It is not uncommon to find students working on research projects in history, literature, mathematics, Spanish, and science classes. Of course, they've always done that. We design projects that have explicit interdisciplinary opportunities. We encourage students to make connections within our design and they increasingly come up with connections made on their own. At any given time in the school, activities may be coordinated between pairs of teachers, small teams of teachers, an entire grade, or even the entire school.
Some barriers remain.
Certainly, a large amount of time needs to be spent coordinating and organizing with other teachers. The benefits, however, encourage us to continue. For instance, the conscious effort to look at what we are doing, the impact it has on the students, how we use resources, how we can enhance and reinforce content, and how we can connect what is in the school to the larger environment are just a few of the changes. We're pleased to see that test scores have taken an upward trend. And, true to the law of unintended consequences, we have observed some surprising benefits.