Synopsis
No matter what you teach or how long you've been teaching, The Interdisciplinary Teacher's Handbook will help you inspire the curiosity and motivation at the heart of students' best learning experiences. True advocates of localized, exploration-based methodology, Tchudi and Lafer present a thoughtful approach to interdisciplinary teaching and offer lots of advice on developing your own program and curriculum.
Rather than reduce the interdisciplinary education to either "theory" or "practice," Tchudi and Lafer offer a full explanation of how the two areas can work together. They provide a rationale for interdisciplinary teaching that lets you understand the "why" before you accept the "how." Since the teacher's attitude is as important as the student's, they include brief exercises that ask you to reflect on your most powerful learning experiences so you can discover ways in which interdisciplinary methods match your natural thought processes. These "intermusings" enable you to introduce new methods with an experiential understanding of how the underlying theories work.
The authors never lose sight of the day-to-day difficulties teachers and administrators face. They offer practical information on several levels. The second part of the book is filled with "interdisciplinary jumpstarters," ideas for organizing interdisciplinary projects on a number of topics, complete with lists of additional materials. Throughout the book, Tchudi and Lafer suggest resources for interdisciplinary teaching that are commonly overlooked - local businesses, government agencies, people and places with histories and stories to tell. Administrators and teachers from all disciplines, at all levels, will find inspiration and practical support in this book.
About the Authors
Stephen Tchudi is professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he coordinates the interdisciplinary university seminars program and directs graduate programs in rhetoric and composition.
STEPHEN TCHUDI is professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he coordinates the interdisciplinary university seminars program and directs graduate programs in rhetoric and composition. He is author of some forty books for teachers, young people, and the general public, including The English/Language Arts Handbook: Classroom Strategies for Teachers Second Edition (coauthored with Susan Tchudi, Boynton/Cook, 1991). Tchudi is also past president of the National Council of Teachers of English and a member of the National Association for Science, Technology, and Society. He currently edits Halycon, an interdisciplinary humanities journal.STEPHEN LAFER teaches English education, general education, and middle school methods courses at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is codirector of the Truckee River project, a summer institute for teachers that focuses on interdisciplinary exploration into issues concerning the western region of the United States. Lafer is also past chair of the Assembly on Science and Humanities (ASH) of the National Council of Teachers of English.
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