Integrated Approach: Doable or Unrealistic?

It’s time for my next blog and it feels like it has been a long time since I have written one. After much reflection on the innovative approach of an integrated classroom, I feel it is appropriate to highlight this topic for this week’s blog. As a future high school physical education teacher I feel that encouraging an integrated curriculum would be a very challenging attempt. Typically multidisciplinary approaches are achieved in elementary schools since one teacher generally teaches more than one subject, however in high school that does not occur very often. Up until recently I was certain that incorporating an integrated approach in teaching was not feasible, however surprisingly it wasn’t until researching my google.doc assignment that I am now being convinced otherwise. In my google.doc research paper by Flinn and McInnis (2014) it followed an “Active science curriculum” that highlighted aspects of physical education and incorporated them into science material within an elementary school. In this study they described that students are more likely to have positive attitudes toward physical activity if they participate in activities that interest them, which then increase the likelihood of regular participation in physical activity. As well, students would participate in exercise lessons and then calculate data using technological devices. It was an amazing study that determined students have fun participating in these activities and it showed that the physical education and science curriculum are compatible together. After reading this case study I was still convinced that an integrated approach was only appropriate for elementary school settings. But as I read further and started thinking back to my high school experience I remember a project similar to that of the case.

In my grade eleven year I was taking physical education, exercise science and physics in the same semester. One of our projects was to determine the biomechanics of a fitness move into our physics class. Consequently, at the same time of my physics project in my exercise science class (which most students were taking all three at the same time) we had an assignment that focused on the bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves of a portion of the body. And on top of that, in my physical education class we were determining which body parts were being utilized to complete certain movements. So, in conjunction with my physics project and exercise science assignment, most of us just combined these three projects together to focus on the physical structures of one part of the body that you would utilize while completing different fitness moves. Coming from a small town school our class realized later that the teachers of these subjects came together to arrange these assignments at the same time in order to show us that physical education, science and math can work together. Although some of you may laugh when you read this, it truly got me thinking that integrating portions of the curriculum to different subject areas may actually be possible. Sure, this is an extremely small school where the teachers are more of a strong community, it is not hard to communicate and overlap assignments. But larger schools that have numerous courses would make an integrated approach extremely difficult as students are taking very different courses. I guess it was just fortunate for the teachers that most of us had the same schedule as there was limited courses offered at limited times.

In addition, although this may seem like a very simple example of combining three similar subject materials together there was an overarching theme; the human body.  If schools and teachers can focus more primarily on big ideas and themes that are relatable to multiple subject areas it makes me very confident that an integrated curriculum will be possible and manageable. But until this point where the teaching staff team is willing to experiment and collaborate with maximal efforts, I do not see a change to an integrated curriculum anytime soon. Elementary schools like I mentioned before make this challenge more realistic, however with the countless different subjects in high school, multiple teachers for one subject and the variations of students’ daily schedules it makes me question whether it will ever be established. Possibly, if similar content areas such as the math and sciences, the arts, or tech could collaborate I think this would be a start. Therefore, I believe that one day it may be possible to have certain subject areas collaborate like my physical education and science content, but integrating arts, sciences, maths, techs, languages, and others in a high school setting seems extremely difficult. My google.doc assignment makes me more confident, as well as my previous experience in my high school but I think it will take more than these two examples to make me certain that this integrated approach will work. Overall, being a future educator in physical education and science I feel I would most certainly be inclined to collaborate these subjects as childhood obesity continues to increase, and any way that we can combat this, simply even by incorporating physical education aspects into other subject areas is something I am hopeful of.

 

This is a video outlining an integrated curriculum.

 

Flinn.K.E. & McInnis. K.J. (2014). Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions of the Active Science Curriculum: Incorporating Physical Activity into Middle School Science Classrooms. Physical Educator. 7(12). 234 – 253.