creativity can be problematic and even unhelpful because creativity is something that we cannot really see but we still can know and giving judgment.

More than the definition, I think creativity is about a limited amount of input and unlimited output. By this, I mean that we taught certain things to children and they were able to think far beyond the things that were taught. For example, teachers said “Sky is blue”, some children can think “It is not completely blue, it is black, pink and white, it is colourful”.

Another term that linked closely to Creativity is “Imagination”. Ken Robinson said that Imagination is the key to everything. Imagination is the ability to step outside of our current space, to bring to mind things that aren’t present to our senses. With imagination, you can go back to the past or visit the future. And, Creativity is putting your imagination to work. You can be imaginative all day long and never do anything but to be creative you really do things. It is a very practical process. In other words, Imagination is seeing and thinking of the unknown, Creativity is making it into reality and something concrete.

Why creativity is so important?

Albert Einstein once said, “imagination is more important than knowledge”. Because knowledge can be obtained and is limited, imagination and creativity come from within and is unlimited. Without creativity, the world would not be what it is today. The world today came from someone’s imagination. Moreover, we are living in an unpredictable world, a child starts his school today, at 5 year olds and will attend his career about 15 years later. We have no clue about the world he is going to live and work in. Therefore, Creativity is not an option, it's an absolute necessity (Ken Robinson, 2014). And as President Obama said in his speech (State of the Union, 2011) “None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be or where the new jobs will come from, what we can do, what America does better than anyone else, is spark the creativity and imagination of our people “

Common creativity myths

Firstly, some people believe that only few special people were born with talent and just these people can be called ‘creative’. That myth came from the 18^th century when creativity was considered to be a natural talent or God-given gift (Fleming, 2012). In addition, Pinker (1995) stated that creativity is an innate human feature and cannot be learnt like language. But in fact, creativity is something everyone can learn. Because creativity is not just about one moment, it is about the whole process and because everybody has tremendous creative capacities (Ken Robinson). Therefore, learning creativity means finding the creativity that already exists within us and enhancing them by practising. For example, looking at all the singers in a music company, we cannot say who was born with talent and who are improved with everyday practice.

Secondly, people often say they are not creative. What they mean by that very often is that they cannot play an instrument or they do not pain or they do not dance. And all those things are the arts. We admit that arts must be very creative. But you can be creative in anything, for example, math, writing, cooking and so on. People tend to associate creativity with the arts only but creativity is really a function of everything we do. Therefore, education for creativity is about the whole curriculum, not just part of it. A child who can draw a nice picture and a child who can solve the math in different ways both can be called creative.

Teaching creativity in schools

People often say we cannot teach creativity and we cannot assess it. The trouble with creativity is that we cannot thoroughly define it. We think of creativity as something too complicated and we cannot teach someone what we even do not know well. Therefore, I believe instead of teaching children what is creativity, we can help them explore how creative they are by different learning activities both indoor and outdoor. I can suggest some pedagogies that can be applied in school in order to enhance children’s creativity.

1. Storytelling

Storytelling is not only about telling a story. In fact, we can teach children more things than we imagine. A boring lesson can be much more interesting through a story and will stay in children’s memory much longer. Moreover, children can learn how to make their own story, by using their most powerful and energetic tool – imagination (Egan, 1990).

2. Play and Outdoor learning

“the idea that play, a very important human activity, is intrinsically bound up with all artistic activity, the early and obviously playful activities of children being sublimated into activities such as painting pictures, playing music and reading novels” (Swanwick and Tillman, 1986, p.306)

From a lot of theories, by playing, children can develop themselves thoroughly in terms of physical development, emotional development and intelligent development.

The benefits of outdoor learning can be included physical exercise and freedom, enhanced learning through first-hand experience, enjoyment, persistence, a wider range of possible activities and increased confidence through facing of fears.

3. Critical thinking

By allowing children to think differently, we can help them develop their problem-solving skills. Instead of giving them the right answer, we can ask another question like “what other ideas could we try?”. Using open-ended questions also can be a good idea.

4. Problem-solving

To develop this skills, case-study can be a good activity. By doing that, children will have a chance to practice with a situation that they may face in the future. The good thing is they do not have to solve the problem alone, instead, they have their friends and teachers who will give them a lot of ideas and sharing experience.

Conclusion

Creativity is a necessity for children. However, we have to acknowledge that creativity requires risk-taking. In fact, Society teaches us that risks are bad, risks are dangerous or in other words, we are discouraged from taking risks. Therefore, it is really hard to foster creativity in schools. For example, a society operates like a nanny state which means that the government and its policies basically interfere with our own personal choices and try to protect us, try to force us to make safe decisions and punish us by doing anything that could potentially be of danger to us. Even though we are grown adults and we should have to make our own choices. Imagine all of the art new ideas, innovation and creativity that we admire so much today and what if none of that would exist because people that created them had been normal people with safe behaviour.

I believe that school should be a safe environment for kids to express and explore their creativity. School should be a place where they can take risks and not be criticised, not be told that “that’s wrong”. Teachers should teach sufficient skills for children to have a foundation but still leave plenty of freedom for them to explore their own way of doing things. we hope the best for children but taking risk is not the worst. Because you do it safe doesn’t mean that the life will be fine. It would be sad to see people who have so much potential but lack the confidence to take a chance because they have been brought up to believe that “that’s wrong”.

References

Fleming, G.J. (1998) ‘A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity’. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(4), pp. 290-310.

NACCCE (1999) All our future: Creativity, Culture and Education.  London: DfEE.

Koestler, A. (1964) The Act of Creation. London: Hutchinson & Co.

Ken Robinson (2014) The Brainwaves Video Anthology. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlBpDggX3iE (Accessed: 10/12/2017)

Ken Robinson (2011) London Business Forum. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtnRaa7AgLs (Accessed: 10/12/2017)

Barack Obama (2011) The Obama White House. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl2g40GoRxg (Accessed: 10/12/2017)

Pinker, S. (1995) The Language Instinct. London: Penguin.

The aims of education and pedagogical belief

Some people might think that discussions of education aims are not very necessary and useful. They prefer talking about what should be taught in school, what helps students learn faster and become successful in the future. They might simply believe that teaching is teacher’s job and learning is student’s responsibility. However, both student and teacher might suffer some unsatisfactory experiences such as struggling in class, feeling bored of school/job, poor outcomes and being stressful. They might feel lost then end up with the question “What am I trying to do?”. The aims would make a significant change in education revolution in terms of the school system, curriculum, teaching and learning method as well as the assessment procedure. It also brings about a lot of benefits for whole society and each of individual. In this blog post, I am going to present some problem with our current education, my thought about education aims, an introduction to neo-liberal education and my own pedagogical beliefs which all closely linked together.

Problem with our current education

In 2015, Eddy Zhong, a successful technology entrepreneur appeared in TEDx Talk with a question “How does school make kids less intelligent?”. He gave out an example, if you ask a 5-year-old boy that “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, he will unhesitatingly say “An astronaut” or “A businessman” but after just 5 to 6 years in the education system, this child has turned into a teenager that has no idea about what he wants to be and just listened to his parents almost 100% of the time. The fact is, there is so much more than just one type of intelligence. While the school can make you more academically intelligent by teaching you physics, algebra, calculus, it is diminishing the children’s creative intelligence. It is teaching them to think in a certain way, to go to a certain path in life by telling them: go to high school, get a diploma, go to a good college, find a stable job, and if you don’t do that, you won’t be successful.

Also, Sir Ken Robinson had a talk in TED (2007) with the same topic. He said “Kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they will have a go but by the time they get to be adults, they have become frightened of being wrong”. He believes that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. He pointed out that every education system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts. In addition, there is a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. He emphasised that there isn’t an education system on the planet that teachers dance every day to children as the way we teach them mathematics. Why and why not?

Education aims

Every day children go to school and learn new things. They are supposed to accumulate more and more knowledge and should be getting smarter. How is it possible that school is making them less intelligent and killing their creativity? Obviously, it is not the right purpose of education. So, what are the aims of education? Education can the knowledge accumulated, or that must be accumulated, by students after they study content areas in school. Education can be the development of skills, knowledge, and self-discipline. Education can be the process of cultural transmission. Education can be the development of autonomous and creative thinkers. Education can be the process of preparing students to earn a living.

Education can be any powerful thing that people can think of. However, as Dewey (1916) stated “Education as such has no aims. Only persons, parents and teachers, etc. have aims, not an abstract idea like education” (cited in Bailey, 2006, p. 170). I believe that government, parents, teachers, educators all have the power to influence and inspire children in terms of education.

From an educator’s perspective, the aim of education should be to transmit valuable things, maybe knowledge, history or culture in order to help children understand the world. However, it must be in a morally acceptable way (Peters, 1966).

From Government’s perspective, “one aim of education is to maintain and develop the economic well-being of the individual and society in general (‘Every Child Matters’, 2003). By that definition, we can broaden education meaning from not only about a child, an individual but also about the whole society, a country.

From parent’s perspective, education will develop and prepare children for challenges and opportunities of today and tomorrow (Carter, ASCD)

So, what is the aim of education from children’s eyes? (video) children

I believe that they have no idea. They are simply curious about the world, about a lot of things they do not understand. They simply have a dream of becoming someone or something in the future. They simply are intelligent and creative just the way they are. 

But in fact, there are too many adults who are regularly telling children to go to college, to find a good job, and to be ‘successful’. There are not enough people who are telling them to explore more possibilities, to become who they really want to become. As Dewey recognized that "the conception of education as a social process and function has no definite meaning until we define the kind of society we have in mind" (1916, p.103). The question is, what kind of society we are living in?

A picture of Neo-liberal education

The value of education, which we are educated in, is defined by how well it enables the country to compete in the global marketplace. The countries compete each other on PISA scores, the university league tables and rankings. Schools become more like companies and parents become consumers. Neoliberal education does not focus on schools collaborating to improve learning quality for all students. Instead, schools compete against each other for reputation. Schools have also become increasingly standardised. This leads to the rise of standardised testing to measure effectiveness and progress. As a result, everyone has to learn the same thing at the same time. Curriculum is also narrowed to make standardisation easier to implement and the arts and humanities are often cut to make room for teaching to the test.

In addition, teachers are greatly impacted by neoliberalism. Teachers are in control of learning and as a result, the pressure is placed upon them to make achievements because they have to teach to the test they’re given, they have little or no freedom to control their classrooms or curriculum, they have little or no freedom to explore new pedagogy. Almost everything they do is follow the guidance of the neoliberal state.

On the other hands, perhaps the people who suffer the most in neoliberal education are the children themselves. They feel powerless trapped in a system where they feel like they have to accept anything they are given. Things like creativity, intelligence and imagination are suppressed and students are forced to fit into moulds that ignore their unique backgrounds and personalities and instead try to make them all the same.

So, what is the alternative to Neoliberal Education?

Pedagogical belief

In 2012, Noam Chomsky presented “The purpose of Education” at the Learning Without Frontiers conference in London. He stated that “Education is really aimed at helping students get to the point where they can learn on their own”. Therefore, I believe we need to take a change on the way we teach children by starting with the idea of what teaching is. Teaching is much more than direct instruction. As Ken Robinson said teaching is a process of enabling, giving people opportunities, it is a process of encouragement, it is a process of inspiration and mentoring. And because children are not the same, we cannot teach them in the same way, at the same time and expect the same result. Moreover, children understand the world in a very different way than adults (Piaget, cited in Miller, 2012). Therefore, as an adult, as a teacher, it is essential to understand children thinking, creating a bond between teacher and a child so that the learning-teaching process will be easier.

Instead of ‘teaching’, I prefer to call it ‘discussion’. Both teacher and students can have many discussions during school time in order to find out the fact or simply just exchange ideas. There are four aspects of discussion:

• Exploration: it means finding an exploring the truth by asking many questions
• Explanation: it means ability to find out facts, collect information and verify the facts
• Inference: it is the ability to do logical reasoning to study facts of draw inference.
• Prediction: it is the ability to predict the correct answers. New ideas of concepts will be presented.

People often say about changing methods of teaching and find out the way suitable the most to students. In my opinion, I believe that each of methods brings about its own value and by applying them appropriately, we can make the best of learning outcomes. For example, Lecture methods will provide factual knowledge. Discussion method will fetch many new ideas. Experimental methods will prove the validity of knowledge. Activity method will involve pupils in learning situation. Play way methods will develop interest of the students. Story-teaching method will correct lessons into stories.

In conclusion, I believe that most teachers enter the profession with their own values and aims (Thomas, 1995) and it will influence their pedagogical beliefs and their teaching methods as the same way many educators used to do in the history. I hope that teachers will be open-minded, critical thinking of what would be the best for young children. By doing that, children no longer suffering in class, feeling lost in the future and developing their own value, becoming the true happy one that they can be proud of.

References

Miller, P. H. (2002) Theories of Developmental Psychology (4th edition). New York: Worth

Bailey, R. (2006) Learning to Teach in the Primary School. Edited by James Arthur, Teresa Grainger and David Wray. Abingdon: Routledge.

Thomas, D. (1995) Teacher’ Stories, Buckingham: Open University Press.

Eddy Zhong (2015) TEDx Talks. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yt6raj-S1M  (Accessed: 10/12/2017).

Ken Robinson (2007) TED Talks. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_859505&feature=iv&src_vid=wX78iKhInsc&v=iG9CE55wbtY (Accessed: 10/12/2017).

Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education: an Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. New York: Macmillan

Peter, R.S. (1966) Ethics and Education. London: Allen and Unwin

Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2013) Every Child Matters. London: HMSO.

             

Cross-curricular learning and primary education

The aims of this post are to define the term cross-curricula learning and to provide some examples, as well as looking at the potential impact this may have on primary education. This post will also include an insight into the ongoing debate on whether learning should be divided into single subjects or not. 

To begin, cross-curricular learning is identified “when the skills, knowledge and attitudes of a number of different disciplines are applied to a single experience, problem, question, theme or idea” (Barnes, 2015). In other words, cross-curricular learning is based on individual subjects and their connections through authentic links at the level of curriculum content, key concept or learning process, or through an external theme/dimension; (Savage, 2010). In Wales, the 2015 Donaldson Review “recommends that literacy, numeracy and digital competence should be Cross-curriculum Responsibilities for all teachers and people who work with children and young people” (Donaldson, 2015, p.40).

One excellent way of incorporating cross-curricular learning into the primary school classroom would be project based learning. There is a global trend in curriculum design to teach through this method rather than discrete subjects. “Interdisciplinary learning enables teachers and learners to make connections in their learning through exploring clear and relevant links across the curriculum. Learning beyond subject boundaries provides learners with the opportunity to experience deep challenging and relevant learning” (Education Scotland, 2008). “In project-based learning, students work in groups to solve challenging problems that are authentic, curriculum-based, and often interdisciplinary. Their learning is inherently valuable because it's connected to something real and involves adult skills such as collaboration and reflection” (Solomon, 2003). “Project-based learning is an instructional method centred on the learner. Instead of using a rigid lesson plan that directs a learner down a specific path of learning outcomes or objectives, project-based learning allows in-depth investigation of a topic worth learning more about” (Grant, 2002). However, Fuchsman (2009) argues that in project work a title is placed in the centre of a sheet of paper and then a series of ‘chunks of knowledge’ are plotted. He argues that learning is not deep enough compared to if these topics were taught in single disciplines.

There has been a wide debate about learning being divided into segments known as ‘subjects’. The current primary school curriculum in Wales follows the national curriculum which consists of subjects such as English, Mathematics, Science, History, Geography, Art and Design, Music, Physical Education, Computing (ICT) and ancient and modern foreign languages. Schools must also provide religious education and personal, social and health education (PSHE)” (Gov.uk, 2017). The new school curriculum, which will be implemented in Wales by 2020, will have “common Areas of Learning and Experience from 3 to 16 to promote and underpin continuity and progression and help to make the structure easier to understand. The approach should help to ensure breadth and encourage appropriate decisions about ‘balance’ across a child or young person’s learning at any time, for example by removing distinctions between ‘core’ and ‘foundation’ subjects” (Donaldson, 2015).

One of the first arguments for the use of cross-curricular learning in education was put forward by Plato (1995) who suggested that “anyone who can produce the best blend of the physical and intellectual sides of education and apply them to the training of character is producing harmony” (Barnes, 2015). 

In more recent times, with the world constantly changing and with rapid developments in technology which impacts society and the economy, many argue that schools should prepare children for this unstable and volatile culture. “The new curriculum in Wales will have more emphasis on equipping young people for life. It will build their ability to learn new skills and apply their subject knowledge more positively and creatively. As the world changes, they will be more able to adapt positively” (Welsh Government, 2017). “Schools need to embrace cross curricular learning, and move away from reform that positions subjects in ways that hark back to some imagined past, rather than forwards to more globalised times” (Power, 2002, p. 103). 

In addition to this, it is argued that “our experience of the world is cross-curricular. Everything that surrounds us in the physical world can be seen and understood from multiple perspectives” (Barnes, 2015). 

Another viewpoint is “children’s learning does not fit into subject categories” (Plowden, 1967; cited in Kerry, 2015). “Teachers should be able to help children and young people to make links across learning, bringing together different aspects to address important issues relating, for example, to citizenship, enterprise, financial capability and sustainability” (Donaldson, 2015).

On the other hand, the major argument against the use of cross-curricular teaching and learning in primary education is the fear of change. Teachers may be afraid or unsure about incorporating new pedagogical methods into their routines in order to cooperate with the new curriculum design. “Teaching in a cross curricular context makes the place of the learner central, rather than the place of content and requires a different kind of approach to teaching in order to be effective” (Spooner, 2014). For example, the timetabling in schools, especially secondary education, may be an issues they are “subject based so parallel pigeonholing of people is convenient’ (Kerry, 2015, p.7).  Also, the exam culture and assessment of pupils may be problematic as the whole education system is designed around ‘tests of content learning reduced to league tables that are de-contextualised to make judgements about schools’ (Kerry, 2015, p.10), therefore it can be argued that the way children learn is being changed, but not how said learning is being tested.  

To conclude, this post has given some definitions of the term cross-curricular learning and has identified the cross-curricular responsibilities in Wales, which are literacy, numeracy and digital competence. This post has also explored project based learning as a method of incorporating cross-curricular learning into a primary school classroom. Finally, the ongoing debate about learning being divided into ‘subjects’ has been explored, and after much research I have come to the conclusion that cross-curricular learning should replace single subjects in primary education as it provides pupils with the necessary skills needed to succeed in the future. 

References

Barnes, J., (2015). Cross-curricular learning 3-14. Sage.

Kerry, T. (2015). Cross-curricular teaching in the primary school: Planning and facilitating imaginative lessons. Routledge.

Fuschman, S. (2009). ‘Re-thinking integration in integrated studies’. Issues in Integration Studies. 27: 70-85. 

Grant, M.M., (2002). Getting a grip on project-based learning: Theory, cases and recommendations. Meridian: A middle school computer technologies journal, 5(1), p.83.

Savage, J. (2010) Cross-curricular teaching and learning in the secondary school. 

Solomon, G. (2003) Project-Based Learning: a Primer. Available at: http://pennstate.swsd.wikispaces.net/file/view/pbl-primer-www_techlearning_com.pdf. Accessed: 04/12/17.

Spooner, K. (2014). ‘Leading change from a subject based to an integrated approach to curriculum management: an examination of Andes View School’s readiness for curriculum change’. Leicester: University of Leicester. 

Welsh Government (2017) New school curriculum. Available at: http://gov.wales/topics/educationandskills/schoolshome/curriculuminwales/curriculum-for-wales-curriculum-for-life/?lang=en. Accessed: 04/12/17. 

Collaborative learning and primary education

This post will look to explore differing meanings and definitions of collaborative learning and will examine ways in which collaborative learning is beneficial in primary education. It will also explore ways in which collaborative learning is used and how it could be further encouraged in a primary school setting. 

To begin, in his 2015 report, Donaldson developed twelve pedagogical principles which “teachers should apply when planning their teaching and learning, to ensure that the activities relate directly to the curriculum purposes” (p.71). One of these twelve pedagogical principles is collaboration. Donaldson (2015) suggests that “the ability to function effectively as a member of a team is one of the key skills regularly cited by employers as essential in the modern workplace” (p.70). This clearly demonstrates the importance of collaboration as it is not only used in schools or the workplace, but throughout a person’s life. 

A very broad definition of collaborative learning, produced by Dillenbourg (1999, p.1) is “a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn something together”. To elaborate further, Gokhale (1995) suggests the term collaborative learning refers to an “instruction method in which students at various performance levels work together in small groups toward a common goal. The students are responsible for one another's learning as well as their own. Thus, the success of one student helps other students to be successful”. He also adds that “the active exchange of ideas within small groups not only increases interest among the participants but also promotes critical thinking”. Collaborative learning has become a 21^st Century trend in which the need in society to think and work together has increased (Austin, 2000). In the world of education, the emphasis has shifted from individual efforts to group work from independence to community (Leonard and Leonard, 2001).

As discussed by Reynolds (1994), there are many reasons to use group work and collaboration in a primary school setting. Firstly, collaborative learning in primary education provides motivation for pupils. This is the view that they learn more when they are enjoying themselves, for example, schools use games and simulations to make learning more engaging and more memorable for pupils. 

Secondly, there are clear educational benefits for collaborative learning. According to Vygotsky (1978), students are capable of performing at higher intellectual levels when asked to work in collaborative situations than when asked to work individually. In addition to this, Johnson and Johnson (1986) added that the shared learning gives students an opportunity to engage in discussion, take responsibility for their own learning, and thus become critical thinkers. By setting aside the traditional teaching model, collaborative learning places an “emphasis on horizontal rather than vertical variation in the knowledge and expertise held by the students” (Tolmie et al, 2010). Barnes and Todd argue that learning becomes a social experience by putting pupils into situations where they will be confronted with opposing views requiring negotiation and learning that perhaps others’ viewpoints may be just as valid as their own” (1977, p. 127).  

Finally, there are ideological benefits for collaboration in primary schools as the process of collective enquiry prepares people for a society based on democratic principles. As argued by Linden et al (2000), “we believe that the importance attached to collaborative learning as a teaching method partly mirrors the importance attached to forms of cooperation in society at large”. Collaborative learning helps to develop individuals and prepares them for a society which is built on collaboration. 

In a primary school setting, for collaborative learning to be effective, the instructor must view teaching as a process of developing and enhancing students' ability to learn. The instructor's role is not to transmit information, but to serve as a facilitator for learning. This involves creating and managing meaningful learning experiences and stimulating students' thinking through real world problems (Gokhale, 1995). “Collaborative classroom group work guided by a carefully designed task provides pupils with a particular kind of social context for conversation within a particular kind of community of status equals: peers.” (Bruffee, 1984).

To encourage and facilitate effective collaborative learning in a primary school classroom, a teacher could keep groups midsize so there is enough diversity and every member participates. and pupils should be encouraged to work with other pupils, not just their friendship group. Also, a teacher could encourage pupils to establish group goals to keep the group on task and may include different types of learning scenarios such as presentations, debates, problem solving, writing projects or laboratory work.  

One example of collaborative work in a primary school classroom would be a stop motion animation project, which is also an excellent method of including cross-curricular responsibilities into learning. "Stop motion animation (also called stop frame animation) is animation that is captured one frame at a time, with physical objects that are moved between frames. When you play back the sequence of images rapidly, it creates the illusion of movement" (Dragon Frame, 2017). During this project, it is not vital but it is suitable for group work as there are many different roles such as designing and making the objects to be animated, moving the objects between frames, a person holding the camera, and adding sound and effects. In our seminar we worked in groups of two or more to create our own stop motion animation videos. 

In conclusion, this essay has explored some definitions of collaboration and has identified reasons for the importance of collaboration in a person’s life, both in a primary school classroom and beyond as it prepares them for a society which is based on collaborative work. This essay has also examined many ways in which collaborative learning is beneficial in a primary school classroom. For example, collaborative learning provides pupils with enjoyment and motivation to finish the task set by the teacher as it is a social experience for the children and it provides differing and diverse viewpoints and ideas. Finally, this essay has looked at some ways that collaborative learning can be used and encouraged in a primary school classroom. For example, group work projects such as stop motion animation are an excellent way to encourage collaborative learning. 

References

Austin, J.E. (2000). Strategic collaboration between nonprofits and businesses. Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly. pp.69-97.

Bruffee, K.A., (1984). Collaborative learning and the "conversation of mankind". College English, 46(7), pp.635-652.

Dillenbourg, P. (1999) ‘What do you mean by collaborative learning?’ Collaborative Learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches. pp.1.19. 

Donaldson, G. (2015) Successful Futures: Independent Review of Curriculum

and Assessment Arrangements in Wales. 

Dragon Frame (2017) Introduction to stop motion animation. Available at: http://www.dragonframe.com/introduction-stop-motion-animation/. Accessed: 11/12/17.

Gokhale, A. (1995) Collaborative Learning Enhances Critical Thinking. Journal of Technology Education. Volume 7, https://doi.org/10.21061/jte.v7i1.a.2.

Johnson , R. T., & Johnson, D. W. (1986). Action research: Cooperative learning in the science classroom. Science and Children , 24, 31-32.

Leonard, L. and Leonard, P. (2001). Assessing aspects of professional collaboration in schools: Beliefs versus practices. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 47(1), p.4.

Linden, J., Erkens, G., Schmidt, H. and Renshaw, P. (2000). Collaborative learning. In New learning (pp. 37-54). Springer, Dordrecht.

Tolmie, A.K., Topping, K.J., Christie, D., Donaldson, C., Howe, C., Jessiman, E., Livingston, K. and Thurston, A. (2010). Social effects of collaborative learning in primary schools. Learning and Instruction, 20(3), pp.177-191.

Totten , S., Sills, T., Digby, A., & Russ, P. (1991). Cooperative learning: A guide to research . New York: Garland.

Vygotsky , L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Cross-curricular learning and how it impacts on education

During this blog post, the term ‘cross-curricular’ will be defined along with a debate on whether learning should be divided into single subject categories or not, there will be an explanation of why cross-curricular pedagogy is used and how it impacts on education with regards to the teachers and the students. I will support my views with evidence from theorists and other educational experts as well as integrating the literacy, numeracy and digital competency framework.

‘Cross-curricular’ is a term that is used to describe the way in which the curriculum is designed to ensure that both the teacher and the student are making the most out of their learning. Cross-curricular learning by Savage’s (2010) point of view is “characterised by sensitivity towards, and a synthesis of, knowledge, skills and understandings from various subject areas. These inform an enriched pedagogy that promotes an approach to learning which embraces and explores this wider sensitivity through various methods”. Donaldson (2015, p.36) has a similar way of defining it, as he suggests that it has been an international trend over the years “using ‘areas of learning’ as curriculum organisers, sometimes combining disciplinary learning and wider capabilities or capacities”.

There are three cross-curricular responsibilities; literacy, numeracy and digital competency, the digital competency framework; “focuses on developing digital skills which can be applied to a wide range of subjects and scenarios” (Learning Wales, 2017). Project based learning is a huge part of cross curricular pedagogy as it allows the students to display many skills simultaneously; creativity, digital competency, literacy and numeracy, although these skills are not the main objectives of the project, they are still being developed, whilst allowing the students to expand their knowledge on the chosen topic. Education Scotland (2008) suggests that project based learning is beneficial to students and teachers since “interdisciplinary learning enables teachers and learners to make connections in their learning through exploring clear and relevant links across the curriculum...learning beyond subject boundaries provides learners with the opportunity to experience deep challenging and relevant learning”.  

“Tell me and I will forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand”

(Wooten et al., 2010)

Many educationalists agree that learning should not be divided into single subject categories and that teachers should now teach in a cross-curricular manner, the Plowden Report proposes that “throughout our discussion of curriculum we stress that children’s learning does not fit into subject categories” (Plowden, 1967, p555). “Cross curricular learning helps to develop metacognitive learners, as metacognitive learners can adapt their learning to new situations” (Shannon, 2008). The vision of many modern curricular designers is that teaching a single subject at a time does not give the students a sense of how the real-world works, as each real- life situation is seen from multiple perspectives and therefore students should be taught the same way. Some other advantages of cross-curricula learning are that it “makes learning more relevant” as it engages the child due to learning topics that they enjoy and will be beneficial to the rest of their life, whilst also putting “key concepts into context”, rather than learning unnecessary subjects that they are aware they will not need once they step out of the classroom (Dean, 2001; Barnes, 2007) because curricula design should not begin from the content but from the learner (Nunan, 1988; Savery and Duffy, 1996).

“At the heart of the educational process lies the child”

(Plowden, 1967, p.9)

Alternatively, there are disadvantages and challenges that come with altering the curriculum and how it is taught, one challenge being that cross curricular learning would not be possible once the student has gone to high school. The reason being that “school timetables are subject based, so parallel pigeonholing of people is convenient” (Kerry, 2015, p.7). Teachers are fixated on content rather than how they can provide their students with authentic knowledge that they can use when they leave school, the reason for this is the high demand of acceptable exam results. Kerry (2015, p.10) makes a statement that “The whole education system designed around ‘tests of content learning reduced to league tables that are de-contextualised to make judgements about schools”, this suggests that the teachers are only teaching their students fixed facts to allow them to pass tests rather than preparing them for their futures. Decent exam results would not be possible whilst learning with a cross curricular method, the lessons would not be able to be structured in a way that would allow the student to acquire enough knowledge to enable them to pass their exams and ultimately, that is the main objective for secondary students. A few other challenges of this curriculum reform are; teachers fearing change after teaching a certain way for so long, needing specialist staff to teach specialist subjects through projects and lastly, the difficulty of tracking progress through assessments.

Cross-curricular assessments can make it very difficult for the teachers; from planning each lesson with objectives to tracking the students’ progress using marking criteria which may be problematic to create, this is due to judging project based assessments rather than written ones. Dean (2001) was concerned that subject teaching would be watered down so excessively, that it may cause progression to lack and may result in superficial, repetitive teaching. However, it can essentially improve grades due to the authenticity of the tasks, the children will be enjoying themselves as well as feeling motivated and ultimately, that is the most important thing.   

To conclude, this blog post has given detailed definitions of what ‘cross-curricular’ means, it has also touched upon the fact that literacy, numeracy and digital competency are the three main responsibilities of the new curriculum reform. Although these responsibilities are not the main objectives, they are still being developed through project based assessments. There are many advantages as well as disadvantages of this new method of teaching, one advantage being that it gives students a sense of authenticity within their learning and allows them to be creative as this way of learning is less restrictive. One disadvantage of cross-curricular pedagogy is that it makes it difficult for teachers to assess learning and track progress, having said this, cross-curricular teaching seems to be the way forward and has many benefits for both the students and the teachers.

(Kent and Cameron, 2017)

 References

Barnes, J., Shirley, I. (2007). Strangely familiar: cross curricular and creative thinking in teacher education, Improving schools, vol. 10. No. 2. p./ 289-306.

Dean, J. (2001). Organising Learning in the Primary Classroom (3rd edn). London: Routledge.

Department of Education (2008) A framework for learning and teaching. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.Available at: https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/btc3.pdf (Accessed: 29/11/2017).

Donaldson, G., (2015). Successful futures: Independent review of curriculum and assessment arrangements in Wales. Welsh Government.

Duffy, T. M., & Cunningham, D. J. (1996). Constructivism: Implications for the design and delivery of instruction. In D. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research for educational communications and technology. New York: Macmillan.

Katz, L. and Chard, S.C., (2000). Engaging children's minds: The project approach. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Kent, J., Cameron, M. (2017) 'Pioneer Schools, the new Curriculum and Professional Learning', EAS Wales, 17th February. Available at: https://sewales.org.uk/Pioneer-Schools/James-Kent-Blog/17-February-2017.aspx (Accessed: 30/11/2017).

Kerry, T. ed., (2015). Cross-curricular teaching in the primary school: Planning and facilitating imaginative lessons (pp.7-10). Routledge.

Learning Wales (2017) Digital Competence Framework. Available at: http://learning.gov.wales/resources/browse-all/digital-competence-framework/?lang=en (Accessed: 29/11/2017).

Nunan, D., (1988). The learner-centred curriculum: A study in second language teaching. Cambridge University Press.

Plowden, Lady Bridget. (1967). Children and Their Primary schools: A report of the Central Advisory Council for Education, Volume 1. London: HMSO, pp.9.

Plowden, Lady Bridget. (1967). Children and Their Primary schools: A report of the Central Advisory Council for Education, Volume 1. London: HMSO, pp.555.

Savage, J., (2010). Cross-curricular teaching and learning in secondary education. Routledge.

Savery, J.R. and Duffy, T.M., (1995). Problem based learning: An instructional model and its constructivist framework. Educational technology, 35(5), pp.31-38.

Shannon, S.V., (2008). Using metacognitive strategies and learning styles to create self-directed learners. Institute for Learning Styles Journal, 1(1), pp.14-28.

Wooten, D., Mack, K. and Azzam, A., (2010), June. TELL ME AND I WILL FORGET; SHOW ME AND I MAY REMEMBER; INVOLVE ME AND I WILL UNDERSTAND: TRACKING INQUIRY IN A PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING CURRICULUM. In JOURNAL OF GENERAL INTERNAL MEDICINE (Vol. 25, pp. 451-451). 233 SPRING ST, NEW YORK, NY 10013 USA: SPRINGER.