Curriculum Integration and Thematic Units
Sarah Hair
READ 4493.02
April 30, 2012
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Curriculum integration and thematic units are two closely connected methods that
have been used by educators over many years as a way to make learning more interactive
and meaningful to students. Many think that integration is simply teaching a lesson that
covers two or more content areas simultaneously. This is only part of it though. Having
an integrated curriculum also helps students make crucial connections between what they
have learned and what they know as a result of personal experiences. Integrated
curriculum can be very useful because it helps students make real life connections, see
relationships among ideas and concepts, build relationships between in-and-out-ofschool topics, have the opportunity for authentic communication, share ideas and listen to
others, increase their own personal basis of ideas, respect and cooperate with their peers,
become more responsible for their own learning, and establish a classroom community
(Lapp & Flood 1994). Thematic units are units comprised of a central theme and often
several contributing educational goals. Curriculum integration and the use of thematic
units are both supported and utilized by many educators and theorists around the globe
because of their astounding ability to make teaching more effective when done correctly
and efficiently.
In the article “Integrated Curriculum: Designing Curriculum in the Immersion
Classroom,” Helen Warnod discusses the foundation of creating a successful integration
curriculum in the immersion classroom. Successful curriculum integration is presented as
a much more in depth process than what has been portrayed through previous articles.
Warnod suggests that while designing an integrated curriculum for an immersion
classroom, teachers must build a curriculum considering Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning
Objectives and Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. “The use of Bloom’s
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Taxonomy in planning can promote the cognitive processes of the student whilst
addressing certain learning strategies but learning styles also need to be considered”
(Warnod 2002). Bloom’s Taxonomy represents learning in levels; these levels start with
obtaining knowledge, then advancing to comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis,
and evaluation. The theory of Multiple Intelligences suggests that there are different
types of intelligences, which emphasize different talents. These two theories applied in
the classroom together benefit all students. “Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences
used in conjunction with Bloom’s Taxonomy can provide for all learning styles”
(Warnod 2002). These aspects, along with an understood set of standards and
mnemonics within a curriculum, maximize the amount of learning that goes on within an
immersion classroom. I do not believe that creating a curriculum with these aspects in
mind is only beneficial to an immersion classroom though. I believe that every teacher
should consider the steps that true learning occurs in, the individual learning differences
emphasized in the Multiple Intelligences theory, and also mnemonics that could help
their students master tricky concepts while building their curriculum. Every teacher
should also set clear expectations in the classroom for every situation and activity.
As a teacher, I plan to have a classroom with understood rules and standards so
that my students know what exactly is expected of them. I will be sure to build my
curriculum using scaffolding in order to help my students climb to greater levels of
understanding stated in Bloom’s Taxonomy. I will also be considerate of each of my
students’ individual abilities and use every tool possible in order to help them succeed in
my class. Building the foundation of my curriculum based off of these well-respected
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theories will not only provide me with a stronger rationale for building lessons in a
particular manner, but this will also help make me a more successful educator.
The article, “Integrated Teaching Units, by Tammy R. Benson, Ed.D, presents the
concept of thematic teaching units, which are units based off of a theme in order to weave
different core content throughout, thus integrating the curriculum. Thematic units foster
active involvement of every child in a classroom, meaning that learning is a much more
interactive process. Other benefits of thematic teaching units include opportunities for
creative thinking and problem solving, the ability to include and focus on state standards,
learning in-depth factual information, learning process skills, learning “how to learn,”
integrating learning in a holistic way, promoting group cohesiveness, addressing
individual needs, and motivating both students and teachers (Benson 2004). Thematic
units should be planned around topics that genuinely interest children, as this will drive
their motivation to participate and learn. Core curricula along with the arts can all be tied
into thematic units in order to be maximally enriching for students.
I believe that it is crucial for teachers to truly pay attention to what really interests
their students. If children are interested in the topic at hand, they will be more focused,
thus learning substantially more than they typically would with traditional lectures or
other instructional methods. Tying in multiple subjects allows students ample opportunity
to make connections across the content areas, which makes it more likely that they will
comprehend more information. In my own classroom, I will take build thematic units
around what interests my students and connect all of the content areas possible, if not all
of them.
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The article, “Integrating the Curriculum: First Steps,” by Lapp and Flood, is a
remarkable example of thematic units brought to life and successfully practiced in a real
classroom. In this article, the reader is taken into a California school where the theme
“understanding cultural diversity” has been established for a particular second language
classroom. “Some of their primary goals were to expand communication processes and
cultural awareness” (Lapp & Flood 1994). Every student works together to maintain an
Asian museum themed classroom, sharing meaningful artifacts from each individual
culture and making presentations in the form of speeches, games, plays, and more. The
students helped create the “Asian museum” unit along with the different group activities
to complete. This type of integrated curriculum helps students make crucial connections
between in-school and out-of-school topics. It also takes the content and connects it to the
prior knowledge of every student, making the knowledge acquired more meaningful to
each student. The teacher in this case, was considerate of every child’s individual needs
and chose to use the various cultures and nine different language groups blended in her
classroom to everyone’s advantage. Ms. Curiel decided that the language barriers and
culture differences would help build a community instead of creating unsurpassable
barriers. Including every student is key in creating an integrated curriculum in the
classroom. In this case, the teacher related the curriculum to each student’s life, engaging
each child in what would otherwise be an ordinary social studies unit.
As a future ESL teacher, I am intrigued by this remarkable example of thematic
units based off of different cultures within the classroom. I believe that this sort of
activity would make every student feel equally a part of the classroom community as well
as a great contributor to their own education and success. In my own classroom someday,
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I plan to have my students do a very similar unit, where they will research their family
trees in order to find out what countries and cultures they come from. I will then have
them research one of the countries or cultures from their background and gather artifacts
as well as other interesting pieces and prepare a presentation. We will prepare a melting
pot community, simulating the culture of America, and invite parents to come see their
child’s hard work in the finished product. Like Ms. Cruiel’s class, every child will be
preparing something meaningful to themselves and their background. The finished
product in an activity like this is one that would make every child and his or her family
proud.
The article “What Motivates Students to Read? Four Literacy Personalities,”
although seemingly very different from the topic of integrated curriculum, actually
perfectly goes hand in hand with the topic of integrated curriculum. This article was a
case study of four different students in a second grade class; two were boys, two were
girls, two of which were average to below average readers, and two of which were
average to above average readers. The classroom teacher, Jill Cole, doubled as the
researcher and explored the four readers’ intrinsic motivation composed of their beliefs,
reasons and purposes for participation and engagement, affective reactions, along with
each child’s self-efficacy, or their own beliefs about their chance of successfully
completing tasks. Cole discovered the students’ individual literacy personality through
observation and close attention to behaviors of the children and data obtained through
formal and informal assessment. Cole believes that “It is a teacher’s greatest challenges
to motivate and meet the needs of each literacy personality in thee classroom” (Cole
2002). By the end of the school year, Cole had discovered that all four students had four
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very different but unique literacy personalities. Finding out these personalities allowed
her to successfully cater to each child’s needs. She realized that all of the students, who
came into her classroom on very different reading levels, could all become successful,
fluent readers with individualized attention to the literacy personalities that each child
possessed. With this individualized attention, each child was engaged in learning and
successful at reading. How does this relate to an integrated curriculum? An integrated
curriculum is formatted with the purpose of engaging every child in learning. Teachers
must pay attention to their students’ individual needs in order to make an integrated
curriculum successful.
In my own classroom some day, I plan to get to know each of my students
through interviews, data gathering, and close observations throughout the school year in
order to get to know my students and their literacy personalities as well as possible. I will
constantly reassess progress and support positive academic behaviors of all of my
students. With the information I obtain through these methods, I will build an integrated
curriculum containing several thematic units that will best benefit every student in my
classroom.
Successful curriculum integration separates the good teachers from the great ones.
Teachers who can integrate the curriculum within their classrooms set their students up
for a higher comprehension and retention rate of material, a greater ability to solve
problems and think critically, and a greater ownership of individual education and
achievement. The more efficient and effective that a curriculum is, the more educated
students will be for generations to come. Successful curriculum integration should be the
ultimate goal of every educator of every grade and subject at every level.
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References
Benson, T.R. (Sept. 2004). Integrated Teaching Units. PBS Teachers. Retrieved from:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/
Cole, J. E. (2002). What Motivates Students to Read? Four Literacy Personalities.
Reading Teacher, 56(4), 326.
Lapp, D. (1994). Integrating the Curriculum: First Steps. Reading Teacher, 47(5), 416.
Warnod, H. (2002). Integrated Curriculum: Designing Curriculum in the Immersion
Classroom. Modern Language Teachers’ Association of Victoria, 2(3).