What are Thematic Teaching and
Curriculum Integration?

Introduction

Integrated Curriculum

The Tools of Technology

Team Teaching / Multiage

INSTRUCTION. . . is planned to accommodate individual interests, abilities, and rates of learning while fostering a climate of teamwork and mutual support. Students are grouped into heterogeneous, mixed-age classes that are taught by a two-teacher team. Students stay with these teachers for two years. They work in groups of all sizes and composition, engaged in activity-based, learning projects. They have many opportunities to make decisions about their own learning and to develop responsibility. Students progress at their own best rate and move on when they are ready; there is no ceiling on the level of work they can do.

CURRICULUM. . . is interdisciplinary/integrated, organized around themes, with many hands-on activities and in-depth study of content. All levels focus on the skills of communicating well in oral and written forms and using mathematical concepts to solve problems. A strong citizenship program emphasizes perseverance, responsibility, and other life skills. Assessment of learning is based on individual growth and performance.

PARENT INVOLVEMENT. . . is encouraged and recognized as essential for creating a nurturing, family-like, school environment. Many parents work in the classroom and throughout the school.

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Integrated Curriculum:

"The integrated curriculum is a great gift to experienced teachers. It's like getting a new pair of lenses that make teaching a lot more exciting and help us look forward into the next century. It is helping students take control of their own learning."

- M. Markus, media specialist, quoted in Shoemaker, September 1991, p. 797

"I'm learning more in this course, and I'm doing better than I used to do when social studies and English were taught separately."

- Student, quoted in Oster 1993, p. 28

This teacher and student express an increasingly widespread enthusiasm for curriculum integration. While not necessarily a new way of looking at teaching, curriculum integration has received a great deal of attention in educational settings.

Integrated curriculum is an educational approach that prepares children for lifelong learning. There is a strong belief among those who support curriculum integration that schools must look at education as a process for developing abilities required by life in the twenty-first century, rather than discrete, departmentalized subject matter. Thus, bringing together various aspects of the curriculum into meaningful association to focus upon broad areas of study. It views learning and teaching in a holistic way and reflects the real world, which is interactive. In general, integrated curriculum or interdisciplinary curriculum include:

• A combination of subjects

• An emphasis on projects

• Sources that go beyond textbooks

• Relationships among concepts

• Thematic units as organizing principles

• Flexible schedules

• Flexible student groupings.

The Engle's year-long themes and units can be found here:

For the ITC teacher, all content areas are taught in large blocks of time with no separation between the actual subjects.  Mathematics is the only subject that taught in "isolation", but even that is integrated throughout the units. Most of the units within the year-long theme take approximately 6 weeks to complete. Here is an example of an outline from the first year of the two year multiage cycle - Integrated Thematic Unit for Immigration  . Please feel free to print it off and use it as a guideline for creating your own units.  

     Now that technology has become a part of our everyday life in education, we need to begin viewing it as a tool, not as a separate part of the curriculum.  We believe that technology can be used to enhance learning through skill building software. The integration of technology is more than simply inserting a CD-ROM  into the computer and letting a child spend 15 minutes working through the activities.

     While this can be a part of your approach to integration, it is only the first step.  As the integration of technology becomes more and more a part of what we are expected to accomplish in the classroom, we as teachers must become more creative in the ways that we include it into our daily routine.  As we become more comfortable with our own level of ability and knowledge base, we will be more likely to impart that "wisdom" onto our students.  We are firm believers that technology cannot replace books, or paper and pencil.  It is a tool that is used merely to enhance and extend the curriculum already in place.

"To us there is no other way.  Two teachers, two classes, two grade levels, too wonderful." 

- 4/5 Multi-age ITC teacher, Geneva Elementary, Florida

Think back to the beginning of the school year.  How long did it take you to "get to know" your students?  You have to spend the first few months of the school year getting to know a new student and their academic, social and emotional needs.  Children in multiage classrooms are placed with a classroom teacher for more than one year, so there is no "starting over" each year.  This multiyear placement allows the student to bond with the adult for a longer period of time than the conventional single-grade placement.

A successful multi-age program...

While team teaching is not a requirement for multi-age, it does have its definite advantages.  Team teachers provide emotional support, collaboration in developing curriculum, sharing of experiences and ideas, and strengths in both particular areas of the curriculum and in the act of teaching itself.

Students benefit by having the opportunity to see adults interacting in a positive manner and by being introduced to more than one teaching style, broadening their range of experiences in education. ITC teachers across America are living proof that team-teaching really does work. For additional information on team teaching visit our page on Team Teaching.