Samantha Steel

IAAL Reflection

CIL 621

During my time in the classroom, I noticed that my teaching was very

compartmentalized, with few lessons crossing multiple disciplines. Well before the I as a Learner

project was assigned, I had been working on having my lessons be an intersection if more than

one discipline. Although I was improving, I did so very slowly because I did not have a set goal I

was working towards.

When the I as a Learner assignment was assigned, it appeared to be a perfect opportunity

for me to practice writing multidisciplinary lessons. Since I am not in the classroom this year, I

felt like I had plenty of time to think critically about the lessons I was planning. I also wanted to

work on lessons for all grade levels as I do not know what I will be teaching when I am back in

the classroom. I set my I as a Learner goal to be: I will create an online portfolio that has 10

lesson plans, in UNLV format, and all materials needed to implement the lessons. The

assessment options will be both traditional (ex. WPM, IRI ect.) and non traditional assessments

(ex. Writing, group presentations, portfolios etc.). The portfolio created will be done through a

Google sites page.

Originally, I had planned on completing one lesson plan per week and then to work on

creating my webpage and writing my reflection. My work did not go as according to plan and I

ended up only having 3 lesson plans completed by the first I as a Learner check in. After that, I

worked to create more plans and to do more research into multidisciplinary lesson planning. In

my research, I found that I was using an incorrect ter, for the lessons I wanted to create. Jacobs
(1989), defines multidisciplinary as “Multidisciplinary: The juxtaposition of several disciplines

focused on one problem with no direct attempt to integrate” and interdisciplinary as

“Interdisciplinary: A knowledge view and curriculum approach that consciously applies

methodology and language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, issue,

problem, topic, or experience.” I was surprised to learn how different the two were and how

commonly both words are misused by educators. I have heard teachers, professors and principals

use the term incorrectly. Learning the distinction between the two help me to have a better

understanding and helped with my research moving forward.

By the second I as a learner check in, I had completed all 10 of my lesson plans. I had

taken a break from research and wanted to know more about the impact interdisciplinary lessons

had on students in the classroom. In On Applying Interdisciplinary Approach in Primary Schools

(2012), Ada and Deneme state “Interdisciplinarity can play an essential role in education. It helps

the learners to integrate school, lesson and life with one another. Furthermore, it helps learners to

realize their own thinking and learning style, enabling them to think and learn effectively.” This

really nailed what I was trying to work towards in my IAAL goal. I examined my lessons to see

if they had the potential to integrate what they were learning in school with their lives.

The next step of the I as a Learner project was more challenging than I originally thought

it would be. I started creating my webpage through Google Sites and ran into many issues. After

much time and frustration, I was able to get the site up and functioning. After creating the pages,

I was ready to embed by lesson plans into the page. I used Google’s embed function to input all

of my lesson plans and I as a Learner goal. I had one lesson plan left to implement when I found

out the Google embed function only posted a portion of the pages I had previous embedded. I

took all of the lessons down and tried again using the google function. After having the same
issue happen again, I found Scripd. I was able to get all of my lessons embedded into the

webpage through this site.

The I as a Learner assignment gave me an opportunity to do research and plan functional,

interdisciplinary lesson plans that I can use in the future in whatever grade I may teach. Many of

the lessons can also be modified to fit the needs of other grades as well. When finding

assessment options, I struggled to create lessons that incorporate traditional assessments and

focused my energy on non-traditional assessments that could be implemented as needed by the

teacher. I feel like this assignment as a whole was beneficial to me as a learner and as a future

educator.

References

Ada, S., Deneme S. (2012). On Applying Interdisciplinary Approach in Primary Schools.

Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences, 46, 885-889.

Jacobs, H.H. (1989) Interdisciplinary Curriculum. Design and Implementation. Association for

Supervision and Curriculum Development: