Designing an Integrative Interdisciplinary Activity in Reading and Social Studies Aimed at Development of a Unified Conceptual Understanding in Multi-Grade Classrooms

In integrative teaching establishing a meaningful connection between different concepts and subjects is a way of creating a learning opportunity. Integrating the basic concepts in Reading with those in Social Studies in elementary school can help students better understand the concepts and their relationships. In real life we encounter issues and situations that require an integrative understanding of different sciences in order to be dealt with successfully. Integrative teaching can be of help in such situations. In this project integrative activities were designed using concepts in Reading and Social Studies, and then validated by a focus group of 10 educational leaders. Findings show that with identification of objectives in each lesson, and considering the standards of designing integrative activities, the discovery of interconnections between different educational contents can lead to integrative activities in any areas such as Reading and Social Studies lessons. The designed activities were initially reviewed by a team of experts in multi-grade teaching, and then reconstructed based on the feedback given by the team. Through such an approach it can be expected that school and learning become attractive and motivating for students.