Interdisciplinary Family Unit

http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec596/Units/family/thefamily.html

Designed by

Stacy Alvarez Jerrod Savala Pete Hughes Rich Uris Paul Theodore Ray Kinne

Introduction

This unit on families was developed at San Diego State University in EDTEC 596, Interdisciplinary Teaching with Technology, Bernie Dodge, Instructor. A great deal of time was also spent researching at O'Farrell Community School where a majority of the creators student teach.

It is a unit that explores the ideas and concepts behind families: what families are, how they are comprised, what roles they play in society, and how important they are to all of us.

Content Areas and Grades

This unit is designed to include aspects of social studies, language arts, physical education, science and computers. It was specifically designed for seventh or eighth graders, but as you will see, could be taught at almost any secondary level. There is a greater emphasis placed on social studies since that particular unit will be taught over an entire semester.

Curriculum Standards

We will address the curriculum standards for this unit using the California, San Diego, and other frameworks.

Social Studies Standards Addressed

This lesson is designed to encourage students to develop communications skills with students from other countries and cultures. They must be sensitive to the language they use and the questions they pose. The lesson also encourages critical thinking and deductive reasoning. Students must analyze the responses they receive from their e-mail counterparts and must arrive at conclusions based on data from different countries. They must formulate hypotheses drawn from their conclusions. They will be making comparisons among countries, and undoubtedly will make value judgments about the roles of families in different nations.

Language Arts Standards Addressed

The lessons developed for the Language Arts part of the curriculum utilize creative reading and writing activities which follow the philosophies of the California Framework. Each day focuses on group activities and the sharing of ideas within class. By incorporating these skills on a daily basis, each student is exposed to the basic necessities which are needed to promote higher learning and personal growth.

Science Standards Addressed

The science lessons for this unit are designed to engage students' ability to compare information, deduce conclusions, explore new possibilities for problems, experiment and work with others to reach a consensus. Students will evaluate scientific information regarding evolution, qualities of species and social behavior. They will work with this information individually and together to arrive at logical and scientific conclusions. The scientific family is not an abstract concept or theme. There are facts figures, and an abundance of research information that the students will delve into and understand.

Physical Education Standards Addressed

The health lesson deals with students' mental health. The knowledge they obtain of families will help them build a sense of self-esteem. This will allow them to further appreciate individuals and their differences.

Organizing Theme and Guiding Questions

This is unit is tied together by the concept of families. Each individual has a family, whether it be "traditional" or otherwise. Therefore, this theme will be based on students' prior knowledge. The guiding questions the students will gain insight into are: These questions ask students to consider the fundamental reasons for the existence of families worldwide. Clearly, there must be certain common attributes of families which make them necessary social entities, and students will be seeking to understand these attributes through their communication with students in other countries, their research, their own knowledge, what they gain from readings, and what they discover from each other and on their own.

Guiding Question Knowledge Comprehension Application Analysis Synthesis Evaluation
What is a family? Identify components of a family Translate to human, animal and plant families Rank in order of importanceCompare human to non human
Create a famous family tree Evaluate this family's contributions
What role does a family play?
List the roles families play
Give an example using your own or someone else's family
Imagine the roles of a prehistoric family		 Compare roles over different species
What if there were no families?
Justify the roles of families
How have families evolved over time?
Identify characteristics of families in several different historical periods		 Explain which characteristics have survived over time
Imagine it's the year 2100. How might characteristics differ?
What are the historical reasons for change in families
Create a theory of evolution		 Assess why certain characteristics have survived over others

Implementation Overview

This unit is interdisciplinary, and at times parallel. It will be taught over the course of a semester. At times, each discipline will be focusing on the family and it will be taught and reinforced the entire day. Overall, however, social studies and language arts spend greater lengths of time on their units because of extensive readings and the in depth research required in these areas. The science, computers and physical education components each last only a few weeks.

Material Resources Needed

The following resources will be required to teach these units:

Human Resources Needed

One teacher would be enough to implement this lesson, however, a classroom will always benefit with more instructors. For the social studies lesson, an extensive communication with another country will be required.

Entry Level Skills and Knowledge

Learners of this unit will need to come into this area with a prior knowledge of what a family is. Every individual has some variation of a family in their life. Although the existence of one may not be at home, families exist everywhere. Therefore all students will have the necessary background to begin exploring families, even if they are not aware of it.

A teacher would need the necessary skills to organize structure a classroom. Most teachers would be capable of teaching this unit, as long as they possesed a basic knowledge of the internet, creativity and energy to propel students, desire to see results and the hard- headedness to follow through with exercises that span a decent amount of time.

Outline of Activities

Language Arts Lesson

Week 1Students will review a variety of material depicting families in the future, including tv, movies, books, etc.
Week 2Students will participate in a socratic seminar discussing the role of the family in the future. Students will then break into groups and form their own societies.
Remaining Weeks The next section of this lesson will be spent exploring the novel Lord of the Flies and its implications to families.

Science Lesson

Week 1Week one of the science lesson will be spent studying different types of families; animal, plant, and human. This week will be used primarily to gather information and process it. Students will use each other and their texts as resources. Part of their objective will be to strengthen their comparing\contrasting skills and organizational skills.
Week 2Week 2 will go into greater depth by bringing the internet and film in as resources. Students will obtain more complicated information regarding family roles to preview their week on evolution.
Week 3The final week will be spent studying evolution. Students will begin this task using the internet. They will learn about evolution using an extremely informative home page that deals with it. Next, they will apply the knowledge they have acquired to a completely new situation, the family. This will bring in the past two weeks of work done on the family.

Social Studies Lesson 1

Week 1During the first week, students will break into groups and assign each other individual responsibilities for the upcoming project of creating a newsletter.
Week 2Student will spend this week gathering information on their selected country and time period.
Week 3They will spend this period actually putting the newsletter together.

Social Studies Lesson 2

Week 1Students will setup email accounts with individuals from different countries. They will then break into groups and select one country to communicate with.
Week 2Students will then brainstorm and come up with as many functions of families as they can. They will use resources such as the WWW, CD-Rom and encyclopedias. They will narrow and prioritize their lists.
Remaining WeeksThe remaining weeks will be spent gathering and organizing collected information from their e-mail countries. At the conclusion of this project, students will create murals that show the various functions of families.

Technology Lesson

Week1Students will learn about geneology, and methods to research family histories. Students will perform research and collect data.
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Week2Students will write essays about three of their family members.
Week 3Students will make morph movies of their relatives and insert them into their documents. Next, students will present their projects to their peers.

Physical Education Lesson

Week1Socratic Seminar: What is a family? Students will perform research on the topic.
Week25 page report on what each student believe a family is.
Week3Students will report their results and the class will decide as whole what qualities make a family.

Evaluation

This unit will be evaluated in many different ways in the individual disciplines. Also, to demonstrate the knowledge acquired while studying the family, students will do presentations. They will be responsible for compiling all the products that deal with families.

Conclusion

This unit will undertake the responsibility of teaching the importance of families to students. By the end of this exploration, students should be able to understand the value of families. Since they are learning about so many different kinds of families, they will be able to find families in many new places, in addition to their homes. This will increase their knowledge of what they once thought the word family meant. The goal of this lesson will be to reinforce in students the necessity of different kinds of families. Since they are learning about other countries' families, fictional families, different species of families, ancient families and their own family; they will be able to grasp the enormity of families as a concept. Students will also be far better prepared to function individually, knowing they, too, have many, many families.

Language Arts


Science

 Social Science 1
Social Science 2





Last updated on May 16, 1996. Return to the Index of Units Page