A collaborative initiative converts into meaningful CBCI PD

The collaborative work to create 6 interdisciplinary units for grade 6 began out of two needs. One, to generate 6 new units for our Murcia campus grade 6 students to investigate in the upcoming school year. Our second motivation stemmed from a need to become more effective at supporting language development for our grade 6 Chamberi students. As a school, we wanted to begin a shift in mindset from pull-out English support to integrated intentional language support for all within every discipline. This would increase alignment to the language policy which stated, 'every teacher is a language teacher.' We saw an opportunity for the Middle School English class to integrate with social studies and science contexts using a CLIL (Content & Language Integrated Literacy) approach. This means targeting the genre to read and produce. And following this by utilizing the interdisciplinary unit contexts for accessing and/or developing academic vocabulary for production and communication development.

The Goal: make language accessible for student language development for production and communication AND improve the efficiency of the MS Team by not creating distinctly new contexts across disciplines.

6 PYP Transdisciplinary Themes used to drive the planning for interdisciplinary learning and teaching.

Middle School teachers, Judith De La Rosa, STEM teacher and Thomas Wiaduck, our English teacher began to meet regularly with me to begin mapping out initial unit webs. Given the units we were designing would still be considered primary years in Murcia, we utilized the 6 transdisciplinary themes to support our brainstorming process (see above). I wanted to make the process accessible so beginning with what was already begun in the Lower School helped support the work. 

We started as a small team to get the ball rolling at a manageable pace. Across the school, people were very busy and engaged in a variety of initiatives. To do this, Tommie, Judith and I used the MS scope and sequence documents to create a first draft of the unit webs. They were familiar with the content their colleagues were teaching and this also helped us begin to make initial connections to identify conceptual lenses and best matches for content (see picture below).

We gathered all our curriculum documents: Science, Humanities, ELA, ISTE, NCAS, SHAPE America, SEL & Safeguarding by ICMEC & CASEL to review and pull from.

What does drafting a set of Unit Webs look like? 

1. Brainstorming! We mapped out by hand initially to just make notes and map out concepts. We crossed out things, moved content and it got a little messy.
2. Science Content: We began with the content of grade 6 science by mapping out the concepts across the 6 units, drafting a conceptual lens.
3. Humanities Content: Then we began to add Humanities content adding sub-conceptual lenses. We were literally just plugging in what was being taught this year and in what order. The concepts were highlighted to make them jump out. 
4. Once we got a draft put together, we asked our Humanities teacher, Gabriel Murcia, to sit with us during one meeting to review our work to date. I remember clearly as Gabo began to dig into our work, how impressed he was by the connection making, exclaiming spontaneously, 'This is so cool!' Following, Gabo's input, we moved some content around and then made the shift from paper to digital Unit Webs on Canva. 

For many of our MS, this approach was entirely new. There was a lot of enthusiasm and joy as we worked on these units. The time flew and we always longed for more time to dig into the mapping process. Judith and Tommy's commitment to the process showed up in every meeting even down to making sure we could meet. I looked forward to these meetings as the unit webs evolved. Judith's expertise in STEM opened doors to integration of Digital Citizenship, Technology, and Mathematics in very relevant, meaningful ways. We sought out participation and input from every discipline for relevant integration (Spanish Language & History/Civics; Visual Arts; Performing Arts; Physical Education; Mathematics). When we completed the unit webs, we felt ready to write out the lines of inquiry. The final step meant writing up the central ideas with additional understandings. For this, we wanted more involvement so we invited some other team members to join us.

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Draft 2 of our Unit Webs which underwent further edits with more input from MS team members.

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Here were began the final steps of identifying the central ideas and additional understandings. Because I am a certified CBCI trainer, I was able to walk us through the process by scaffolding highly conceptual Level 3 understandings that will require students to dive into deep research and use their thinking skills for evaluating, analysing and connection making to draw conclusions.

Tommy supports the brainstorming of a central idea.

By inviting, Ricardo Tardaguila to join us, we (Tommy, Judith and I) were able to get insight on Physical Education/Music integration.

Tools that support Generalizing
I think it is important to provide tools when working on these kinds of projects. These images show lists of concepts and command verbs that we used to improve our understandings.

When I work with students, I pull out similar tools as needed. Students learn that tools that support learning needs are welcome. This in turn converts into a class norm; self-advocacy, self-monitoring, self-management. Learners know they can pull the tools needed in any subject to find success.

Lewis Kemper along with Ricardo Tardarguila supported the development of central ideas and additional understandings for interdisciplinary units.

Command Verbs and Concepts by Discipline

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Below is the final set of units that were designed for launch this school year. Implementation implies ongoing collaboration through regular meeting to discuss how research unfolds, what questions arise and how subject teachers are approaching the inquiry. Connections to local and global contexts to address each conceptual lens can be supported through collaboration with teachers and the local community networks. 

Overall, this was such a rewarding experience for us all. Most of our team had not had experience with this approach to curriculum mapping. Our work to bridge Lower and Middle School approaches to teaching and learning made interdisciplinary teaching more accessible for the team. Because I was able to make the process supportive through accessible tools and templates, the energy to engage never diminished, motivation and commitment remained high to see the initiative through. I look forward to hearing about these units over time and how teachers are collaborating to bring them to life for meaningful research, dialogue, debate, writing pieces and student action. This is an example of what CBCI training does. It opens doors to thinking conceptually!