Rethinking content teaching at the middle level: An interdisciplinary approach

Abstract

Education for young adolescents must be challenging, relevant, integrative, and exploratory. Integrative teaching (e.g., interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, etc.) benefits middle-level learners as it potentially increases student engagement, motivation, and achievement. It provides learners with the opportunity to synthesize knowledge by exploring topics and ideas through multiple lenses. While the middle school concept certainly highlights the critical role of integrative teaching, many middle-level structures such as integrated teaching are “limited, absent, or not fully implemented”. Given the reality in which we work (without a fully articulated middle level teacher education program), the faculty of elementary and secondary education are responsible for preparing future middle-level teachers. This article provides a description of how faculty in one university are preparing secondary education teacher candidates for the middle-level classroom through interdisciplinary collaboration.