Reflection on Using Integrated Curriculum for Early Childhood Education

[[abstract]]In Taiwan’s new curriculum reform, education was emphasized on promoting interesting learning and life skills, motivating students’ entire potential, and assisting them to apply the knowledge into their daily lives. The use of an integrated curriculum, focusing on a real-life task, becomes an approach for problem solving of traditional subject-matter curricula. An integrated curriculum emphasizes the depth and extensiveness of knowledge from concrete and real-life problems reflecting to the findings of brain research—the more information and knowledge are connected, the more humans’ brains work effectively. Consequently, the main purpose for today’s education is to arrange curricula systematically and effectively to assist students to reach a holistic and meaningful learning. Taiwan’s early childhood education has been implementing curriculum integration for a long period of time, such as unit curricula, thematic curricula, and project curricula. The thematic curriculum is the most popular model of curriculum integration currently. The experiences of implementing thematic teaching in early childhood education can be an instructional model for other school levels. This article discusses mainly the significance of curriculum integration. Through summaries and criticisms of the literature, theories and practices of thematic teaching are conceptualized in providing educators better understandings of curriculum integration and thematic teaching. Thematic teaching is not only a methodology for curriculum design or teaching but also the contemporary philosophy of progressive education, the positive teaching attitude, and the conclusion of educational theories. In summary, it is all about the possibility of learning and teaching