Interdisciplinarity in teacher education: Evaluation of the effectiveness of an educational innovation project

Abstract

Interdisciplinary projects play an important role in the development of a student profile based on the 21st century skills. Nevertheless, the implementation of an interdisciplinary approach is a challenge for both teachers and teacher educators. The aim of this study is to create an interdisciplinary model for teacher education, and to provide an empirical study which analyses its impact on learning. An educational innovation project was carried out with preservice teachers who experienced and subsequently designed a Problem Based Learning with interdisciplinary activities including Mathematics and Social Sciences, using the National Archaeological Museum as an educational resource. The proposals were implemented amongst children to evaluate the project's effectiveness, considering two aspects: (a) improved teaching skills for preservice teachers (N = 26) and (b) improved learning for Mathematics and Social Sciences content amongst primary school children (N = 58). In the case of the student teachers, the variance analysis implemented showed sufficient empirical evidence of the improvement between the pre and post treatment, in different dimensions of the teaching skills and competences. On the primary school students, some significantly statistic progresses were found concerning the learning of both subjects, as well as their perception of museums as place for learning.