Principles of Teaching: Integrative Teaching Strategies

I said on my previous post that I will just "copy-paste" some articles from the net. However, I was not satisfied by what I found especially about integrative teaching. Consequently, I'm back to giving my own perspective rather just "copy-pasting". And now let me present to you integrative teaching.

Integrative teaching is one of the emerging trends in education for the past years. It focuses on connections rather teaching isolated facts. For instance, a certain different subject may be integrated in teaching another subject (Like the content of Science be taught in teaching Language). With this, learners will be able to realize that subjects being taught to them are not separate and isolated field of knowledge, but are linked to each other in order to achieve understanding and concept attainment.

Furthermore, integrative teaching aims to connect what is learned in school to real life situations, thus it is more on developing problem solving and discussions of issues in the real world. Learners will learn to relate what they learn and apply it to their own daily lives.

In addition, integrative teaching involves consideration on the learners' individual differences. These include multiple intelligences and learning styles. The teacher therefore must present the lesson in various ways that can cater each learner's uniqueness.

Finally, when we say integrative teaching, we must remember the ABC domain of our objectives. The cognitive, behavioral and affective dimensions in teaching must be given balanced consideration. Values must be integrated in instruction across all subject areas. Through this, we are molding "integrated" learners, or well rounded individuals.

Examples of integrative teaching include Content-Based Instruction, Thematic Teaching, Focusing Inquiry and Generic Competency Model. Watch out for my post about these.