The arts school partnerships under the policy "40x40" in Bogotá-Colombia are an example of the international interest in new ways to redress social and educational disadvantages. The main purpose of the policy is to improve education by gradually extending school daytime. This vignette explores three important issues for the…

Studies have found that movement can have a positive effect on the linguistic and intellectual capabilities of the brain, proving that physical fitness is related to academic performance. By allowing elementary students to move around and be involved in physical activity at school, the brain is able to make stronger connections with the material…

Activities that focus on already familiar concepts are good starting points when designing early childhood music lessons. The author uses teachable moments, a spider in the classroom and a rainstorm, to design interdisciplinary preschool group activities that teach music, math, and science concepts. Dynamics and tempo are the music concepts that…

The purpose of this article is to describe how an elementary art specialist scaffolded learning of specific academic vocabulary during a unit on how to create hollow clay ceramic sculptures. Although much has been written recently on how elementary teachers might better teach academic vocabulary in reading and language arts contexts as well as in…

John McNamara shares his wisdom and humbly credits Camillo Grazzini, Jenny Höglund, and David Kahn for his growth in Montessori. Recognizing more than what he has learned from his mentors, he shares the lessons he has learned from his students themselves. Math, science, history, and language are so integrated in the curriculum that students…

This article explores the use and usefulness of carefully designed transdisciplinary pedagogical templates (TPTs) aligned to different learning theories. The TPTs are based on the Learning Design Framework outlined in the Larnaca Declaration (Dalziel et al. in this collection). The generation of pedagogical plans or templates is not new. However,…

A re-emergence in language documentation has brought with it a recent recognition of the potential contributions which collaboration with other disciplines has to offer linguistics. For example, ten chapters of the recently published Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Fieldwork (Thieberger 2012) were explicitly devoted to cross-discipline…

An interdisciplinary subject, liberal studies, was introduced as a compulsory and core subject into the New Senior Secondary Curriculum in Hong Kong in 2009 with the purpose of expanding students' knowledge base and increasing their social awareness through investigation into a variety of issues. However, transforming curricular innovations into…

This article reports the results of a qualitative case study investigating the self-authorship characteristics of learners in the context of an interdisciplinary curriculum. The study identifies the students' assumptions about knowledge, self, and relationships. The findings are based on evidence from reflective essays written by students upon…

This article outlines a research study focused on the connections between natural science and art. In the instructional unit designed for the research study, multiple art forms were utilized, in order to reach multiple types of learners. Interdisciplinary, or integrated art instruction is a way to enhance understanding of and the connections…

The article deals with the problems arising within transition from the traditional to the modern educational paradigm. Taking the use of school geography textbooks and teachers' guides as examples the author offers innovative technology for the development of student's personality cognitive experience implemented due to the combination of…

Many teacher candidates who enter teacher education programs have received altered curricula that addressed the new common core of reading, writing, and mathematics (Beveridge 2010). This new common core curriculum neglects the importance of arts education. These students who have not been exposed to arts education, are reluctant to engage in the…

What is the nature of art/science collaborations in museums? How do art objects and activities contribute to the successes of science centers? Based on the premise that art exhibitions and art-based activities engage museum visitors in different ways than do strictly factual, information-based displays, I address these questions in a case study…

This thesis describes how intellectual boundary spanning can be identified in the written ideas of millions of scholars, and finds that such efforts encounter translational problems which can hinder faculty careers. In particular, the work presented develops textual metrics of intellectual boundary spanning (interdisciplinarity) and field…

This paper reports on an innovative Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme which addressed transition issues and issues with conducting outdoor work and attitudes towards science through 'Shared Learning' days between elementary and middle school transition classes. Teachers supported each other to overcome issues with conducting…