There are many methods to use if you want to practice interdisciplinary teaching. These methods are used to teach across curricular disciplines to bring together separate disciplines around common theme, issue or problem.
One such method or approach is the Storyline way of teaching that we have choosen to explore during our Erasmus+ project.
During a storyline, teaching takes place in the form of a story that teachers and students create together in the classroom. The story forms a common thread and creates a context for the students. The students immerse themselves in different characters and work with these as a starting point.Storyline uses the form of the story to create context and engagement. The issue, problem or theme you want to explore is
interwoven in a story where the students are acting as the characters they have created.
To create tension in a story, you plan events in which the characters are involved. The characters help the students to view the problem, issue or theme from different perspectives. It also helps them to engage in problems or situations with feelings through their characters. It makes it possible to discuss what feelings that can be involved in difficult situations, first through the characters and then, if the students want to, through themselves.
Sustainable issues are complex and needs to be adressed from economic, social and ecological viewpoints. This is often easier if you have a story with charachters that are affected of what takes place in the story both economically, social and through the change in the environment.
Below you can hear Steve Bell, one of the original founders of storyline talk about how the need for crosscurricular teaching methods worked as a startingpoint for forming the storyline approach when they got a new curriculum in Scotland that demanded interdiciplinary teaching.
Steve Bell