LUCA INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
pedagogy
academic > pedagogy
Cross-curricular STEAM involves a conscious effort to apply knowledge, principles, and/ Our pedagogy for the interdisciplinary teaching methods is combining and integrating the principles, knowledge and skills of different subjects consciously. Hence, students can learn not only one subject through this learning method. We use hot topics in society, teenagers’ problems or real-life problems, processes and so on, as an interdisciplinary learning “theme”. In this “theme”, teachers will design a clear learning goals and a series of activities deliberately, describing in detail about the experiences and the learning experiences that will be gained by students, allowing students to learn or master the knowledge and skills of every subjects through this learning frameworks, having a richer and deeper recognition towards the “theme”. Therefore, we will usually name these interdisciplinary learning methods as “thematic teaching”, “phenomenon-based teaching” or “inquiry-based teaching”.
This requires the teachers to have two levels of integration during lesson preparation: first is the integration of the Language Arts (listen, speak, read, write, think) ; the second is to involve the integration of the knowledge and skills from multiple fields of the different subjects. During the pedagogy, teachers will incorporate a “theme” into the frameworks as much as possible for every session and knowledge processes for every subject. For instance, using “Laureate” (the nickname for the recipients of the Nobel Prize) as the theme, students can experience “passionate pursuit of the truth” and “spiritual persistence” of the “Laureate” through different kinds of activities or curriculum; through the linguistic, competence, learning the thinking methods and writing styles of the littérateurs; through the mathematics and science knowledge, understanding the research methods and the spirit of the scientists; through the art and design, experience the innovative spirit of the artists and so on.
Furthermore, in the same “theme” of the framework, every subject teachers will discuss and design the integrated topical report together for every subject or tasks for manufacturing of the products, allowing students the opportunity to integrate and apply different types of knowledge and skills. For example, news for magazine, combining the knowledge and skills from the language subjects, Global Perspectives and Science; the manufacturing of the 3R products, integrating the knowledge and skills from the language subjects, Mathematics, Science, Art and Design and so on.
In summation, the pedagogical concepts of the interdisciplinary teaching methods is to emphasise the creativity and innovation, allowing students to experience deeper thinking and learning through the process of experience and immersion education, also in the collaboration and cooperation, and solving the problems persistently. In order to nurture our students to become 21st century entrepreneurial thinkers in the future, students from Year 1 to Year 11 in LUCA International School will also receive the education of thematic teaching. These curriculum are designed deliberately by the teachers in LUCA Academy.