Using inter-disciplinary programs to encourage integrated work across the curriculum

✍ Scribed by Pauline Bleach

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1987
• Weight: 462 KB
• Volume: 3
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-9287
• DOI: 10.1016/s0167-9287(87)80014-6

✦ Synopsis

If microcomputers are to be used to support and extend good primary practice, a learning model which allows children to discover freely needs to be employed. The most effective type of software to encourage this is that described as 'revelatory'. Simulations, which fulfil both demands, stimulate skill development in a way not previously available via traditional classroom methods. By using a full resource package, such as Wagons West, in a group collaborative situation, many social, verbal and pedagogical skills can be engendered. The emphasis is upon skill-based and conceptual learning across the curriculum rather than on the acquisition of discrete subject-based knowledge. This leads to a new role for teachers as managers of children's learning rather than as didactic imparters of knowledge.