Niall McMullan is an IXL Professional Learning Specialist with experience as a teacher and an elementary school vice principal.
Cross-curricular learning allows students to learn concepts in the context of multiple subjects at once. This fosters strong problem-solving skills that are necessary for everyday problems.
IXL’s math, English language arts, science, and social studies skills are interwoven to help students build a deep understanding of how topics connect across multiple disciplines.
The best part? Our carefully crafted curriculum allows for seamless implementation of cross-curricular teaching, minimizing the amount of planning and research for educators.
Read on to see how IXL can support your cross-curricular instruction!
Importance of cross-curricular teaching
A crucial goal of instruction, in any subject, is allowing students to connect their learning to real-world experiences. Teaching subjects in isolation is useful for building a strong understanding of a particular topic, but it’s often not truly indicative of the real-world problems students may encounter. To prepare students for real-world experiences, it’s important to help them see the link between different subjects and topics.
Whether we know it or not, we apply skills and knowledge from multiple disciplines in our everyday experiences. For example, even a quick trip to the grocery store requires us to navigate the best route, read labels to understand the products, and fit our shopping within a budget. All of that requires geography, reading comprehension, math, and more!
Through cross-curricular teaching, we can encourage students to think critically and improve problem-solving skills that can impact their daily lives.
IXL skills that promote cross-curricular learning
IXL skills are interwoven to help students build a deep understanding of how concepts connect across disciplines. This holistic approach to learning prepares students for problem-solving in real-world contexts. For example:
- IXL’s science literacy skills help students learn to read and evaluate nonfiction texts, tables, and diagrams on a diverse range of science topics. Students can simultaneously build scientific knowledge, reading comprehension, and critical thinking skills.
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Want more ways to integrate science and reading instruction? Check out our tips for tying IXL science skills into reading blocks. - Many of IXL’s math skills help students strengthen the foundational knowledge they need to understand scientific problems. For example, the following skills show how mastering math skills, such as understanding integers, can prepare learners for solving science skills, such as comparing temperatures.
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For more ideas to combine math and science learning, look at the IXL skills that support STEM learning.
- IXL’s financial literacy skills are not only helpful in building math and vocabulary knowledge but are also extremely applicable to real-life situations.
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- IXL ELA skills offer informational texts on topics in math, science, and social studies. For example, IXL’s “Read about history” and “Read about science and nature” skills allow students to meet language arts standards while fostering their interest in other subjects.
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- Students can explore the same theme—such as business and technology, or the Roman empire—across multiple subjects. This helps learners make connections and explore the same topic from different perspectives.
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Boost learning across all subjects
With over 10,000 skills in math, English language arts, science, and social studies, IXL supports instruction in virtually any topic. And with interwoven skills, teachers can easily help their students make authentic connections across all four subjects.
Plus, IXL’s adaptive content automatically differentiates learning for each student. This ensures each student is learning at the right level and maximizes their progress.
Learn more about IXL’s PK-12 curriculum and explore all four subjects on IXL here!
The post How IXL supports cross-curricular teaching appeared first on IXL Official Blog.