Course Description
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In this course, students explore how individuals and groups have worked to effect change in the city of Boston and its surrounding areas throughout history and today using the disciplines of English, social studies, and mathematics. The course content looks at different historical eras, including today, through the lenses of population, government, economy, education, and art & leisure.
Through in-class activities, creative media projects, field study trips, and more, students practice and develop a variety of important 21st century skills, such as oral communication and collaboration. Students also use iPads and digital tools to learn and harness the power of technology in their studies. The culmination of the class is a Community Action Project in which students work together on real-world problem solving by identifying issues and enacting change in their community. Thus, by the end of the year students themselves become agents of change, taking active roles in impacting their world. |
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Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning
At its core, the practice of interdisciplinary teaching and learning is founded on the idea that while there is an important diversity in course offerings and content, all classes have underlying connections between them that should be identified and exploited as powerful means of student learning. In other words, while students often walk from one classroom to another, keeping their work in different classes very separate, the interdisciplinary model encourages the use of common learning goals that focus on skills children can use in a variety of contexts.
This lends to the term “skill-based,” in that the focus of a class becomes more on the flexible acquisition of a skill versus the more static knowledge of content. While content still plays an important role, it is the skills upon which the class experience is founded and that which provides for transfer amongst classes. For example, no one would argue that written communication is an essential component of an English class, but also to a social studies or science course, as well as the world outside of school.
Thus, the major importance of these skills is that they are found not just in one classroom, and not even just in a second or third classroom, but in a variety of academic, professional, and personal contexts. Furthermore, inherent in this philosophy is the use of technology as a powerful tool for use in modernizing and enhancing teaching and learning; technology is one of the means through which students develop essential skills such as communication, collaboration, and self-direction.
This lends to the term “skill-based,” in that the focus of a class becomes more on the flexible acquisition of a skill versus the more static knowledge of content. While content still plays an important role, it is the skills upon which the class experience is founded and that which provides for transfer amongst classes. For example, no one would argue that written communication is an essential component of an English class, but also to a social studies or science course, as well as the world outside of school.
Thus, the major importance of these skills is that they are found not just in one classroom, and not even just in a second or third classroom, but in a variety of academic, professional, and personal contexts. Furthermore, inherent in this philosophy is the use of technology as a powerful tool for use in modernizing and enhancing teaching and learning; technology is one of the means through which students develop essential skills such as communication, collaboration, and self-direction.
