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Murdoch (1998) further explains how Integrated Learning gives students and educators an opportunity to develop a more malleable curriculum that not only encompasses different learning styles but ability levels. This allows learning objectives to be flexible and therefore more accessible for all students, Piaget (1936) too saw the need for flexibility within the learning environment which concurs with this view.

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STEAM jobs continue to rise, making integrated learning even more relevant (University of Florida, 2017).

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The need for jobs that relate to integrated learning continues to grow (U.S. Department of Education, 2015).

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The attached image highlights the key aspects of 21st Century Learning (Partnership for 21st century skills, 2011).

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21st Century Learning is very much sees Integrated Learning as a crucial part of the way educators should teach today. It encompasses multiple areas and skills within a topic, applying real life strategies to engage learners and this can be demonstrated in an authentic way in a setting other than the classroom. Some of the key areas to a successful 21st Century Learning approach revolves around the inclusion and integration of supportive technologies and other methods that may apply to the skills being taught, highlighting the need to include multiple methods within one subject (Partnership for 21st century skills, 2011). The attached image highlights the key aspects of 21st Century Learning.

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The below visual is a representation of how we learn and the amount of information retained when delivered via differing methods (National Training Laboratories, 2017).

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How does STEAM link to integrated learning

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How does STEAM link to integrated learning

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This diagram highlights the benefits of integrated learning and shows the importance of providing information in numerous ways as it furthers comprehension and the amount of information retained when delivered through methods such as STEAM and Integrated Learning (Brady, 2014). Given each student interprets learning at a different rate and to varying abilities, it is valuable to provide an approach that covers different areas, increasing the chances of all students participation and understanding (Ackerman & Perkins, 1989).

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Can you Integrate too much or too little?

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Can you Integrate too much or too little?

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There is not a prescribed number of content areas when designing an integrated unit, how many topics are integrated will depend on what is being taught and the objective of that lesson (Parliament of Australia, 2004). It would be a futile undertaking to incorporate additional content areas for the sake of integration. Likewise, failing to incorporate relevant topic areas will have a similarly detrimental effect. It is about finding the right balance for the educator and students. The strengths of STEAM and Integrated Learning is flexibility, by removing or adding too much, the tasks can become rigid and lose their intent or purpose they were originally designed for (Naidu, 2017). As highlighted in a document provided by the Parliament of Australia (2004), educators can be guilty of being too focused on inclusion, with the key point being it is not the quantity but the quality of the content being provided that matters (Barker and Nosworthy, 2010). Professor Taylor (2016) shows that methods such as STEAM that utilise integration have been proven to increase the quality of learning, provided the focus is on quality of the curricula program, rather than quantity of content areas covered.

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Integrated Learning is a method of teaching that interrelates multiple subjects within one topic (Murdoch, 1998). This approach mirrors that of STEAM, which is growing in popularity across schools, as Integrated Learning is viewed as ‘21st Century education’ (Taylor, 2016). Integrated Learning is a more comprehensive approach to education, providing students with the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of their learning as they can apply newly learnt skills to multiple scenarios.