Integrated VS Differentiated Curriculum

Here we keenly discuss the differentiated and integrated curriculum and first of all we discuss differentiated curriculum

Differentiated Curriculum

Adapting the curriculum to meet the unique needs of gifted learners by making modifications in complexity, depth, or pacing. It may include selecting rather than covering all elements of a curriculum, depending on the individual needs of students.

Differentiation is not a recipe for teaching.   It is not an instructional strategy.  It is not what a teacher does when he or she has time.  It is a way about teaching and learning.  It is a philosophy. As such, it is based on the following set of beliefs.

Students who are the same age differ in their readiness to learn, their interests, their styles of learning, their experiences, and their life circumstances. 

The differences in students are significant enough to make a major impact on what students need to learn, the pace at which they need to learn, and the support they need from teachers and others to learn it well.

Students will learn best when supportive adults push them slightly beyond where they can work without assistance. 

Students will learn best when they can make a connection between the curriculum and their interests and life experiences.

Students will learn best when learning opportunities are natural.

Students are more effective learners when classrooms and schools create a sense of community in which students feel significant and respected.

Differentiation must be a refinement of, not a substitute for high quality curriculum and instruction.  Expert or distinguished teaching focuses on the understanding and skills of a discipline, causes students to wrestle with profound ideas, help students organize and make sense of ideas and information, and aids students in connecting the classroom with a wider world.

Principles of a differentiated curriculum for high-ability learners include some or all of the following:

·         Presenting content that is related to broad-based issues, themes or problems.

·         Integrating multiple disciplines into the area of study.

·         Presenting comprehensive, related and mutually reinforcing experience within an area of study.

·         Allowing for in-depth learning of a self-selected topic within the area of study.

·         Develop independent or self-directed study skills.

·         Developing productive, complex, abstract and/or higher level thinking skills.

·         Focusing on open ended tasks.

·         Developing research skills and methods.

·         Integrating basic skills and higher-level thinking into the curriculum.

·         Encouraging the development of products that challenge existing ideas and produce "new" ideas.

·         Encourage the development of products that use new techniques, materials and forms.

·         Encourage the development of self understanding.

·         Evaluating student outcomes by using appropriate and specific criteria through self-appraisal, criterion-referenced and or standardized instruments. 

A general education teacher should differentiate curriculum in response to the learner's needs, guided by the following general principles of differentiation.

Respectful Tasks:  A classroom teacher ensures that students' learning is respected.  The teacher does this by assessing the readiness level of each student by evaluating competency in the skills and concepts included in the local curriculum standards, expecting and supporting continual growth in all students by providing challenging curriculum, offering all students the opportunity to explore skills and understanding at appropriate degrees of difficulty, offering all students tasks that are equally interesting, important and engaging.

Flexible Grouping: Teachers link learners with essential understandings and skills at appropriate levels of challenge and interest.  This could mean that students are working in groups on a variety of tasks at the appropriate depth, complexity, and speed for those involved.

Integrated curriculum

An integrated curriculum is one that is past the boundaries that are imposed by traditional subject boundaries. It includes the integration of content with skills and processes. The integrated curriculum seeks to provide a context for learning processes and skills.

It is important to understand that curriculum integration is an idea that has a strong historical background. Disciplines were created in an attempt to organize the world around them; sometimes this was motivated by political means Educational reform has roots dating as far back as the progressive era. The philosophy behind educational reform during the progressive era centered around an emphasis on student creativity, applicable outcomes, "natural" learning, and student experience This belief system has been the fundamental base for integrated curriculum. Supporters of the progressive educational reform believed that the different disciplines prevented students from making connections between the different subjects. Therefore, the relevance of the material decreased.

Components of Integrated Curriculum

• Focuses on basic skills, content and higher level thinking
• Encourages lifelong learning
• Structures learning around themes, big ideas and meaningful concepts
• Provides connections among various curricular disciplines
• Provides learners opportunities to apply skills they have learned
• Encourages active participation in relevant real-life experiences
• Captivates, motivates, and challenges learners
• Provides a deeper understanding of content
• Offers opportunities for more small group and industrialized instruction
• Accommodates a variety of learning styles/theories (i.e., social learning theory, cooperative learning, intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy) and multiple intelligences

Curriculum Integration

Curriculum Integration connects academics across disciplines and often with technical/career content, incorporating standards, real world problems and applications, and the individual student needs and interests.

Other terms used include interdisciplinary teaching, thematic teaching, and synergistic teaching. All these terms…refer to an educational approach that prepares children for lifelong learning. There is a strong belief among those who support curriculum integration that schools must look at education as a process for developing abilities required by life in the twenty-first century, rather than discrete, departmentalized subject matter. In general, all of the definitions of integrated curriculum or interdisciplinary curriculum include:

·         a combination of subjects

·         an emphasis on projects

·         sources that go beyond textbooks

·         relationships among concepts

·         thematic units as organizing principles

·         flexible schedules

·         flexible student grouping

Four steps for Designing Integrated Curriculum Units include:

1. Mapping Learning Goals
2. Brainstorm Generative Theme
3. Create Activities, Web Diagram, and Time Line
4. Evaluate the Integrated Curriculum Unit

Why do schools adopt integrated curriculum?

As educators, we are constantly searching for new ways to help students make sense of the multitude of life’s experiences and the bits and pieces of knowledge they gain from a traditionally departmentalized curriculum. Students today continue to move from one discipline to the next forcing the information to be disconnected to any thing that resembles real life situations. To lighten some of the fragmentation our students and teachers experience, holistic and integrated curriculums are being proposed and adopted by many school districts. A major driving force behind integrated teaching and learning is the belief that when themes, subjects, or projects are combined students begin to see meaningful connections between the subject matter. Material then serves as a vehicle for learning rather than simply pieces of information. In addition to this, repetition of material from one subject to the next is essentially eliminated.

How does an integrated curriculum impact our students?

Integrated curriculum adopts a student-centered approach, by nature of its definition, it moves further away from the modernist viewpoint. With an integrated curriculum, a "right" way to complete a task does not exist. Students are free to reach conclusions on their own and they are provided with many different perspectives, affording students the opportunity to question the conclusions of their teachers. A table diagramming the perspectives of the modernist and the post-modernist is listed below.  

What do the critics say?

The benefits for integrated curriculum are rather intriguing and possible quite accurate. However, the claims and their ultimate outcome are difficult to measure. Critics of integrated curriculum have formulated several arguments against the idea. First, it is sometimes appropriate for information to be taught within the content area. Some concepts run the risk of becoming confused when connected to unrelated subject matter. Secondly, most teachers have always been a part of a somewhat modernist method of teaching. Therefore, implementing integrated curriculum becomes increasingly more difficult. Third, critics claim that many teachers may lack knowledge and skills of the various disciplines. Finally, a key criticism of integrated curriculum is assessment. Schools continue to struggle with effective methods to assess student achievement in regard to higher level thinking and deeper understanding. In order for integrated curriculum to replace traditional teaching styles, the entire structure of the school needs to change. For example, block scheduling and teaming will need to be implemented. Frankly, this is a change that many modernist teachers are not willing to accept.