Final Reflection

When I first started this class, I had no idea what and interdisciplinary unit was. Not being a teacher, I had just assumed that most teachers had to follow district curriculum and didn’t have much say in what was being taught. After taking this class, I have learned that it doesn’t (and shouldn’t) have to be that way. Here are just a few things I have learned ITU’s provide for students and teachers:

· ITU’s bring in students interests. Children are curious human beings and teachers using ITU’s take those curiosities and turn them in the teaching opportunities.

· Because the students have more of a say in what they are learning, ITU’s encourage them to take charge of their education.

· ITU’s encourage teamwork, not only amongst the students but with the teachers as well.

· Learning opportunities are reinforced because they are learning different aspects of the ITU theme in each class.

· ITU’s provide a variety of teaching styles to the students, therefore reaching more students. Its not just lecture/pen/paper teaching. ITU’s are more hands on, and many students who have learning disabilities learn easier when they have something to do vs. just listening and trying the retain what is spoken to them.

Being a behavior therapist, I would like to see more classrooms adapt to this teaching style. Many of my students need more than just a lecture/pen/paper teaching style to be able to retain what is being taught. They need hands on activities, projects that promote students helping one another, themes that interest and encourage them to do their best, themes that are tied together in every subject to reinforce what they are learning, and opportunities to tie in what they are learning in the classroom to the outside community. This is what an interdisciplinary unit does.

As much as I like and respect ITU’s, I am still a little confused as to how a teacher can apply them when they are given required curriculum to follow? My husband is a teacher and when he first taught, he was at a very large school district. He had to follow the curriculum handed to him and there was no wiggle room. He pretty much had no say as to what was being taught to the students. Now he works at a charter school, and it’s a completely different story. Because his school doesn’t have to follow state curriculum rules and guidelines, my husband has a lot more say as to what’s being taught to his students, as long as it complies with state standards. This is not heard of in most schools that I work in. And I still struggle with the idea of the students having complete say over what is being taught and then the teacher having to create curriculum based off of that. I am more of a type A personality, and I like to have things organized and ready to go before I start my day. So I think that I would struggle with allowing my students to have complete control over what they are learning. But again, there is a variety of teaching styles within an ITU and a teacher can modify their teaching style to fit them.

I believe that technology plays a huge role in the classroom. Living in California, I wouldn’t be able to take my masters classes at UWF without technology. Using the Wiki this semester has been a huge help in getting our group project completed. It provided a way for 5 people, who do not know or live near each other, to work together to create our collaborative ITU. It was nice to use the group discussion area to be able to connect with fellow classmates and communicate amongst one another. I really appreciated using the general discussion section because different people asked questions that either I had or didn’t even think about. For future classrooms, I think technology is another tool that can be used to enhance learning opportunities. A few of my students use technology as a way to communicate (i.e. telecommunicating systems) and would not be able to communicate with others if they did not have that machine. Teachers should not be afraid to use technology in the classroom. I don’t think it should be the only tool used, but it is definitely a useful one to use.

My overall experience with the collaborative ITU was pretty good. The Wiki made it easy to upload all our info so that everyone could see how the project was coming along, we agreed on a theme right a way and the subjects, and overall I think we all worked well together. Not knowing one another and communicating via the internet most of the time made things more difficult. For me personally, I struggled with some of my teammates work habits and trying to make things work without being pushy. Its difficult to constructively criticize someone’s work when A) I don’t know him/her and B) our only form of communication was through the Wiki. I do believe that some team members worked more on the project than others but I think this can be common in group projects. Even through these struggles, I do believe we created a great ITU and I am happy it is over!

Feedback:

I’ll be honest in saying that I struggled with this class. I do feel that this class is geared more towards teachers, and I am not a teacher. I feel like we had a lot more guidance at the beginning of the class, when we were learning about integrated teaching styles. Then when it came to our actual projects I felt like we were left out on our own. I really appreciated the Best Practices project and had thought I’d done a pretty good job, but was not happy with my grade. I felt like I was guessing at what I was supposed to be doing because there really wasn’t any instruction given. I had an example and the rubric to go off of. I felt the same with the lesson plan. I have never written a lesson plan and think that there really should have been more teaching on how to write a lesson plan before we were just thrown into that project. Again, I think that this class is a great class for teachers, but I felt lost because that is not my primary training.

ITU group project

Another project we are working on is creating a collaborative ITU with a few classmates. This has been a challenging project for me but I do feel that I am learning a lot. I find it to be challenging for a number of reasons: 1) I have never had to create a lesson plan or shared unit plan ever. I am not a teacher therefore I have never had to do anything like this. 2) Working in groups can be challenging because we don't know each other, don't live near each other, and don't know how one another works best. And 3) I feel like because we don't really know what we are doing, we are overcompensating for it and maybe doing too much. Even though there are these challenges, I do find that a project like this is beneficial in the field that I work in. I am constantly having to collaborate with other teachers on how to best prepare and plan for our students to succeed. My job is not a 1:1 job where I just keep to myself and my client. I am working with parents, teachers, school administrators, etc. and we don't always see eye to eye. What we do have in common is to do what's best for the client. As a group, we may all work differently, but we all want to succeed at this project and put forth out best efforts and I think its good practice for us to figure out how to best accomplish that. As for the lesson planning...I am learning a lot. This week we had to complete an online tutorial and it demonstrated collaborative teaching and gave sample lesson plans. This was extremely helpful for our group project. The teachers that the tutorial featured worked so well together and did so much for their classes, however it was not overwhelming. It was sort of "the less is more" motto, and the kids really seemed to enjoy their classroom environments. It really made me re-think my individual lesson plan. When I don't know how to do something, I over think it. So now I will go back and revise and simplify what I have. I also really appreciated the sample lesson plans that were provided for us to look through. Again, I have never had to write a lesson plan, and so I found this to be a helpful tool for the lesson plan process. As stated before, this project is a challenge for me, but I do feel that I am learning a lot from it and I am excited to see how everything turns out!

Best Practices

One of our biggest projects for this class was to create and submit a Best Practices power point. I, so far, have found this to be one of my favorite assignments. Being a Behavior Therapist, I decided to focus my best practices on behavior management in an Autism classroom. I can't tell you how many classrooms I have worked in and it has been so hard to help facilitate appropriate behaviors from the students because there was no classroom management happening. So it was very interesting for me to be able to dive into a project that I felt would be beneficial for any future classroom I work in. One aspect that I really appreciate about integrated learning is that, as an educator, you try to find your students strengths so that they feel empowered to do their best. Too many classroom teachers are only focused on (or have to be focused on) the standard. Everybody has to learn the same information the exact same way. Well...that is not how society functions. So I really loved looking at the big picture on how to structure a classroom so that each child has an opportunity to succeed. Yes, there are general rules and limitations that apply to every student, but within those rules and limitations, an educator can find a way for their students to succeed in following them. I'll admit that I thought this assignment would come easy to me because I have 9 years of behavior therapy under my belt. But it was actually really difficult trying to figure out what was necessary to include and what to leave out. I didn't want to have too much wording but I also wanted those who don't know behavior therapy and are reading the power point to walk away feeling like they had learned something. It was a time consuming project, but I feel like I have learned so much more about how to better myself as a behavior therapist than I did before. I also really enjoyed reading other best practice power points. It was interesting to see what my fellow classmates decided to focus their projects on and how many of our power points overlap. There was a lot of helpful and useful information.

Teacher as Guide

While reading chapter 3 in the Marintello and Cook book, I was very interested in learning the different teaching styles that are adapted in integrated learning. Before this chapter, I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around how I would fit into the world of interdisciplinary curriculum. I have always been the person with a plan. I can be flexible with my plan, but I need to walk into a classroom with ideas and an outline in hand. So while reading the first couple of chapters in our assigned books, I was beginning to think that this teaching method was not for me. In my mind, an integrated curriculum teacher was only equipped with a theme and then the rest of the curriculum for that class was a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of structure. This style of teaching would give me a headache every night and I would lose sleep. However, as I read more into the teaching roles, I found one that I think would fit my personal teaching style. I like the idea of presenting a theme to a class and them giving them options on how to approach that theme. I am all for students experimenting and trying to find their own meaning within that theme, but I also feel that students need structure, foundation, and guidelines to follow in order to really blossom. Last year, I observed a classroom that had, for the most part, very little structure. Each child was working on his/her own project. This project came from a class theme and then the children were welcomed to go work within that theme any way they chose. These kids were bouncing off the walls. Each child was doing his/her own work (to and extent) and the teacher did not have enough time to get to each child because no one was on the same page. I would say that about 5 out of the 20 children were actually working on their projects,while the rest of the class were playing games, reading, talking to each other. There was no structure...and it drove me nuts. However, I feel that there can be (and should be) a happy medium. Children need guidance. Children need structure and direction and need to be able to work within classroom parameters. But I also feel that they need to be able to use their talents and be able to find and create different methods on how to do and present their work. This is why I am fond of the Teacher as a Guide role. I also feel that this role works well with the type of children I work with. Working, primarily, with children who have autism, I see many of my kids not keeping up with their classmates. Listening to a teacher lecture for 30 minutes, and then having to do pencil/paper work is not affective learning for a lot of my kids. They need to be more hands on and more involved in the process in order to prosper. I hope to be able to provide this teaching model for them because I want nothing more than for them to succeed!

Hello Integreated Curriculum. Nice to meet you!

This class is my first official introduction to integrated curriculum. My first thoughts as I began reading the chapters assigned were, (A)"Wow! This is amazing." Followed by, (B)"Wow! This is a lot of work."
(A) Being a behavior therapist, I have worked in a variety of school settings, grade levels, and have certainly worked with my share of teachers (good and not so good.) I have watched teachers working tirelessly to get the curriculum out and to make sure that they are meeting all the state standards that are necessary. The problem is, is there is really no time for the kids to enjoy and embrace what it is they are learning. And in many cases (i.e. most the kids I work with), the lessons are flying right over their heads because they are not fully engaged in what is being taught, therefore, they are not comprehending the lesson.
I think that implementing integrated learning into the curriculum is brilliant. I think there would be less drop out rates in schools, better understanding of what is being taught and more interest in it, kids would be able to better relate history with current issues, they could get to know their community better and take more interest and charge in making changes within the community and their own lives, and I think that more students would be reached. The kid(s) that is too smart for the special day class but can't seem to keep up with the general ed. class can finally fit in because he is learning what he needs to know but he is learning it how he needs it taught to him.
(B) With that said, my personal opinion is that there is going to need to be some change within the school districts in order to see more and more teachers take on integrated learning. Living in Los Angeles and seeing how that district is ran (ran itself into the ground), they are lucky they even have people to teach children living in southern Ca. Teachers are burned out and I don't blame them. I think most teachers, at least those who really do want to teach and have the kids interest at heart, would like to take on integrated learning into their classrooms. But I also feel that they do not have the support, time, or finances to really apply this teaching method in their classrooms.
My hope is that these things change. I would love to see teachers who are thoroughly happy to be going to work and who feel that they are being supported by the community, by the parents, by their peers and by their superiors. I would also love to see integrated learning adapted into more classroom settings. Lets make school fun again! And not just for the students, but for those who are involved in these students lives.