Participants use socio-scientific issues as authentic, motivating contexts for their subject teaching and, together with colleagues from other subjects and countries, develop a cross-subject lesson sequence in which each lesson remains anchored in the learning goals of its own subject. The module serves the aim Teaching for Interdisciplinary Thinking and contributes to the aim Growing as Reflective Practitioners in a European Community (→ Aims & Learning Outcomes).
\n| Activity | \nWorking setting | \nRequires | \nRequired for | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Sticky Issues | \nPlenary | \n– | \n– | \n
| Making SSI Stick to Your Subject | \nIndividual | \n– | \n– | \n
| SSI Speed-Dating | \nPairs | \n– | \n→ (S)TEAMing Up | \n
| (S)TEAMing Up | \nPlenary | \n→ SSI Speed-Dating | \n→ Mind-Mapping SSI (1) | \n
| Mind-Mapping SSI (1) | \nSSI teams, with a short individual phase | \n→ (S)TEAMing Up | \n→ Mind-Mapping SSI (2) | \n
| Mind-Mapping SSI (2) | \nPlenary, then SSI teams | \n→ Mind-Mapping SSI (1) | \n→ SciLMifying Lessons → Glow & Grow Together | \n
| SciLMifying Colleagues (aka Mingle It Up) | \nChanging groups | \n– | \n– | \n
| Glow & Grow Together | \nSSI teams, then plenary | \n→ Mind-Mapping SSI (2) | \n– | \n
A short input introduces socio-scientific issues as controversial real-world issues that cannot be understood without science but cannot be resolved by science alone, and presents the SSI themes and topics collected in the Wiki.
\nThe input also distinguishes three levels of cross-subject teaching. In multidisciplinary teaching, stand-alone lessons are linked only by a shared theme. In interdisciplinary teaching, lessons are co-planned across subjects and share methods, materials, or outcomes. In transdisciplinary teaching, the subjects dissolve into a problem- or project-centred whole. SciLMi opts for low-prep cross-subject teaching between the first two levels: teachers keep their subject-specific learning goals and do not need to reinvent their teaching.
\nSSIs are not learning objectives in themselves. They provide a real-world context and act as the glue that holds the lessons of the sequence together.
Participants explore digital mind maps in which each SSI theme branches out into topics. For each topic that appears in their coursebooks, curricula, or teaching materials, they add the subject in which it can be addressed, the age groups for which it is suitable, and the curriculum content it can be linked to, for example Chemistry, 16–18, acids and bases.
\nParticipants engage actively with the SSI topics and relate them to their own curriculum without having to commit to a specific issue or polarising question yet.
The same method is used with the domain posters of the SciLMi Model, where participants place coloured stickers (→ Making SciLMi Stick to Your Subject). In Going Meta, participants can then compare the analogue and the digital approach.
Participants line up according to the age group of the learners they teach, 12–15, 16–18, or both, and stand facing each other in pairs. In rounds of one to three minutes, depending on the group size, they exchange views on the question "Which SSI topics come up in your teaching, and how do you address them?" At each gong, they move one place to the right and talk to the next colleague.
\nSuccessful collaboration also depends on personal rapport. Participants get to know each other a little better before they form their SSI teams. They line up by age group because only teachers who teach the same or overlapping age groups can implement a lesson sequence together.
Wherever possible, the speed-dating can take place outdoors.
Each participant selects three SSI topics that they could use as a context for their own lesson and as a link to lessons by teachers of other subjects, and writes each topic on a separate sheet. One after another, participants announce a topic and place the sheet on the floor. Sheets with the same topic are stacked. Participants then go to the sheet of their first choice and form teams with colleagues they would like to work with throughout the week. A team is complete when it includes three to five teachers from at least three different subjects and three different countries who teach a shared or overlapping age group. If needed, participants switch to their second or third choice. Once a team is complete, its members take their topic sheet and sit down together at a table.
\nThe participants' name badges show country flags and subject colours, so that the trainers can see at a glance whether a team meets the criteria.
Each team narrows its SSI topic down to a concrete issue that is debated in society and agrees on a preliminary polarising yes/no question, for example "Does the affordability of fast fashion justify its environmental and social costs?"
\nIn a short phase of silent individual work, each team member considers which perspective their own subject can contribute to a fuller understanding of the issue in all its complexity. They then brainstorm a regular lesson that uses the SSI as the context for a subject-specific learning goal. The lesson raises awareness of the issue without treating it in depth and connects to the other lessons through the shared SSI.
\nThe team then sketches a first draft of the SSI map with only the bare essentials:
\nThe teams later complement their SSI maps with a learning outcome (→ SciLMifying the Sequence) and HOWs (→ SciLMifying Lessons) for each lesson.
\nPlenty of coloured pens, along with stickers and index cards in different colours and shapes for corrections, support the creative work. The activity works well in the (late) afternoon, as working creatively counteracts fatigue.
A short input first recalls the two forms of cross-subject teaching on which SciLMi builds, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary (→ Sticky Issues). It then presents a model SSI sequence: each lesson pursues its own subject-specific learning goal and fosters a learning outcome of the SciLMi Model, and together the lessons help students connect what they learn across subjects. Every lesson, however small, contributes to empowering students to detect and resist misinformation (Osborne 2024).
\nIn their SSI teams, participants then refine the first draft of their SSI map in three steps.
\nThe activity ends with a refined SSI map and a clear division of labour: each participant knows which angle on the issue their lesson takes, which learning outcome it fosters, and which materials they will work with. The SSI map remains a working document that the teams keep revising throughout the week.
\nHave extra paper and plenty of sticky notes, index cards, coloured pens, glue, and fresh flipchart paper ready, so that the teams can rearrange and redraw their SSI maps freely.
For inspiration, the team explores the AI-generated brief on its topic in the Wiki, which covers the key debate and the main viewpoints, the scientific dimension, the parties affected, and common misrepresentations and misperceptions, from misunderstood figures to misconceptions and misinformation. The brief is a starting point, not a reference. The team checks what it covers, what it leaves out, what is wrong or unverifiable, and which information is still needed (→ Glossary: AI Hallucination / Confabulation). On this basis, the team sharpens its polarising question, decides which viewpoints, stakeholders, and misrepresentations the lessons of the sequence will address, and adds the results to the SSI map.
\nThe AI-generated brief opens up the many dimensions of the issue and, at the same time, shows the limits of generative AI: participants experience that AI output needs to be checked before it is used, which prepares them for using AI themselves in Prompting & Pooling Materials.
The team compiles information items on its issue that can serve as practice material in its lessons: authentic items wherever possible, and simulated items where authentic ones are hard to find or unsuitable for the classroom. Starting from the angle of their own lesson, participants draw on the following sources:
\nParticipants evaluate the suitability of each item for classroom use, for example in terms of age group, language, and length, verify the intellectual property rights, and record the sources.
\nThe team then decides who works with which materials and whether the sequence stays multidisciplinary, with each lesson using its own materials, or becomes interdisciplinary, with materials shared across lessons (→ Sticky Issues).
\nIn the classroom, authentic materials show students how misinformation actually appears in the information environments they use every day. For the participants themselves, refining searches and prompts is a first exercise in precise wording, which they will need again when they write their activity instructions (→ Activity Instructions with Bloom's Verbs).
As AI tools and prompting techniques develop rapidly, prepare a template prompt that works with the tools available at the time of the course. The following sources have proved useful:
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The team selects the learning outcomes of the SciLMi Model that the sequence will foster, agrees on an effective order of the lessons for implementation at school, considering the flow of content and the learners' progression, and visualises the links between the lessons in the SSI map.
\nIdeally, the lessons of a sequence foster learning outcomes from different domains of the model.
Tell the teams that they can keep revising their SSI map until they present it on Friday (→ Glow & Grow Together).
In three rounds of ten minutes, participants exchange their experience of cross-subject collaboration at school: in round 1, what already works at their schools; in round 2, where collaboration gets stuck; in round 3, tips, good practice examples, and encouragement for each other. For each round, participants move to a new table with new partners, assigned by secret codes, and add their ideas to the flipchart paper that stays on the table. Finally, each table presents one highlight in plenary.
\nParticipants learn from each other's experience and collect ways of continuing cross-subject collaboration back at school, where it often proves hard to sustain. As each participant talks to as many colleagues as possible, the activity also strengthens the sense of community across the whole group and can initiate lasting professional connections beyond the course.
Write (S)TEAMING UP as a large heading at the top of a sheet of A1 or flipchart paper and divide the rest of the sheet into two halves, headed OPEN DOORS and CLOSED DOORS. Fold the sheet so that only the upper half is visible. In round 1, participants note under OPEN DOORS what already works in cross-subject collaboration at their schools; in round 2, they fold the upper half back and note under CLOSED DOORS where it gets stuck; in round 3, they open the whole sheet and add tips and comments. Give each round its own pen colour, and provide sticky notes for round 3. Prepare one card per participant with three codes, a colour, a letter, and a number, and label each table with one colour, one letter, and one number. In round 1, participants sit by colour, in round 2 by letter, in round 3 by number. Combine the codes so that no two participants share a table more than once; at each change of round, one participant stays at the table and keeps the thread of the flipchart paper. For 16 participants at four tables of four, for example:
\n| Table | \nRound 1 (colour) | \nCards | \n
|---|---|---|
| 1 | \nyellow | \nA1, B2, C3, D4 | \n
| 2 | \ngreen | \nA2, B3, C4, D1 | \n
| 3 | \nblue | \nA3, B4, C1, D2 | \n
| 4 | \nred | \nA4, B1, C2, D3 | \n
In round 2, table 1 is table A, table 2 table B, and so on; in round 3, the tables are 1 to 4. The scheme works for any number of tables that is at least the number of seats per table. For other group sizes or uneven numbers, ask an AI tool to distribute the codes so that each participant shares a table with as many different colleagues as possible.
Schedule the activity for the last slot on Thursday afternoon. Moving between tables and exchanging experience revives the group better than any energiser.
Each SSI team finalises its SSI map and pins it to a pinboard. The pinboards are set up around the room. The whole group then moves from board to board, and at each one, the team presents its sequence in a 90-second elevator pitch. Afterwards, participants write highlights ("Glow") as well as questions and suggestions ("Grow") on sticky notes, and stick them in the corresponding fields below the SSI map. Back at their own board, the teams go through the feedback and select a few highlights, one question to answer, and one suggestion to take up, which they share in plenary ("Together").
\nThe feedback method Glow & Grow Together starts from the strengths of each sequence and invites reflection and improvement in a supportive way. Experience shows that this format sparks far more intensive feedback and conversation than conventional presentations.
Prepare one pinboard per team, leaving the upper part free for the SSI map and dividing the lower part into three labelled fields: HIGHLIGHTS, QUESTIONS, and SUGGESTIONS.
When more time is available, each team can present its sequence in five to ten minutes and share its experience of collaborating across subjects. While listening, participants note highlights on sticky notes. Afterwards, the other teams each formulate up to three questions and up to three suggestions on cards, and the presenting team responds.
References
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