Transdisciplinary Approach in Middle School: A Case Study of Co-teaching Practices in STEAM Teams

Abstract

A call for educational reform motivated this school system to devise an enhanced version of STEM in their middle school. This case provides rich descriptions of how eighth grade middle school teachers, from multiple disciplines, enacted a STEAM team model that integrated Language Arts into STEM. These STEAM team teachers were systematically studied during field observations of 100+ class sessions using what they referred to as transdisciplinary co-teaching, flexible scheduling, and multiple types of physical spaces to further engage students. Different dimensions of co-teaching were observed. The most frequently observed was reconstructed, followed by predisciplinary, correlated, and shared. Types of instruction other than reconstructed, did not fit the school’s proposed definitions of transdisciplinary co-teaching. Thoughts are shared on lessons learned.