It is my experience that we compartmentalize knowledge entirely too often in schools, labelling some ways of learning mathematics, other ways of knowing science, and still other ways of knowing the humanities. We compartmentalize knowledge so much in schools that I believe it leads to what I like to call Sitcom teaching, in which each lesson is a stand alone that does not depend on any other subject areas (or often even the previous lessons in the same class) in order to be learned by students.
This is a dangerous practice because it leads students to believe that mathematical thinking is somehow incredibly distinct from other types of thinking and to the logical conclusion that they can get by in life without being able to reason mathematically, or that it is even possible to live life without using mathematical reasoning. This is clearly false – the similarity between what we think of as different modes of thinking is much more than the differences. Just thinking of similarities and differences as I have pointed out in the previous sentence, a common activity in the social sciences, is using the basic ideas inherent in mathematical set theory.
A potential cure for compartmentalization is multidisciplinary learning, wherein the skills, knowledge, and modes of thinking are rejoined together to form whole projects.
Here are some sample multidisciplinary projects:
- Build a community garden
At the end of the season, they could harvest and cook their own food. They could give away the food to a local food bank.
- Run a store
Students could create budgets, order supplies, and keep track of inventory. They could research the health benefits (and problems) associated with various kinds of food. They could write proposals to change inventory selection. They could read about the manufacturing process for the goods in their store, and write letters to the manufacturers either requesting more information or a change in harmful practices. They could use their experiences in the store as a background for a short story. They could sell their art work, or books of their poetry. They could donate the proceeds to charity, or use them to buy supplies for their school.
- Create an (rock) opera
Writing musical scores would let students learn more about fractions, sequences, and counting. Students could research different musical styles, and learn more about their culture. Students could create the music, the stage settings, design the costumes, program the lighting sequence, and create the program booklet for the performance night. Students could create multiple storylines and then find ways to bring their ideas together (where possible).
Of course, there are a lot of other project ideas not listed here. To implement these in most current school settings, teachers would have to collaborate and work together fairly well, and we might have to set aside some of our standard school schedules. However, we should never let the school schedule have too much control over the kinds of learning activities we do with our students.
What other benefits do you see to this approach? What are the problems with it?
MUKESH KUMAR says:
i am very impressed with the example of multidisciplinary projects given by you. i too a maths teacher teaching in a school and i was searching regarding this.
thanks a lot for sharing your views
May 2, 2013 — 5:14 am
Mr.Akhila Ranjan Dash says:
I am a Social Science teacher. The M.D. project sample provided by you is quite a good one.
Thanks a lot for the same.
Dept. of Social Science
DAV Public School
Pokhariput, Bhubaneshwar
Odisha, India
March 11, 2015 — 3:33 pm
Mani Kant Mishra says:
The M.D is really very creative and innovative.Thanks a lot for the same.
July 24, 2015 — 7:14 am
anshu yadav says:
i want a multidisciplinary project in social-science for class IX . can u pls help
September 26, 2015 — 1:55 am
David Wees says:
Have you mapped out the topics in social studies and science to see if there is any overlap during the year?
September 28, 2015 — 2:40 am
Prakash reddy says:
Need your help for M.D. projects covering languages plus matha, science and science for classes VI to VIII
November 30, 2015 — 4:31 am
David Wees says:
Hi Prakash,
I don’t know enough about those classes to be able to help you. Can you give me more detail about what is taught in those courses?
David
November 30, 2015 — 11:21 am
pandey shikha says:
Hi, i want more information about this project .how can this help me for prep student?.
December 23, 2015 — 1:55 pm
sananda choudhury says:
please help me with more samples of MD Projects for classes 1 to 8.
February 11, 2016 — 9:35 am
David Wees says:
Hi Sananda,
I’d need more detail than that. What kinds of projects are you hoping to find? What do you mean by classes 1 to 8?
February 12, 2016 — 2:51 am
ayesha says:
can you give me any ideas for an MD project based on sports? i want to do something based on a hypothesis, like for eg – do drugs boost the performance of players?
May 10, 2016 — 10:26 am
David Wees says:
That sounds like a potential statistics project. You could run an experiment, but it’s important to make sure that your experiment follows ethical guidelines. Drugs might boost the performance of players but they may also cause health problems, so that makes it a difficult topic to study.
What else would you want to learn about sports? There’s literally tonnes of data just in the newspaper and the sports scores, for example.
May 10, 2016 — 11:03 am