As teachers’ integration of curriculum can be a holistic learning process, this study suggests that the most effective path toward teachers’ professional development for integrated curriculum is to set up discussion groups where teachers can freely use their own personal experiences and knowledge to engage in all kinds of connections.
Teachers draw all kinds of connections, and engage in rigorous teaching, when the curriculum is meaningful to them; consequently, teachers’ related professional development can benefit greatly from teachers’ full autonomy in designing their own personally meaningful curriculum. They can take charge of selecting their own topics, selecting their own materials, and designing their own activities.
Finally, available resources play a key role in integrating curriculum. Certain types of resources, especially authentic picture books and storybooks, lend themselves to teachers’
generation of all kinds of activities, and teachers should therefore not hesitate to use these resources. Often the limited content of a textbook limits teachers’ thinking and creativity.
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Appendix
In Chinese class (Cheng-Yu, LP 12/19/02 class 3-4), Cheng-Yu read Elmer (Mckee, 1968) to students, and asked the students to talk about the characteristics of elephants, the characteristics of Elmer himself, what Elmer changed himself into, how Elmer changed, and the ending of the story. During the following week of Chinese and daily-living classes (Cheng-Yu, LP 12/26/02 class 6-7), Cheng-Yu asked students to talk about Elmer again and his characteristics. She then asked students to brainstorm about their own characteristics (such as I am tall and I am fat). Students then drew “self-portraits” and wrote down their own characteristics. Finally, students shared self-portraits with other students, and presented their own characteristics to the class. On the following day, in English class (Cheng-Yu, LP 12/27/02 class 8), Li-Lin taught students to respond in English to such questions as “What’s your name?” (an obvious response being “My name is…”). Li-Lin also asked students to look at the picture book and to identify, in English, how many colors Elmer had and also to describe, also in English, people’s appearances (such as tall, short, fat, thin, old, young). Students shared their self-portraits with other classmates and identified not only their own characteristics in English, such as “I am___” and “I like my___” (from head to toes), but also their own special pursuits, such as “I can___” (climb trees, kick a ball, swim, throw a ball).