By Susan Black Schools contemplating adopting an interdisciplinary curriculum should consider the advice of Howard Gardner and others associated with Teaching for Understanding, a project of Harvard's Graduate School of Education. The researchers draw a critical distinction between the methods of inquiry, theoretical frameworks, and research techniques that go into a discipline and the collection of facts and other content that make up a subject. The second problem is isolating interdisciplinary teaching from other variables that can influence student learning. For research purposes, it isn't especially useful to ask whether interdisciplinary teaching raises student achievement.
Interdisciplinary teaching requires planning.
However, Carla Cooper Shaw, in her research on middle school teacher teams, says the curriculum planning often gets short shrift during teachers' common planning time. According to James Beane, an authority on middle level education, integrated curriculum has a natural home in the middle grades. Youngsters at this age need a curriculum that helps them define personal concerns and solve problems rather than one that stresses content in isolated subjects. But making interdisciplinary teaching and learning work isn't easy.