“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” ―John Dewey

This integrated studies framework is organized as a planning structure for a school’s Professional Learning Community (PLC). The strategies and resources are designed to facilitate constructivist practices in twenty-first century learning environments.

The Innovators, Their Vision and Plan

As stated in the Introduction, my target audience are the innovators and early adopters- the local administration, teachers, librarians, parents, and community members at any school having the vision and leadership to create an integrated studies curriculum. However, not everyone at your school will be ready and willing for such a change, and their first question, “Why Integrated Studies?”

As an advocate, you need to be prepared for how to harness both positive support and negative pushback. Here are a few bulleted ideas to help spark your thinking and communications with others about integrated studies. 

  • Integrated studies represent learning in the real world and sometime in this century, it will be a core foundation for all K-12 education.

  • Life doesn’t work with concepts, content and skills put in separate boxes taught through single subjects in segregated periods of time.

  • Life systems are often more circular than linear (think of perennial plants that come back every spring). Learning is a constant cycle from one experience to the next. Putting anything in the circular context of life simply and naturally becomes more interesting.

  • An integrated studies curriculum will motivate and engage students to wake up and come to school ready to think and tinker.

Developing an Integrated Studies Framework Within the PLC

Integrated studies is a sea change process that often begins with small whitecaps before larger waves are formed. It may start with one or two elementary teachers integrating language arts and mathematics in a unit of study. Maybe it’s a high school librarian collaborating with a Psychology and History teacher to create a unit together on the Vietnam War. It can also be a top down process where district level administration directs the change, like creating a STEAM themed school or design academy within a school. Regardless the genesis, the process of developing a coordinated integrated studies framework for any teacher, librarian and groups of both, maturates with their school’s Principal involvement. The school Principal’s engagement is critical to the tipping point where the concepts of integrated studies through a constructivist lens enter the school’s Professional Learning Community (PLC), by his or her leadership.

Here a hypothetical PLC starts with the fundamental premise that their professional learning will reflect the transformation of using an integrated studies philosophy and pedagogy. The transitions from teaching a single subject at a designated time period in the school day, to integrating two or more subjects during the same learning activity is the hallmark of an integrated studies approach. Elementary schools have a running start in the sense the system of a single classroom teacher with a multiple subjects credential is already in place. For middle and high school, single subject scheduling within six or seven bell periods is always complex to say the least. The key to an integrated studies PLC, is creating grade level or academy teams to collaboratively work together within the antiquated but still very present bell system structure.

If your PLC is progressive to the point of initially bending and eventually breaking the single subject periods, you are all heroes! But frankly, teaching staff or community members cannot change the single subject system alone. This is why the role of the school Principal within the PLC often becomes your first and local integrated studies champion. As a middle manager within a school district administration structure, the Principal is the instructional leader of the school who has the ability to communicate with upper level central office administration to approve your curriculum at a district level. This support will be critical to the success of your curriculum, and the structures you create in order to sustain the effort. This is why stress a long-term strategy- at least six years with two phases of three year plans mapped out, for starters. If you are fortunate, your school community team will continue to create a level of sustainability, even after that Principal and some of the original staff have left to take other positions elsewhere.

Transitions to Transformation Chart
Image Source: Smithsonian.com
Currently, most K-12 schools are instructionally operating as a single subject delivery system taught within predetermined time periods for the past 100+ years. This system is not going away anytime soon, even as we enter the 2020's. 

Remember, we all thought we'd being living like the Jetsons by now. The Jetsons cartoon series began in 1962, the same year the Seattle Space Needle was built. 

My point is that change in K-12 (and even higher education) as institutions moves at a slower pace than we thought it was going to move. However, change in teaching practices are slowly if not steadily moving toward the illustration and framework below. We have no Jetsons crystal ball here to predict the future, but are hopeful for people currently in their 30's that this transformation will happen during their professional careers.
Content Taught as a Single Subject in Lessons/Units
Two Content Subjects Taught Together in Lessons/Units
Multiple Content Subjects Taught Together in Lessons/Units = Integrated Studies
Integrated Studies Framework
Constructivist Pedagogy

   Learning Content

  1. National Frameworks

  2. National Standards

  3. Integrated Studies and Crosscutting Concepts
    (Next Generation Science Standards)

  4. Authentic Assessment

   Learning Practices

6. Constructivist Theory

7. Inquiry-Based Learning + Project-Based Learning


8. Social & Emotional Learning

9. PIE - Integrated Studies Unit Development - See Chapter 2

10. BLIS - Blended Learning Instructional Strategies - Chapter 3

Learning Content

1. National Frameworks
2. National Standards
  National educational standards provide a consistent standards system for all students across our fifty States. 
3. Integrated Studies and Crosscutting Concepts
  The combination of academic subjects and concepts integrated in learning activities within a unit of study.
Integrated Studies Foundations
Integrated Studies Examples
4. Authentic Assessment
  A focus on real world contextual performance of knowledge, tasks or skills identified prior to an actual learning
    activity and/or unit of study (backward design). A demonstration of understanding (rubric) versus a transmission
   of knowledge (test).
5. Integrated Studies Curriculum Mapping
   An ongoing Professional Learning Community (PLC) process, organization and presentation of the school's
     coordinated units of study.
Curriculum Mapping Foundations
Google Doc Curriculum Map Templates

Integrated Studies Curriculum Examples

Learning Practices

6. Constructivist Theory
    People actively construct knowledge, skills and values through experiences in their physical and
    social environments. We continually construct our own understanding as we encounter new
    experiences and reflect upon previous knowledge, skills and values.
7. Inquiry-Based Learning + Project-Based Learning 

   The combination of these two learning models are "the dynamic duo" structures for integrated studies unit
    development.

Inquiry-Based Learning

Inquiry-based learning directly taps into our nature to be curious in the exploration of a big idea through questioning, problems or scenarios organized in a research process. 

Project-Based Learning 
Project-based learning is the process designed within a project that leads to making a product. 
Maker Culture
8. Social and Emotional Learning

   Thriving Students in a well-being learning environment

As educators, before we can talk about “collaborative learning,” we first need to talk about social and emotional learning as the heart and soul to student communications and collaborations.

The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL,2017) define Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) as, “the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.”

CASEL identifies five SEL competencies across diverse settings:

1)     Self-awareness

2)     Self-management

3)     Social Awareness

4)     Relationship Skills

5)     Responsible Decision-making

As technology has become so ubiquitous in the twenty-first century, many people have come to lean on it to lead educational systems change. However, I'm more encouraged by the growing movement to focus on crafting 'well-being' into learning environments as a social and emotional support for learning. Students today still need the human touch to guide their conversations and collaborations as they maturate in both physical and digital learning spaces.

This is why social and emotional learning must be a core strategy of any twenty-first century curriculum. With that said, I would like to expand upon the competencies within social and emotional learning presented by CASEL. I would like to bring forward the idea of social and emotional learning that promotes, “Thriving students” in “a well-being learning environment.”

Thriving Students are mindful and purposeful in their shared humanity of life as they grow and flourish as learners.
A Well-being Learning Environment 
supports students’ social and emotional needs as a place with engaging learning spaces where they feel happy, healthy and prosperous.     
Books - Engaging Learning Environments 
9. PIE - Integrated Studies Unit Development   
  • See Chapter 2 - Baking PIEs: Iterative Learning Cycles, Units and Curriculum Mapping

10. BLIS - Blended Learning Instructional Strategies

  • See Chapter 3 - Reaching BLIS (Blended Learning Instructional Strategies)

References

?nquiry in the Classroom. McIntosh, D. (2019). Home. Retrieved from https://nquiry.yolasite.com/

American Association of School Librarians (AASL). (2017). Standards for the 21 Century Learner. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards/learning

American Association of School Librarians (AASL). (2017). 21st Century Learning Standards and Common Core Standards Crosswalk. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards/crosswalk

Authentic Assessment Toolbox. Mueller, J. (2017). Welcome. Retrieved from http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/index.htm

Behavioral Change Models. (2017). Diffusion of Innovation Theory. Retrieved from http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/BehavioralChangeTheories4.html

Brooks, J.G., & Brooks, M.G. (1999). In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms. Alexandria: Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

Buck Institute for Education (BIE). (2017). Why Project-based Learning? (PBL). Retrieved from http://www.bie.org/

Cannon Design, VS Furniture & Bruce Mau Design. (2010). The Third Teacher: 79 Ways You Can Use Design to Transform Teaching and Learning. NY: Abrams

Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (2017). What is SEL?. Retrieved from http://www.casel.org/what-is-sel/

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2017). Read the Standards. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/read-the-standards/

Concept to Classroom. (2017). Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index.html

Concept to Classroom. (2017). Inquiry-based Learning. Retrieved http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/inquiry/

Dooley, S. & Witthoft, S. (2012). make space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration. Hoboken: NJ.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Edutopia. (2017).  Core Strategies for Innovation and Reform in Learning. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/core-concepts

Edutopia. (2017). Grant Wiggins: Defining Assessment.  Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/grant-wiggins-assessment

Edutopia. (2017). Inquiry-Based Learning.  Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/topic/inquiry-based-learning

Edutopia. (2017). Integrated Studies.  Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/integrated-studies

Edutopia. (2017). Project-Based Learning.  Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning

Edutopia. (2017). Social and Emotional Learning. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/social-emotional-learning

Edutopia. (2017). What is Authentic Assessment. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/stw-assessment-school-of-the-future-introduction-video

From Now On. McKensie, J. (2017). A Questioning Toolkit. Retrieved from http://fno.org/nov97/toolkit.html

Google.com. (2017). Google Docs - Create and edit documents online, for free. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/docs/about/

Graham, P. & Ferriter, W.F. (2010). Building a Professional Learning Community: A Guide to the First Year. Bloominton: In.: Solution Tree Press

International Baccalaureate. (2017). IB Learner Profile. Retrieved from http://www.ibo.org/benefits/learner-profile/

ISTE. (2017). ISTE Standards for Students. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/for-students

Jacobs, H.H. (1997). Mapping The Big Picture. Alexandria: Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

Martinez, S.L., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. Torrance: Ca.: Constructing Modern Knowledge Press

Monday Monday Music. McIntosh, D. (2017). Transcendental Good Morning. Retrieved from https://mondaymondaymusic.blogspot.com/2016/07/transcendental-good-morning.html

Nair, P. (2014). Blueprint for Tomorrow: Redesigning Schools for Student-Centered Learning. Cambridge: Ma.: Harvard Education Press

National Center on Universal Design for Learning. (2017). About UDL. Retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl

Next Generation Science Standards: For States by States. (2017). Crosscutting Concepts – NGSS Appendix G. Retrieved from https://www.nextgenscience.org/sites/default/files/Appendix%20G%20-%20Crosscutting%20Concepts%20FINAL%20edited%204.10.13.pdf

Next Generation Science Standards: For States by States. (2017). Get to Know the  Standards. Retrieved from http://www.nextgenscience.org/get-to-know

Next Generation Science Standards: For States by States. (2017). Next Generation Science Standards. Retrieved from  https://www.nextgenscience.org/

Next Generation Science Standards: For States by States. (2017). Three Dimensional Learning Framework. Retrieved from http://www.nextgenscience.org/three-dimensions

Oblinger D.G., Editor. (2006). Learning Spaces. Educause

P21: Partnership for 21st Century Learning. (2017). Framework for 21st Century Learning. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/about-us/p21-framework

Papert, S. & Harel, I. (1991). Situating Constructionism. Retrieved from http://www.papert.org/articles/SituatingConstructionism.html

ResearchGate. (2017). Diffusion of Innovation adoption status. Figure 2 of 8. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/figure/51852494_fig2_Figure-2-Diffusion-of-Innovation-adoption-status-The-typical-distribution-of-categories

The Institute for Habits of Mind. Costa, A. & Kallick, B. (2017). About Us. Retreived from http://www.habitsofmindinstitute.org/about-us/us/

TPACK ORG. Koehler, M. (2017) TPACK Explained. Retrieved from http://matt-koehler.com/tpack2/tpack-explained/

Washington Elementary STEAM Magnet Curriculum. (2017). Home. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonsteam.com/

Wikipedia.org. (2017). Authentic assessment. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authentic_assessment

Wikipedia.org. (2017). Constructionism (learning theory). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructionism_(learning_theory)

Wikipedia.org. (2017). Maker Culture. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture

Works by Seymour Papert, Ph.D. (2017). Constructionism vs. Instructionism. Part 1: Teaching vs. Learning. Retrieved from http://www.papert.org/articles/const_inst/const_inst1.html.

Works by Seymour Papert, Ph.D. (2017). Papert on Piaget By Seymour Papert. A version of this article appeared in Time magazine’s special issue on "The Century’s Greatest Minds," page 105, March 29, 1999. Retrieved from http://www.papert.org/articles/Papertonpiaget.html

 © 2021 D.G. McIntosh. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” 
at the address below.

Groupwerk Publishing
Skinner Building
1326 Fifth Avenue | Suite 438
Seattle, WA 98101