Research-Informed Schools Special Interest Group – Integrating the Curriculum: Lessons from interdisciplinary learning in German and Swiss schools: 22 October

This presentation explores Hermione Paddle’s PhD research into the ways in which teachers in international schools develop and implement an integrated or interdisciplinary curriculum. Several factors arising out of school contexts play an important role including aspects such as the very compartmentalised nature of secondary schooling generally. Other factors that inhibit and enable interdisciplinary learning include teachers’ professional identity and their sense of ‘subject loyalty’, as well as the school’s size, planning time, the turnover of staff, teachers attitudes and perceptions of interdisciplinarity and even the very way they conceptualise it. This presentation draws on some of the qualitative data taken from interviewing 25 teachers at nine different schools in order to capture some of the insights offered by these teachers about how to foster integrated, cross-curricular collaborations in secondary international schools.

PRESENTED BY:

Hermione Paddle

Hermione Paddle has been teaching for ten years at the Bavarian International School in Munich. She has taught MYP and DP English and Theory of Knowledge and has worked as Department Head and as the Assistant MYP Coordinator. She has done work for the IB in curriculum development for the Extended Essay and produced resources for IB Exchange. Her Masters is in Literacy and she is currently completing her PhD at University College London exploring interdisciplinary learning in international schools.

Carol Lai

Carol has been working in international schools (English and Mathematics teachers; CAS Coordinator and Math Subject Coordinator; Professional Learning Panel) in Taiwan, Vietnam and Hungary since 2016. Her academic backgrounds include classical music, literary studies and Mathematics. These backgrounds have shaped her as a curious inquirer and active listener wherever she goes. As a trilingual (Mandarin Chinese, English and German), she embraces the beauty of cultural and linguistic diversity. In her daily teaching,