Transdisciplinary Learning – Making Connections

Transdisciplinary learning aims to create a relevance between, across and beyond different subjects. When students see how learning something is applicable in their daily lives, and that they are not constrained by the traditional subject boundaries, I find they are more motivated and engaged in their lessons, going as far as creating their own learning, making more inquiries and developing authentic understanding. 

Today, year 3 worked in a transdisciplinary manner with the three traditional subjects of mathematics, art and literacy. After studying the structure of a script, they wrote a short, 2 scene script and acted it out using some props in the classroom. Students saw the importance of having some sort of a backdrop to provide more context for the audience.

For their final unit presentation, they decided to create a big backdrop for their play, using three pieces of paper to hang off of a free standing bulletin board. They measured the bulletin board, and changed meters to centimeters in order  to add and find out how many pieces of paper they would need to cover the whole bulletin board. They then measured and lined the paper and cut it up to precision. They tried and tested different suggestions (made by classmates)  to measure, mark and cut the paper correctly. Students will continue by drawing a scenery to use for their play.

Throughout this process, students had opportunities to construct their own knowledge, by taking action and responsibility for their learning.They also had a chance to reflect on their choices and interact socially by providing constructive criticism. Overall, the process was also fun and engaging, and as a teacher I had the opportunity to take part on a partnership level with students, rather than someone telling them when and how to learn.