A new term and new topic.
Stage 4 are currently engaged in a theme that will be extremely close to their hearts -Themselves! or rather IDENTITY!
Within PDHPE students are covering work that allows them to explore and reveal aspects of themselves. They have been busy working on developing their family tree. This allows them to discover where they fit within their family and who they have relationships with. The work will lead them through a series of activities to look closely at what they like and where they are from, what they value and believe, moving toward them creating personal reflections on events in their lives. They will use this understanding to reflect on relationships and their importance.
The work done within PDHPE complements what they will be doing in English and Japanese where they are looking at their identity and cultural identity. With this integration of subject content we will ensure students are able to see links between areas and also gain a more in-depth understanding of the content.
Integrated learning is beneficial to students by reinforcing that each subject is not an isolated one and that there are crossover links throughout many subjects. This in-turn extends to reflect life, work and society in general where we may bring several aspects of subjects taught together to solve a problem.
Another benefit I have observed is student retention and engagement is increased as they are able to relate to the content and make connections to the real world. Students also benefit from subject integration as their teachers are challenged to create more meaningful and inventive tasks and projects.
As a teacher I believe that good and successful teaching is not in the transferring of knowledge from teacher to student, but that learning takes place within the environment and through the process in which the content is delivered. Integrated Project Based delivery allows for important connections to be made and for students to see and feel the relevance of the content to their lives.
So, by linking common themes and topics within subject areas students are more likely to demonstrate a deeper understanding, engagement and appreciation than if taught in isolation.
Well this is my experience, what do you think?
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