Running Head: CONTENT KNOWLEDGE IN THE INTERDISCIPLINARY CURRICULUM

Content Knowledge in the Interdisciplinary Curriculum

Anna Gillette

Regent University

In Partial Fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio Spring 2018

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Introduction

The primary responsibility of teachers is to teach students, and in order to teach them

well, teachers must have a solid understanding of the standards and content they are teaching.

This means teachers should relate every lesson back to the standards they are trying to teach and

understand the content of those standards. Otherwise teachers will not be able to teach

effectively because they will not understand what they are teaching. Beyond this, teachers must

also contextualize learning for students to help students make connections between disciplines

and to their lives. Integrating content of two or more disciplines helps students do this by

showing them that skills and knowledge learned in one discipline can be applied to other things.

Rational

For my first artifact I chose a lesson that integrated geometry and ancient Roman

architecture to demonstrate my knowledge of the content of the interdisciplinary curriculum as

well as my ability to contextualize learning for students and integrate content across disciplines. I

taught this lesson to a group of third grade students. I chose to integrate the two subjects to give

students a real-world context for the shapes they were learning about in geometry and to allow

the students to study the features of ancient Roman architecture more closely. This also enabled

me to use time more effectively and guided the students in a deeper understanding about how

geometry can be applied in the world around them.

The second artifact I chose is a set of notes I took on the Virginia Social Studies

Standards of Learning for third graders on Ancient Greece. I decided that before I could plan the

unit on Ancient Greece I needed to be sure that I understood all of the things I wanted my

students to know by the end of the unit. I used different colors to categorize information so that it
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would stand out better when I was referencing it to make my unit and lesson plans. My notes

show my understanding of the standards, but more than that, they show my belief that this

understanding is the essential first step in planning instruction. Without first taking the time to be

sure I understand what I want my students to do and know by the end of a unit of instruction I

could end up planning individual lessons that don’t connect to each other to form a larger

picture, leaving students with a disconnected set of knowledge and skills that fail to lead to

deeper understanding.

Reflection

My time as a student teacher has taught me that teaching something without knowing

why you are doing it will end up leaving students without any context for the things they are

learning. Students need teachers to connect the dots for them so that they have a purpose for their

learning and the means to apply it to other parts of their lives. Without this students will have no

use for what they have learned, if they have learned anything at all, and teachers who have no

understanding of these things themselves will have no way of passing it on to their students.

It has also taught me that integrating content, in addition to helping students make more

connections, is also an effective use of time. When more than one thing is being taught at one

time, there is more time to teach other things or expand on the things that are already being

taught.

My classes at Regent University have also taught me these things. My curriculum design

class in particular taught me why it is important to teach with the bigger picture in mind.

Teachers who understand where students are going are much more equipped to help them get

there. According to Wiggins and McTighe, the authors of ​Backwards Design​, “Only by having
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specified the desired results can we focus on the content, methods, and activities most likely to

achieve those results” (1950, p. 15).

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Bibliography

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2006). ​Understanding by Design​ (Expanded 2nd ed.). Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Pearson Education.