English/Language Arts Leader Fact Sheet:
Philip Panaritis
and Interdisciplinary Program Success
By Brenda Walsh and Steve Sanders
The information on this page was taken from "Beyond Brainstorming: Planning a Successful Interdisciplinary Program" by Philip Panaritis. Complete bibliographic information follows:
Panaritis, Philip. "Beyond Brainstorming: Planning a Successful Interdisciplinary Program."
Phi Delta Kappan 76.8 (1995): 623-629.
Though Philip Panaritis states that "there is no single foolproof recipe for successfully implementing an interdisciplinary program," he does believe that when an interdisciplinary style of teaching is being created, certain "ingredients for success" should be kept in mind.
Time:
Panaritis believes that "time is both a key ingredient of successful planning beforehand and an essential factor for meaningful reflection and evaluation after a plan has been implemented."
Resources:
Teachers implementing interdisciplinary practices need resources--for training, substitutes, new materials and space, and time--to effectively do so and should receive the support of the school's administration to make sure that they have these resources.
Incentives:
By giving extrinsic incentives (the resources and time mentioned above) to teachers who take on interdisciplinary programs, a school will show their support of such innovative teaching strategies and will keep these teachers motivated to make the program work.
Talented, Committed Teachers:
Panaritis believes that teachers who take on the task of bringing interdisciplinary methods into the classroom must be committed to bringing such an innovative strategy into the school and must be capable of doing so in an effective way. Otherwise, they will not be able to recruit fellow teachers to use these strategies.
Flexibility and Patience:
Interdisciplinary teaching does not have a rigid model to follow. Teachers must be able and willing to adapt their strategies so that the students truly learn and the program is successful. Teachers must also be patient with how everyone adapts to this new way of teaching and learning.
Panaritis believes that interdisciplinary education is the most powerful and appropriate way to reconstruct our schools, but in creating such programs, teachers need to understand and "address the complexity of the task before them."
Go to Lesson Plan Based on Philip Panaritis