Response #1

After reading Heidi Hayes Jacobs' book, in what ways have you worked with teachers or teaching teams to create interdisciplinary units? Have any had a global perspective? This topic is one that both our department heads and administrators look for in our collaborations, so if you haven't had those discussions yet, this is the time to start thinking about it.  If you've not done a collaboration yet, how might you get the conversation started?

I've not had a great chance to provide my students with interdisciplinary units as much as I would like. At the high school level there are many hurdles to pass over. Even though these hurdles should not be excuses, they are still reality. Our freshman classes are provided with a "team". The teams are named after our schools mission statement: pride, integrity, respect, and lastly courage. The teachers in those teams are given a "duty" period to get together to discuss cross disciplinary subjects. I find testing had a big part in the lack of cross curricular units. I even find myself cramming information due to state testing, field trips, and snow days to name a few. Not only do we have limited time with our students, but teachers may be covering different units at different rates due to our de-leveling of classes. During my nutrition unit I talk with a couple of the math teachers as well as the Foods classes to help enhance the learning. In my opinion that is not enough. 

Another hardship I find is the lack of time. Our school provides our teachers with "half days" on Thursdays. Every Thursday the students leave a half an hour early and the teachers are required to stay late in meetings. Most of this time are set up as data, department, faculty and SWAT meetings leaving no days to catch up or even talk with our teachers. 

I believe technology can be used as a tool to help connect our teachers. By utilizing technology, learning can be done at their own pass and at their leisure. Truthfully does that help our students? I guess we won't know until we try