And it all starts with searching for action verbs, write Monash’s Gillian Kidman, Roland Gesthusizen and Hazel Tan.

Looking for overlaps can find a sweet spot for teachers

Within the Australian curriculum, there are a number of specific cognitive skills that need to be developed in science, technology and maths.

After a detailed analysis, we found where these skills overlap for each discipline.  Each discipline also shares a number of higher order thinking skills outlined in Blooms Revised Taxonomy.

As a sample STEM activity, we used the same approach to examine the cognitive skills developed when students solve a problem using Minecraft to design and build a house.

The set of common skills that emerged allowed us to find a sweet spot used to form integrated STEM lessons that can be taught over a number of weeks and cover significant parts of the curriculum.

Integrating these skills can be a big time-saver for teachers, an engaging way to develop these skills in students and build an integrated STEM approach.

How to break down the curriculum

We started by hunting for verbs in the Australian curriculum. Our analysis revealed over 53 different actions that students were required to do across all three learning areas of Maths, Science and Technology. Thirteen overlapped.

We found these verbs across the sequence of content learning areas in technologies and mathematics and in the Science Inquiry Skills sequence of content for science.

There were very clear, discipline specific actions required within each of the disciplines. Sometimes, these actions were shared by two or more subjects.

The shared words that we identified across all three subjects were: apply, draw, explore, model, identify, represent, sort, collect, evaluate, plan, analyse, select and develop.

Additional cognitive skills from Blooms Revised Taxonomy

We also looked at Blooms Revised Taxonomy – a system that promotes higher forms of thinking in education – for these active words to find a similar overlap.

We found that there were 9 higher order actions shared by all three disciplines. They represent nearly a quarter of all cognitive developmental skills.

The common verbs that we identified were: analyse, apply, collect, develop, evaluate, model, identify, plan and select.

What cognitive skills students could gain from Minecraft?

Our next step was to undertake an audit of many different websites, blogs and research papers examining the use of Minecraft in the classroom to look for similar active verbs. We found 18 words that showed the skills students could develop. 13 of these aligned with higher order thinking skills.

Again, some of these words were unique to specific disciplines and some overlapped with two. There were three that were common across all the disciplines. It was interesting that all were higher order thinking skills.

The common verbs that we identified: collect, evaluate and plan.

Bringing it all together to find the overlap

These are the actions that are shared by all three disciplines of maths, science and technology.

Designing your lesson

We developed three different approaches that hit on a number of the active verbs that we’ve uncovered.

We looked at some of the benefits of students working in a virtual world, specifically designing and building a sustainable house in the virtual world of Minecraft.

Here are some sample outlines for lessons that could span several weeks. They draw on some action words that relate to specific areas and include as many of the common cognitive skills as practical.

Option 1: Plan a sustainable house

Option 2: Use design thinking to build you house

This option draws on a discipline-specific skill – design and design thinking from technology – and applies them in an integrated way.

Using this tool will help your students focus on the people they create the house for. It means empathy is put at the very beginning of the process.

You can break down what this looks like in this way.

Option 3: Make the house collaboratively

In this option, students are actively learning when they design and build their house. In a classroom context, it needs constant communication, feedback and reflection.

Like the tables above, these words and actions relate to higher order thinking (HOT) skills and active learning that takes place when students work in this virtual space.

It is tempting to focus on particular discipline-specific cognitive actions that are required of students when teaching and learning science, technology and mathematics. However, by considering the intersections and opportunities as well as the challenges, teachers can create rich interdisciplinary learning environments.

References

Australian Curriculum

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE (2010)

The Educational Benefits of Minecraft (2016)

Why Kids Love Minecraft and How It Benefits Them (2017)