Globalization and Interdisciplinarity in Education

Introduction

• Globalization and interdisciplinarity are recurrent themes in education, but confusion remains in identifying a "globalizing approach" versus a specific globalization proposal or technique.
• There is a need to clarify the principles and basic concepts of globalization and interdisciplinary didactics for teachers.
• A distinction exists between a globalization method (specific strategies and techniques) and a globalizing approach (a professional stance).
• Since the introduction of the LOE (2006), schools are focusing on competencies, instrumentalization in E-A processes has led to unnatural goals, merely academic knowledge doesn't guarantee social competence or success in life.
• Disciplinary tools are essential, disciplines cannot be an end in themselves, but a means to better understand reality.

Shifting Focus to Competency Development

• Development of tasks fostering basic competencies requires rethinking class dynamics and theoretical underpinnings.
• It is important to clarify the "essential basics" for students, focusing on methodologies centered on student learning and the utility of globalizing and interdisciplinary tasks.
• The organization and sequencing of curriculum content is relevant to achieving proposed objectives.
• Curriculum design should facilitate significant learning by establishing relationships between existing knowledge and new information.
• Globalization and interdisciplinarity are pedagogical responses to allow teachers to organize knowledge content coherently to facilitate the teaching and learning processes.
• Content is effectively learned when the "why" and "what for" are clear, meaningful, and functional, more significant learning occurs with more connections between existing and new knowledge.
• Approaching real-life situations using a globalizing approach maximizes the relationships between prior experiences and new content, thereby increasing the significance of learning.
• Allowing students to "choose" topics and present them as necessary for answering questions promotes active and beneficial learning.
• Learning in this way is demanding and requires effort.
• Promoting classroom work where students perform activities and tasks to construct new learning from familiar examples with the teacher's help.
• The greater the interest and motivation of students, the less effort required.

Globalizing Approach and Interdisciplinarity

• The concept of globalization is based on psychological, sociological, and pedagogical reasons.
• For children, globalizing learning is rooted from the cumulative nature of childhood perception.
• From a social perspective, it's essential to integrate "cultural knowledge" to facilitate student learning.
• Teaching should consider the unique characteristics and interests of the child.
• Integrated methods see subjects as a means to learn aspects of reality based on the student's interest or need to complete a task, the motivation for activity design.
• Real-world knowledge and experience should be the design guide and developmental motivator in classroom activities.

The Globalizing of the Teaching

• Teachers analyze learning objectives and content of all education stages (LOE, 2006) and reflect on the activities needed of these objectives
• Teachers should figure out what is least/most important for each student, work on acquisition from a global perspective that facilitates functional learning
• Globalized methods must not be performed on its own, teachers should understand it as a method that is part of all school work and see it as a pedagogical intervention that must include questions and issues that the child must identify.
• Globalizing aims to have learning stem from necessity: questions about unexplainable phenomenon or doubt that, through experimentation, reading or contrasting opinions, can be understood.

Various Approaches to Globalised Teaching

• Globalization as the sum of subjects involves teachers leading the process to establish connections around predetermined themes with students "knowing how" to perform as directed.
  • Though activities may be grouped by interest, students lack choices, making learning less significant and differentiation unassured.
• Globalization as interdisciplinarity emphasizes teacher coordination and consensus in uncovering relationships between subjects, particularly in higher levels, however the interest is still around being "selected".
  • Collaboration among teachers helps, but basic prior information is required for students to make interferences amongst different data.
• Globalization as psychological of learning focuses from the student's learning constructions via cognitive questions that must be estabilised between previous notions and new information in order to "learn how to learn".
  • It focuses on students interests and needs for the best answer to a more diversified and significant learning process.
  • Access to any misconception can be understood in order to construct process of E-A.

Focus on Discovery and Real-world Problem Solving

• A focus on learning through discovery, establishing connections and solving problems builds meaningful and motivational knowledge.
• Problem-solving and investigation techniques stimulating ingenuity, and avoiding memorization.
• Planning for this requires a pedagogy that encourages creativity and changes within class: creating a friendly atmosphere, designing meaningful problems that relate to other subjects.
• Providing challenges but offering resources to resolve them can allow active participation that favors the student to learn how to learn.
• Establishing structures for the teacher not to assume the role
• Undertake constant evaluation to know the beginning of the process in each student

Consideration for Unique Situation

• Devoting an entire defense to the idea that a single approach can solve every situation is not the most recommended since there must be specific activities done for a single scenario.
• Emphasis is given to the idea that theres no such unique technique because student must be in contact with different resources that refer to different measures of the childs development for constant, everchanging activities.

Interdisciplinary Approach Explained

• School content has been organized into assignments to allow an easier structure for students to acquire skills and knowledge required for day to day life.
• Interdisciplinarity is a professional route in organizing curriculum and a didactic response in offering and interaction amongst many objects, not just content (Lorenzo, 1998).
• The Goal: To work on how it is taught in the educational environment and the structure in the many sections that need a specific focus opposed to trying to separate each aspect and the student understands how the knowledge is integrated with the scientific disciplines.

Significant Arguments for Interdisciplinarity

• A quest for integration of the man in current times
• The job market is constantly being updated in many ways, and general education is important for future learnings
• The demands from the job market/working life doesn't correspond to divided assignments
• A function of a professor today is the difficulty of a excessive and specific job
• Fragmentation of assignments without correlation
• Constant revision of material in teaching, the interdisciplinary approach can offer many continuous repetition/important gaps.

Combined Mental Functions

• Titone (1976), states based on Piaget that interdisciplinary is needed because "mental formation" requires the usage and practice of combined mental functions.
  • Operational/Function or using codes to pass along messages in a functional and operating format
  • Formal or in conditions of making conceptual constructions, abstract logical/mathematical
  • Analysis of information/Structure of contents/Meanings in coherent systems

Combining Areas

• It is key for children to take steps to reach maturity and combining all the prior areas is a key part of interdisciplinary
• Disciplinary connections is a via for someone to acknowledge of all those situations that require an understanding with assigned themes and advocating understanding the knowledge that contributes to overcome the disciplinary limits.
• Focusing the Interdisciplinary with a relation between two or more elements that provides higher consciousness can lead to a globalizing situation: this artificial Interdisciplinarity is a waste in trying to show global learning for the fact of just following its respective elements.

Decroly's Centers of Interest

• Centers of interest are from the ideas that appear from Ovidio Decroly with parameters of education fitting the principles of Active School
• This technique facilitates creativity/spontaneity of the child in order to help developmental integration ( in-liberty, adapting to individual and practicality) is key
• This school of activity helps the movement from Freinet and compliments those cited throughout the text
  • Education and teaching must be the total development of a person NOT the accumulation of knowledge.
  • School must be focused on the student and the children develop their personality that involves orientation
  • Investigative experimentation is the key to modernize a school.
  • Refute the illusions of saying education is enough because there isn't a aseptic education that marginalizes from the social/political

Global Learning

• Global learning integrates to everything that children don't see in detail; its only able with analysis
• Centers of interest become backbones that answer physiological, psychological and social needs of people around
• Decroly and Boon believe that student success goes with a person based a childs interests in the school work
  • Personal identification, needs, expression
  • Knowing the surroundings and conditions in being around that

Fundamental Methods:

• Paido and interest: A child's needs/motivations is the point where students get their work ethics and natural needs.
• Individual: Its key to see the students psico-evolutionary is what must be kept to respect.
• Globalization: Per the theory of gestalt, Kids perceptions have superficial character
• Activity: The nature from a baby's activity is their main source of gaining knowledge

Important 3 Phase Process

• Observation
• Association
• Expression

The Childrens Needs

• The method that is in Decroly aims to know or improve what there already is by focusing on what must be needed

Decroly's Traditional Axis for the Child

• Eating.
• Weather related.
• Protection
• Action, Recreation and Development/improve

The Childs Main Environmental

• Animals
• Plants
• Water/Earth: Water, Earth, air, and Stone
• Sun, moon and stars
• Family
• School
• Society

Steps in order for Learning

• Observation Comprehension
  • Direct learning that uses an average level of comprehension for exercise. Drawing reading and etc allows students to resolve that question and give a understanding
• The association element
  • Exercise that is not observable is connected with observation like space, time, association, geography/history
• Expression
  • In the process of observation. The activities must be based on working/dramatization/art for the understanding of a wide perspective must be linguistic and mathematical with working

Project Work with Kilpatrick

• Project work in didactic methods helps organize student topics given the motivation by the procedures that must be put into action in any given scenario

• Helps with resolving problematic situations to obtain student interest. The technique goes beyond assembling, creating and mounting on a production.

• Intent: The way projects intend to be.

• Development: The growth of the project that is related will all required material that has the planning

• Execution: With resolution activity

• Constant evaluation: With review of all the planned goals that must be reached

Key Goals

• Help students know all of the data and select, organize in any manner so the meaning to what is being done is clear.
• This technique is effective for the construction/global formation for those types of content

How Children Proceed

• They start to analyze the subject matter with an inclination to the more data that the discipline comes from.
• Its easier for children to integrate aspects to learn better and find answers.
• The content of the work comes form real life scenarios with help of the teacher for which the student can control

Kilpatrick:

• Product: Making anything concrete
• Consumption: Having enjoyment from this said action
• Problem: This task can provide difficulty