Cross-Curricular Activities and Technology Integration

One of the benefits of teaming is being able to promote cross-curricular learning.  The easiest way to integrate other content areas is by using the vocabulary from your teammates' classes and knowing what their student objectives (we call them learning targets) are. Here is one easy example of how we have used cross-curricular activities WITH technology.

ELA and social studies often go hand-in-hand. Social studies has a great amount of non-fiction reading in the content area. With the push to Common Core State Standards, ELA has a good focus on reading for information. We discussed the ELA CCSS RIT.1:

•Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Mrs. Dixon taught students the difference between explicit information and implicit information within a non-fiction text. They chose and read articles, identified information, and created graphics to accompany those articles.

In social studies, Mrs. Esneault used the terms "explicit" and "implicit" when discussing non-fiction texts within the content area. Students identified questions to answer about the content, then found explicit and implicit information in responding to those questions. Using Web 2.0 tools, students created a non-fiction graphic to represent ideas learned about the subject.

We knew we had truly arrived with cross-curricular connections about explicit and implicit information when the students, in math class, exclaimed during an activity on LCM and GCF, "Mrs. Rouillier, some of this is implicit information!" when they referred to word problems.

We frequently collaborate and integrate the vocabulary from each others' classes to help students make connections.

Integrating ELA Into Social Studies, leads to Math connection!

Article contributed by Jennifer Dixon, Jennifer Esneault, and Katie Rouillier