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hi this is Paul from Petri education and
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today I'm going to be speaking about
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integrated subjects which is part one of
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a continuing series on 21st century
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education integrated subjects is in an
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area of 21st century education that I'm
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particularly passionate about it's also
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an area that's not very well understood
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publicly there are various reasons for
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this firstly there are different terms
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for integrated subjects such as subject
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integration interdisciplinary studies
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and even theme based learning or project
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based learning also there are various
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levels of integration and this creates
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more complexity author Robert fogy
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presents 10 different levels of
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integration in his book how to integrate
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the curricula and we have to bear in
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mind that the average individual has
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this ingrained mentality that subjects
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should be taught separately however I
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disagree with this and I hope you do too
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as you're watching this
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video so what do I mean by integrated
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subjects well firstly this defin
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definely includes theme based learning
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there's this level of knowledge that is
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required but we don't think about this
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knowledge in terms of a specific subject
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era is this knowledge that's required to
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understand a theme or a topic then at
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some point there's a project that takes
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place and this is an exploratory project
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one which requires skills and let us not
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forget higher level thinking skills all
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of those advocated by Bloom's taxonomy
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let's look at an example of a theme a
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simple one would be sustain ility but
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actually when you start trying to apply
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this in education you realize that
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sustainability is a very very broad
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theme it encompasses everything so we
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have to look at a narrower theme within
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that uh what we could class as like a
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sub theme so we could go for something
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like resource
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sustainability when you look at the
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sustainability of Natural Resources you
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immediately start thinking about
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specific subjects we've got geography
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geology chemistry biology math and of
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course language arts whatever your theme
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is and whatever your sub theme is it
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needs to be broad enough to utilize as
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many different subject areas as possible
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does that mean that we exclude certain
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themes I have to say yes think about
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this way if the thing that you want
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children to study is only useful within
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that one subject area then what is the
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purpose of studying that one example
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would be calculus the average individual
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is highly unlikely to ever use calculus
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in real life unless they're moving into
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occupations such as economy as physics
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engineering unless the students are able
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to study the higher level application of
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calculus in some form or another to make
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it relevant so for example if you were
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studying a theme related to space travel
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then you could incorporate calculus
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within that but could also incorporate
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other subject areas as well including
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history and politics as well as things
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like physics language arts again then as
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part of this theme you need the
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application and the application comes
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from creating project projects so as we
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mentioned before this project is an
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exploratory project where the students
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actually get to apply the knowledge and
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apply skills but think about it this way
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it's like a university paper with
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projects based learning you actually do
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more than that you create things you
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make things and you definitely look at
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many different subject areas as part of
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your project another theme would be
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globalization again this is a very very
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broad theme so let's look at a narrower
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example like food globalization
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immediately I start thinking about
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geography and math which would include
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economics biology chemistry so the kind
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of Earth Sciences sociology history
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politics math again but more connected
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with things like physics so applied math
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language ARS so what about something
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like art where does art come into this
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for me unless you're studying the
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history of art I don't really see how
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art should be studied as a separate
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subject art is an expression of an IDE
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idea what you want to communicate and so
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if you're studying art in isolation
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you're detaching it from what you're
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trying to express you can study the
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skills of art but it's not just about
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trying to imitate someone else's art
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form it's about finding your own way of
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expressing your ideas about that
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specific theme students should be taught
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and encouraged to use as many different
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art forms as possible this includes
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Performing Arts which again are
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expressions of ideas expressions of
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feelings emotions and ways of commun
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communicating ideas to an audience and I
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feel the same way about technology
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technology is not a separate subject
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area technology is a tool that's to be
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used to express or to be able to
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research within the theme and to be
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integrated with all those other
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different subject areas it's not
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something to be studied in isolation
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because then you detach technology from
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what it's used for and what about
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knowledge well knowledge is definitely
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necessary but at the moment it seems to
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start from birth and then just Contin
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continue forever with no transition
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whatsoever into the high level thinking
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skills that we've been talking about
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because it seems like the moment young
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people learn one thing we seem to find
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something else equally important for
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them to learn next there's never time
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given towards actually applying the
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knowledge that they learned before so
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therefore there has to be a balance
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between knowledge and application and
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there has to be a transition in this as
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well so we're not flicking a switch
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we're not saying to Educators okay today
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is your first day at high school so now
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it's time to start using higher level
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thinking skills no it's not like that at
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all we have to be able to say that when
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you first start learning that there is
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an element of application but because of
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your age and because of your knowledge
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that you're not able to apply that
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knowledge very well so therefore you
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need to put greater emphasis on learning
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facts at the younger age and then
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gradually make a transition where you
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learn less facts but you do more
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application you never eliminate fact
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learning because it's something that we
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can do forever but as this graph shows
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you see that transition where at some
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point where the application takes over
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the fact-based learning as the priority
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Education now there's no specific age
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for this to take place it's based on the
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developmental ability of the child some
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children may not be capable or very good
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at applying knowledge but that doesn't
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mean to say that you eliminate this
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because of their age they should still
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be learning to apply knowledge anyway
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that wraps up today's video I hope you
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enjoyed it if you did please give us a
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rating and if you'd like to watch more
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of the like this please subscribe if you
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haven't already done so the next video
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I'll be bringing out will be about
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technology this is Paul from Petro
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education thanks for watching