Supporting Students with Learning Disabilities: Integrating
Technology into an I-Search Unit The I-Search UnitAn I-Search
Unit is a curriculum unit carried out by a team of teachers in
middle schools. The teachers, usually representing content areas
such as, language arts, social studies, mathematics and science,
For man interdisciplinary team. The goal of this type of
interdisciplinary curriculum unit is to promote inquiry-based
teaching and learning. Teachers help the students learn how to
become inquirers, researchers, or explorers of information
(Macrorie, 1988). Lasting approximately eight weeks, an I-Search
Unit has four phases of instruction (as shown in Figure 1). In
Phase I, teachers immerse students in the unit's theme (i.e., a
socially relevant theme such as Water Ecology that naturally
links science, social studies, language arts, and mathematics).
Students engage in a variety of authentic activities, not only
to discover what they already know about this theme, but also to
build background knowle