Interdisciplinary Unit Design

Do you struggle to create meaningful interdisciplinary units (IDUs)?
Would you like to enhance your approach to combining IDUs, experiential learning, and service learning?

Inspire Citizens offers you the service of creating and carrying out a full IDU during the regular timetable; by collapsing the timetable; or during a “week without walls” trip. This service would include:

  • Collaboration with Teachers: Developing a comprehensive unit plan tailored to specific learning outcomes.

  • Evidence of Learning: Collecting relevant data for each student to assess their progress.

  • Assessment Alignment: Utilizing required assessment criteria to ensure alignment with interdisciplinary aims and objectives.

  • Focused Learning Outcomes: Emphasizing skills such as evaluating, synthesizing, and reflecting throughout the unit.

  • Engaged Learning: Providing real-world, sustainable, community-connected service learning experiences for students.

  • Teacher Development: Offering coaching to teachers to enhance their understanding and skills in effective teaching methodologies.

  • Interdisciplinary Focus: Integrating various subject areas to create a cohesive learning experience.

  • Community Partnership: Collaborating with local organizations and stakeholders to enrich student learning experiences.

  • Sustainability Practices: Incorporating sustainable practices and concepts into the learning activities.

  • Ongoing Support: Providing continuous support and resources for both students and teachers throughout the process.

 

Included services

  • Inspire citizens will explore the vision of the IDU, which could include Global Citizenship Ed (GCED), Service learning, and curricular connections in experiential or project-based learning.

  • inspire citizens will meet with school stakeholders to design the IDU, including the off-site experiences and ideas for pre and post trip learning. Inspire Citizens will present a draft IDU design that includes proposed key and related concepts, global contexts, inquiry statements, and guiding questions as a starting point.

  • inspire citizens will meet with the teaching team to plan and design for ongoing, appropriate collection of learning data throughout the IDU. Teachers will be guided and coached through the evidence of learning collection both on and off site. This will allow for formative and summative assessment of student learning against required assessment criteria, to meet the stated interdisciplinary aims and objectives of evaluating, synthesizing, and reflecting.

  • Inspire citizens will meet with school stakeholders to plan and design reporting of student achievement in interdisciplinary learning to students and parents.

  • Inspire citizens will meet with trip chaperones/advisors to plan pre-learning sessions and reflections with the trip itinerary in mind.

  • Inspire citizens will meet with trip providers to ensure that daily trip itineraries match the above identified aims and objectives.

  • inspire citizens will collaborate to jointly create disciplinary and interdisciplinary content for the IDU.

  • Inspire Citizens facilitators work with experiential learning providers/vendors to conduct this experience in a select location where students engage in real world citizen science, exploring the concepts in their unit in a global location suitable to the goals of their experience.  Inspire Citizens will lead the on-site work as well as all of the preparation for the on-site experience with support from trip chaperones/advisors

  • inspire citizens will have a post IDU reflection with school stakeholders and service providers. 

Tiers of Service

Tier 1 🌱

  • An Inspire Citizens consultant guides and advises the teacher team.

  • Supports unit planning and delivery.

  • Assists in gathering evidence of learning.

 

Tier 2 🪴

  • Includes all services from Tier 1.

  • Aids in creating and planning locally based experiential learning opportunities.

  • Facilitates key stages of the IDU directly with students.

  • Leads educators through assessment processes.

 

Tier 3 🌳

  • Includes the planning and delivery of a full IDU by Inspire Citizens.

  • Involves support from the teacher team.

  • Utilizes one or two Inspire Citizens consultants.

  • Provides additional support as needed from the teaching team.

  • Planning and delivering the IDU.

  • Planning for and gathering evidence of student learning for each student throughout the unit.

  • Reporting on each student’s learning using the IDU assessment criteria.

  • Organizing the logistics of all associated events and any off-campus trips.

 
 

IDU Design in collaboration with: Jan Mark Seewald

 

Experience the impact of interdisciplinary learning today!

Give your teachers the professional learning that they need to continue to deliver interdisciplinary learning, and help students use their skills across concepts to engage with our changing world.