Interdisciplinary

Interdisciplinary Connections

Current Interdisciplinary connections

As a Primary school teacher, we teach across the curriculum. At my school, our interdisciplinary connections are among teachers who are specialist teachers in subjects but also with outside agencies.  Currently I am working with our school’s SENCO specialist.  Working together we established a cooperative and compromising relationship; respect for and equitable treatment of individual collaborator roles.  We also know the importance of being open, honest, and willing to learn.


Below is my Collaborative Interdisciplinary Relationship Map 

 Interdisciplinary collaboration, defined by Andrews (1990) as a situation where “different professionals, possessing unique knowledge, skills, organizational perspectives, and personal attributes, engage in coordinated problem solving for a common purpose” (cited in Berg-Weger &. Schneider, 1998), is now possible as the barriers that were preventing it have been actively identified and removed. Working with SENCO our aim is to bring the best of different points of view together. 

Joint Planning

An example from a Primary School point of view using SENCO.

To make use of outside specialists at my school we request a meeting with our SENCO expert. This might be to assist the teacher with a disruptive student or non-compliant group of students.  The process starts with observations by the SENCO specialist in a class situation. Strategies are discussed that might work for the teacher, the class and the particular situation or area of concern.  It is the class teacher’s responsibility to implement these strategies to improve teaching and learning. Post Data collection is carried out to check if suggested strategies were successful.  During this time, it is considered if different strategies should be put in place when current interventions were not successful.  

An Advantage of having a SENCO specialist available is the opportunity to get feedback from an “outside “person to assist the teacher with self-reflection.  Specialists have seen and experienced similar situations and can quickly make suggestions to adjust current routines or strategies.     

Critical Reflection

In the book, Innovations in Interdisciplinary Teaching, Donald Richards is quoted as arguing “team-taught courses that lay claim to interdisciplinary often fail to achieve their objectives precisely because the individual members of the instructional team themselves never really begin to understand their common concerns in a fashion that may properly be called interdisciplinary” (2002, p16). 
This brings me to... 

Artificial. 

We all know building relationships with students take time and a genuine commitment from teachers.  Could the use of outside professional’s damage or strain these relationships?  Students can sense when routines are different, especially if strategies are not put in place gradually.  Students may find new strategies disruptive and out of the ordinary.  Without a healthy relationship between teacher and outside specialist the teacher might feel his or her practice is under the microscope.

References

ACRLog. A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration. (2015).

Innovations in Interdisciplinary Teaching, Donald Richards(2002)