Integrated Learning Center Ideas

Create an integrated learning center to encourage cross-disciplinary synthesis of content.

Establishing an integrated learning center can help students to make connections and synthesize concepts from various disciplines. Whether your learning community comprises elementary school students, who typically spend most of their school day with one teacher, or older students, who generally move from one class and teacher to another, an integrated learning center can help tie together seemingly disparate subjects.

Themes

Selecting the right theme for your learning center can set the tone for a productive and engaging educational environment. Elicit ideas from students using the center, letting them contribute suggestions during an initial period and then holding a vote among the best options. If you're teaching young children, consider themes drawn from an area of interest; for example, a dinosaur theme opens itself to lessons in mathematics, science, writing and reading. For a high school or university-level group, consider more complex or oblique themes, which students can adapt to their more specialized fields of study. For example, a theme like "Connections across Cultures" can apply to an international or multicultural approach to the sciences, mathematics, history, anthropology, literature, film or numerous other subjects.

Long-Term Portfolios

While integrated learning enables students to make meaningful connections among various subjects, it can become less productive if the relationships are forced. By stretching the integration over a longer period of time, you can assist students to delve into individual subjects, eventually finding the interrelated themes in a more organic way. As part of participating in the learning center, students can keep portfolios of their work. Maintain neat records of these portfolios over the long term, whether a full semester, a year or any other duration of studies. Regularly organize activities like journal-writing and reflection for adding to the portfolios.

Community Involvement

Don't limit students' integration to their various subjects of study. In addition, you can help them relate their studies to the world around them. Have students select and participate in community-based projects that reflect their academic interests. For example, students studying statistics can conduct numbers-based studies to identify community needs. Writing students can provide their services as grant writers for local charitable organizations and non-profits. Young students learning basic math skills can participate in simple activities like volunteering at a soup kitchen, measuring quantities and following recipes.

Expanding and Integrating

Some students may follow a relatively narrow focus of studies, such as young students at a specialized or magnet school or university students who have declared their majors. For these students, create activities that expand their fields of study and integrate the new themes back into their primary discipline. Have the students adopt different perspectives on a set theme or object. For example, over the course of multiple lessons, have the students consider a tree from the perspective of an artist, a writer, a scientist, a mathematician, an ecologist and an historian. At the end of the activity, have students write about how these changes in perspective might alter their approach to their primary field of study.

References

• Leading-Learning: Integrated learning and Multiple Intelligences
• Association of American Colleges and Universities: Integrative Learning Nationwide -- Emerging Themes and Practices