Title: Integrated Curriculum
Headings: Gina Contardi, Michelle Fall, Gina Flora, Jodi Gandee and Carrie Treadway.
Introduction:
Why do schools adopt integrated curriculum?
What is integrated curriculum?
Components of Integrated Curriculum
A Closer Look at Both Sides of the Debate
What are the strongest arguments supporting integrated curriculum?
How does an integrated curriculum impact our students?
Modernist Teaching  Post-Modernist Teaching_
Modernist Student   Post-Modernist Student
What do the critics say?
A Closer Look at Integrated Curriculum
How does an integrated curriculum help to promote the development of culture and community within the classroom?
How does interdisciplinary instruction effect student motivation?
How does the interdisciplinary/integrated curriculum support Bandura’s Social Learning Theory?
How does an integrated curriculum support and promote cooperative learning?

Content: How does an integrated curriculum impact our students? Integrated curriculum adopts a student-centered approach, by nature of its definition, it moves further away from the modernist viewpoint. With an integrated curriculum, a "right" way to complete a task does not exist. Students are free to reach conclusions on their own and they are provided with many different perspectives, affording students the opportunity to question the conclusions of their teachers. A table diagramming the perspectives of the modernist and the post-modernist is listed below. Modernist Teaching  Post-Modernist Teaching_
Didactic and dogmatic approach to
learning
Inhibits student observations, values or conclusions different from their own, the textbook or other authorities
Strives to have students master what is prescribed to them
Supports two ways of knowing and doing things: the right way and the wrong way
Dialectical Manner in presenting knowledge
Open to new ideas and procedures
Presents multiple views and expects students to formulate their own meanings
Rewards creative, divergent behavior and thinking of students
No rigid disciplines exist
Modernist Student   Post-Modernist Student
Never questions points of confusion in the values, assumptions, logic and observations of the teacher or authorities
Believes that confusion comes from own intellectual inadequacy
Rejects own experience and feelings in favor of converging ideas of authoritative sources such as teachers, textbooks and experts
Accepts content as truth
Never goes beyond the information given
Questions the values, assumptions, observations and conclusions of authorities
Selects and modifies ideas of teachers to formulate their own meanings consistent with their experiences and needs
Acquires basic content through such activities as inquiry and creative thinking
Uses fluency, flexibility, and elaboration to develop original ideas and concepts
Implements higher levels of thinking
What do the critics say? The benefi