Curriculum integration involves reshaping learning activities to help students see connections between topics and make learning more meaningful to students. The idea is to identify a theme in a content area and build activities around the theme in student's academic and even technological classes.

Research on integrated curriculum shows positive effects for students learning. According to Lipson (1993):

• Integrated curriculum helps students apply skills.
• An integrated knowledge base leads to faster retrieval of information.
• Multiple perspectives lead to a more integrated knowledge base.
• Integrated curriculum encourages depth and breadth in learning.
• Integrated curriculum promotes positive attitudes in students.
• Integrated curriculum provides for more quality time for curriculum exploration. http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/8/c016.html

Research has also shown that students involved in integrated or interdisciplinary curriculum perform as well as or better then students in a standard school academic program on standardized tests (National Association for Core Curriculum, 2000; Vars, 1996, 1997; Arhar, 1997).

http://www.nmsa.org/research/res_articles_integrated.htm

Examples

Raisin in the Sun

This was the school-wide project for the 9th grade in 2002-2003. The project was based around the novel Raisin In the Sun that students were reading in their English class. In history students learned about the great migration that brought blacks to the north and about race relations during the 1950s in various northern cities. Students learned in their math class how to find the current value of the 10,000 life insurance policy. Students integrated what they were learning in science by examining the house that the family in the novel lived in and then planning their own.

History Teachers Lesson Plans

Scoring Rubric for History

Student Example

Chemical Reactions

Students were required to build a web site explaining at least 3 of the chemical reactions they observed in their Chemistry class. They collected content in their Chemistry class using digital cameras, then built a web site about each reaction using WYSIWYG software. The 7 students in the Digital Art/Web Design class were the web masters of their group. Students received 2 separate grades : 1 grade in their Digital Art/Web Design class based on functionality, design, and completion of the web site, and a second grade on the accuracy and completion of content in their Chemistry class. The Chemistry grade was then integrated into the final Digital Art/Web Design class grade.

Student Task Sheet

Scoring Rubric for Web Development

Student Example