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4. By allowing students to feel they have power over their own learning, students are better able to build relationships within their learning and environment, encouraging children to be active and engaged learners (Sorin & Galloway, 2006). From an educational point of view, this also has reference to the Reggio Emilia Approach; a curriculum that is negotiated, emergent, and actively designed with and by students focusing on their strengths and interests. This can be considered an integrated model of learning as it allows students to focus on a topic of interest and gain understanding by looking at an array of subjects within a topic. Placing focus on an immersed curriculum provides students with opportunities to control their own learning and most importantly discover new ways of applying knowledge throughout all aspects of their lives.

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3. Integrated studies encourages students to be directly involved in their learning and teaches them about their own learning process. This provides students with a greater understanding of the purpose of what they are learning and the reasons why it is included in todays curriculum (Murdoch, 1998). The exponential style of the Australian Curriculum creates many opportunities for total student involvement through collaboration with their teacher (Whitton, Barker, Nosworthy, Sinclair & Nanlohy, 2010). This allows students to process their learning experiences in a variety of ways and also prompts students to reflect on their learning to add greater meaning to their classroom lessons (Murdoch, 1998). Integrated approaches allow for the varying interests of students by creating engaging and supportive classroom environments, aiming to move students into “Deeper Levels of Thinking” (McDonald, 2013). This higher order thinking, focuses on students ability to organise, synthesise, examine, challenge and ultimately apply well understood knowledge instead of providing facts without any context (Hanlon, 2004).

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2. In the 21st century, children, and therefore our students, are viewed as capable and competent individuals who deserve shared power and respect. By taking this approach to developing curriculum we are able to encourage students to become co-constructors in their learning (Sorin, 2005). This facilitates a more holistic approach to education, which is essentially what integrated studies aims to do. This provides us as teachers with greater opportunities to see whether students are simply acquiring facts or really developing detailed understandings (Murdoch, 2003). This again adds meaning to student learning as they are researching and finding meanings in their own investigations.

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1. ‘Meaningful ways’ can be understood to be making learning relevant and engaging for students, ensuring they have an understanding of why they are learning specific content and focusing on learning in designated areas. Making learning meaningful to students through Integrating their studies involves teaching students a variety of skills, values and understandings within connected contexts (Murdoch, 2003). By placing a greater emphasis on the connections between learning areas, we are able to provide students with real life examples of how to apply what they are taught in school to other aspects of their lives. This aides teachers in making students learning meaningful by providing them with experiences that they are able to draw upon when making decision and continuing to develop far greater understandings in the future. By focusing on these connections within an integrated curriculum, students are encouraged to do their own investigating and develop a far greater knowledge base, making learning ‘meaningful’.

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Rob Reg

Gordon (2014) describes the term Integrated Studies as "An approach to teaching and learning that connects knowledge, understanding and skills from within or across subject areas in meaningful ways". When considering this statement, what do you think she means by 'meaningful ways'?