Developing teachers’ interdisciplinary expertise: Design principles for teacher educators

Abstract

This resource book aims to provide teacher educators with ideas, possibilities and practices for interdisciplinary teaching and learning. The resource is split into four main sections. The first section presents an overview of the project, introduces interdisciplinary expertise within a teaching practice context, and presents an ecological framework that presents interdisciplinary teaching practices spanning three levels: micro, meso and macro. The second section presents design principles across each level of the framework. The purpose of these design principles is to help design for teacher’s interdisciplinary learning. The third section presents an activity to develop a framework that articulates what interdisciplinary expertise entails in a specific context, situating it in a broader context of the most important areas of teachers’ interdisciplinary practices, needs for professional learning and enablers and barriers. The purpose of this activity is to provide a flexible but structured approach to understanding and enhancing teachers' interdisciplinary expertise. The fourth and final section presents five case studies from in-service and pre-service teacher educators presenting interdisciplinary teaching and learning practices. These case studies provide ideas and opportunities for developing teachers’ interdisciplinary expertise.