Constats et défis à relever en matière d’intégration et d’interdisciplinarité : résultats partiels d’une recension d’écrits

Abstract

Le texte porte sur les résultats partiels d’une recension des écrits professionnels et scientifiques concernant les approches intégratives (intégration et interdisciplinarité) dans le contexte des liens entre sciences, technologies et mathématiques au secondaire. Des définitions des principaux concepts d’intégration et d’interdisciplinarité, pris au sens strict, sont proposées du point de vue de leur utilisation dans les curriculums scolaires en recherche et dans le cadre des activités professionnelles. Certains des résultats, sous la forme de constats, sont présentés. Puis, des défis à relever dans l’implantation d’approches intégratives d’une manière générale, et celles dites interdisciplinaires en particulier, sont soulignés et discutés. Parmi les résultats présentés, notons que l’interdisciplinarité demeure un concept plutôt flou alors que les justifications quant à son utilisation sont nombreuses, touchant notamment la contextualisation du savoir et la motivation.This text presents partial results of a literature review on integrated approaches (integration and interdisciplinarity) in contexts related to science, technology, and mathematics at a high school level. The main concepts of interdisciplinarity systems and integration are discussed based on the strict sense of the term interdisciplinarity as well as in the broader sense used in academic curriculums. These concepts were also examined from both research and practical angles (professional activities in class). Some results are presented as statements of fact whereas other results are worded as challenges that have to be considered when implementing integrated approaches such as multidisciplinary ones. Amongst the results, we note that multidisciplinary integration remains a broad concept whereas many reasons are brought forth to justify its use especially relating to knowledge contextualization and motivation

From Writing to Doing: The Challenges of Implementing Integration (and Interdisciplinarity) in the Teaching of Mathematics, Sciences, and Technology

“…While waiting for a better coherence between initial teacher training and secondary school programs, we still need to determine whether the difficulty in establishing genuine interdisciplinary connections is due to teachers making only superficial connections as seen in this intervention done without interdisciplinarity as a goal: "See, it resembles the area formula in mathematics" (Samson & Hasni, 2008). Moreover, in a research review we found that various factors such as teachers' experience (beginners versus experts), experience in the discipline to be taught, the kind of training received, etc., can influence the ability to integrate another discipline (Samson et al, 2012) These observations made from both dimensions retained in this text (integrated training and training for and by integration) lead to questioning and rethinking initial teacher training. Even if this double perspective is clearly addressed in the competencies reference guide (Government of Quebec, 2001) and in other official documents on teachers training, change still seems difficult for universities.…”

“…In published articles on the teaching context (Samson et al, 2012), we noticed that the authors deal with the issue of integration 9 in different ways. There are articles about the difficulties with the implementation of integration.…”

“…Some of our research has allowed us to identify problems such as the time required by teachers to implement interdisciplinarity or even the feasibility of interdisciplinarity and to propose solutions (Hasni & Samson, 2010;Samson, Hasni, & Ducharme-Rivard, 2012).…”

“…We bring forth some decisive elements in the development and implementation of such programs, particularly in cross-curricular activities. We have analyzed the documentation on research practices and cross-curricular teaching in the field of education (Samson et al, 2012) and other related domains (Hasni & Lenoir, 2001). We have also relied on our work experiences as teacher trainers, academic researchers, and secondary school teachers.…”

School Entrepreneurship: A Favorable Context for the Interdisciplinary Projects

“…Interdisciplinary teaching is based on utilitarian purpose, that is translated through the link with the concrete and life outside the school context (Hasni et al, 2008) and pedagogical-affective purposes, such as increasing student motivation and diversification of pedagogical approaches (Hasni et al, 2008;Samson, Hasni, & Ducharme-Rivard, 2012). During an interdisciplinary project, the student explores in order to find answers to his/her questions.…”