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IB WORKSHOPS AND RESOURCES 2023-2024 Catalogue

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Menu IB WORKSHOPS AND SERVICES 2023 - 2024 CATALOGUE ©International Baccalaureate Organization 2023-24 International Baccalaureate® | Baccalauréat International® | Bachillerato Internacional® Next Library

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MTPYPH:IA Day 2 Number 2 - Google Jamboard

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The International Baccalaureate (IB) is a global leader in international education-developing inquiring, knowledgeable, confident, and caring young people. With more than 7,700 programmes being offered worldwide, across over 5,600 schools in 159 countries, an IB education is designed to develop well-rounded individuals who can respond to today's challenges with optimism and an open mind.

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Welcome to Inspiring Inquiry. The purpose of Inspiring Inquiry is to support educators in developing an inspiring inquiry-based culture of thinking and learning that embraces the development of a growth mindset, 21st century skills/dispositions, learner agency and an environment in which it is

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Our Ideal Classroom

Cozy space for reading

Place for retreat/ privacy/ regrouping

Kimochi space-

Flexible tables grouped in 4-6 for discussion

Questions wall

Word wall- language specific to the unit of inquiry

Visual/ picture provocation area for the unit of inquiry

Additional activity table with stimulating activity relevant to the inquiry topic

Technology- for teacher/ and for students

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Shared Art Classroom - CGS (Priya & Maddie)

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Shared Art Classroom - CGS (Priya & Maddie)

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Folding desks when students need them, chairs in stacks, folding dance & music mats, moveable pinboards for co-constructive UoI displays, hanging artwork and music work from ceilings, stations around the edges of the classroom. Flexible learning areas ideal for transdisciplinary learning!

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Yunlu Chen-Learner profile poster for parents

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Yunlu Chen-Learner profile poster for parents

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MTPYPH:IA Day 1 Number 2 - Google Jamboard

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Nano-PD: Student Agency in PYP Learning Communities

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Nano-PD: Student Agency in PYP Learning Communities

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Learner Profiles in the Classroom Display

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Learner Profiles in the Classroom Display

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Dear Students,

Below you will find qualities we will be looking for to identify students'
success in the IB Learner Profile Attributes.

Overall, we are looking for students who are curious and
explore questions both inside the classroom and out.

Students who research and want to deepen their understanding.

Who are enthusastic to do practical research to find out more!

Who will listen to others and take on input. Being aware
that their point of view is only one, and we all have different
ways of thinking which should be utilized.

Who are willing to try things even if there is a chance
it will not succeed.

To share their thoughts and feelings, and listen to others.
Be able to share their work in a range of different ways,
including visual, audial, live and digitally.

Who do the right thing even when they don't think anyone
is watching and without being prompted.

While understanding when they need to take breaks
and being fair with allocating roles.

Who look back on their work to find ways they can improve
in the future and

Consider the feelings and differences of others.

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Examining learner agency in your setting

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Examining learner agency in your setting

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Examining learner agency in your setting

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International schools are ideally placed to develop and encourage greater international-mindedness. Dr Chris Muller explores how best to exploit this opportunity.

Students in today's international schools, growing up to be global leaders of the future, will require a remarkable insight into people and cultures across the world, and an unprecedented concern for the well-being of the world community. Around the world, many educational systems are gearing themselves toward catering to a greater global consciousness.

International schools represent a phenomenon that is able to take the lead in setting an example to educate students toward international-mindedness, through an education that reduces ethnocentrism, increases knowledge of other cultures, and promotes a concern for global environmental issues.

Towards international-mindedness

International-mindedness is a view of the world in which people see themselves connected to the global community and assume a sense of responsibility to its members. It is an awareness of the inter-relatedness of all nations and peoples, and a recognition of the complexity of these relationships. Internationally-minded people appreciate and value the diversity of cultures in the world and make an effort to learn more about them.

They exhibit personal concern for people all around the world, and this manifests itself in a sense of moral responsibility to other people, and a commitment to the values of a community. They are aware of the long-term consequences of human behavior on the environment and on global society.

If parents, teachers and others involved in the educational process aim to educate students toward an internationally-minded approach to life, then we need to develop a more sophisticated view of what is going on in schools to support the process.

By exploring the various dimensions of schools that may contribute toward promoting international-mindedness, the concept of educating toward this purpose will be clearer for other schools aiming to achieve such a goal. It will highlight attitudes of students related to their sense of connection to, interest in, and responsibility for, the global community and the behaviors associated with this perspective, thus directing toward the affective change that might result from practices in the classroom and the broader school environment.

This, in turn, would empower schools to reconsider how they cater to and recognize international learning. In the words of Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, "I do think the 21st-century is about a more global view. Where you don't just think, yes my country is doing well, but you think about the world at large".

The role of schools

The following are selective aspects that require focus in a school striving to educate students towards international-mindedness and global citizenship.

An explicit and shared set of values, one that clarifies the context in which a school operates and subsequently sets out an appropriate vision, gives a framework from which all community members can receive guidance for their action. This is true for any school, but in international schools the desire to impart an ethic of an interconnected global society adds a unique element and must be reflected in practice. Missions and values are ethical statements, and if they are carried out in practice, the school is living up to the ethical standards that are essential to an education promoting international-mindedness.

A commitment by management and boards of international schools to the practical and philosophical demands of this particular type of education is critical to the success of its mission. This includes understanding of issues that transcend nationality, the priorities of other cultures, and the recognition of the reality of living in an interdependent world.

The process of encouraging international-mindedness requires a consciously constructed curriculum that guides teachers and students toward using the resources and diverse cultures at hand appropriately. The school philosophy must carry through into curriculum construction, assessment, standards, and benchmarks, to reflect international and multi-cultural perspectives.

The cultural diversity of the school community needs to be explored, incorporated and celebrated at every opportunity. This means that students grow up in a setting where cultural diversity is the norm. Creating a school culture to reflect this norm is therefore critical. A school's involvement in the broader community has two dimensions. First, a school catering to a transient and diverse community needs to be a facility that gives opportunities and provides facilities for students and their families to interact on a level beyond the classroom. Second, the school needs to pave the way for students to discover and interact with the local host community, as well as share their personal cultural values.

Schools need to recognize the significance of the phenomenon of families in transition. The issue of support and resources for transient students and their families, and an understanding of the concept of Third Culture Kids, is vital in the promotion of international-mindedness.

Language learning is a tool to overcome cultural barriers. While languages offered in schools are usually market-driven, exposure to multiple languages can be incorporated into the program and curriculum in many creative ways.

A structured and diverse service learning program in schools develops empathy with the human condition and steers students away from a path of economic superiority and elitism. It leads to critical awareness and analytical discourse in all spheres of their academic pursuits.

Like in any educational institution, a successful program relies upon a strong backbone of professional development for its staff. Programs tailored to the philosophy of international education are becoming more readily available from organizations such as the IB, the Principals/Teachers/Counselors Training Center (PTC, TTC, CTC) and many others. Teaching practice in schools promoting international-mindedness requires a solid understanding of multiculturalism, multilingualism, cultural characteristics, transition issues, and international curricula.

In fostering global awareness, schools need to create opportunities for students to explore their role and their understanding of global issues outside the classroom context. This can happen in the form of trips within the host city or country and internationally, as well as through targeted and relevant extra-curricular offerings that promote leadership and an international consciousness.

It is through educational experiences that students can develop a sense of international-mindedness, which gives them competences to exercise influence on problems facing the world.
This article was originally published at the International Teacher Magazine in 2017. Dr Chris Müller is an independent educational consultant specializing in international education in international schools, particularly the promotion of international-mindedness in 21st-century students. He originally hails from Namibia, but now calls South Africa home. Until recently, Dr Müller was the Director of Bonn International School in Germany. Prior to Germany, he spent five years in Zambia as Director of the American International School of Lusaka. He has also served as Principal at the United Nations International School in New York, U.S.A., the American International School of Bucharest in Romania, and the International School of Tanganyika in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. He has served on many boards, including the Council of International Schools (CIS), the IB Heads Council, and the IB Regional Council.

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10 ways to promote international-mindedness

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International schools are ideally placed to develop and encourage greater international-mindedness. Dr Chris Muller explores how best to exploit this opportunity. Students in today's international schools, growing up to be global leaders of the future, will require a remarkable insight into people and cultures across the world, and an unprecedented concern for the well-being of the world community.

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PYP Resource Guide

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This post is an excerpt from a post entitled " Don't lock me into 8 key concepts" by Shannon O'Dwyer. The full post explains concepts in a nutshell and why concept-driven teaching is both easy and hard. This excerpt provides an insight into how teachers can make it happen. Concepts in a Nutshell
Concepts are over-arching mental constructs that students need to make sense of the content we teach. Conceptual understanding enables students to apply facts and skills to the world around them. By starting with concepts, we create a curriculum that's worthy of our students' time and effort. The concepts that drive the PYP are timeless (factual examples change, but not the core understanding), universal (so students can apply understandings across cultures, situations and disciplines) and abstract (so students engage in higher order thinking to grapple with central ideas).

By helping students achieve conceptual understanding, we ensure that they can take facts and skills, and do something with them beyond this moment, this lesson and this classroom. I have seen plenty of students who can accurately convert between metres & centimetres but are unable to choose an appropriate length of skipping rope for a 3-person playground game. These students had mastered a mathematical skill in isolation, but not yet developed a conceptual understanding of length.
Why concept-driven teaching is hard
It's just so messy. Concept-driven learning is an iterative process of constantly pulling apart ideas, putting them back together, re-applying them to different situations, finding ways to correct misconceptions and enabling each child to make meaning in their own way. It would be a lot easier to say, "Here's what you need to know, practise that, now you get a sticker." The problem is that you'd have to add, "Good luck applying that to your life". Factual knowledge is easy to teach because it is simple, procedural and locked in situ. But unless your students intend to live forever in their 4th Grade classroom, that knowledge is utterly useless to them.
"How can I make it happen?"
Questions
Use teacher and student questions as a springboard for deep, conceptual dialogue. Sort, unpack and challenge students' questions. Discuss open vs. closed questions, abstract vs. concrete questions, fat vs. thin questions (ie 1 answer or many). Keep asking probing questions (such as How do you know..?/reflection) to prevent shallow understanding.

Problematic Knowledge
Design resources and situations that are problematic. Perhaps the facts do not add up, or there are pieces of information missing. This challenges students to search for connections, inferences and transference to make sense of the inquiry. Anything that is non-linear, with multiple solutions and multiple interpretations helps our students build the flexibility of thinking to grapple with complexity, change and abstraction.

Inquire
Every day! Make sure you devote enough time for students to actuallydo the learning and construct the understanding. They need ample time for wondering, trying, tinkering, playing, researching and coming to conclusions. Don't step away. Be a participant who says, "Why did you...?", "What would happen if...?"

IntegrateWork with single-subject teachers to develop integrated thinking. Students should take their understandings from class to class, exploring concepts through different content and perspectives (eg symphony orchestras and bus timetables both build an understanding of systems). Try to keep concepts at the core of your planning meetings, to avoid creating shallow, thematic units. Avoid throwing together "linked activities". If the students are studying Ancient Greece, don't immediately say, "Let's make pots!". Perhaps the most important concept is "legacies" and students investigate the influence of the golden ratio on both Art and Mathematics. While studying natural disasters, let students make paper mache volcanoes at home. In class, explore the concept of "impact" on geography, individual lives and communities. How do artists help communities remember and heal after a natural disaster?"

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To read the full post, visit Shannon's blog here.

Shannon is a PYP educator, whose passions include curriculum design, literacy and ESOL practices, enrichment and technology integration. Shannon loves working in PYP classrooms, where each day is filled with the questions, problems and discoveries of young minds. She blogs at shannonodwyer.com and tweets @S_ODwyer.

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This post is an excerpt from a post entitled " Don't lock me into 8 key concepts" by Shannon O'Dwyer. The full post explains concepts in a nutshell and why concept-driven teaching is both easy and hard. This excerpt provides an insight into how teachers can make it happen.

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After a presentation on student agency at the South Asia International Baccalaureate Schools Association (SAIBSA) meeting at Neev Academy, a chord was struck within me instantaneously. My four-year-old kindergarten students were going to inquire into transportation under the theme How we organize ourselves soour teaching team collaborated on the idea of creating an unstructured play-based learning environment to facilitate the students' understanding of the need for transportation and how transportation makes our life easy.

The classroom provocation was set with sand and toys before the students entered. The students were free to play and explore with different toy vehicles in the classroom with sand on the table and floor.

This activity led to many questions and suggestions. "This place is not good to play because it is not smooth, the wheels are getting hard, etc."

The need for a good road for the vehicles to run smoothly was pointed out when the students first tried moving their toy cars on sand. They analyzed and came to the conclusion that the wheels could not roll on sand as they were getting stuck and that was why the vehicles were not able to move forward. It was a valuable experience to document these four-year-olds discussing alternatives and solutions to the problem at hand. As a result, the beginning of a road was created by the students the next day.

Crossing a road to get to the other side became the next challenge. Children interacted and found various means to get the vehicles across mountains by building bridges using play dough and blocks. They painted a zebra crossing their customized road to help an imaginary old aunty get to her apartment.

Very soon toy policemen emerged in the scenario, standing by a traffic light created by the students in order to direct traffic.

Action
A few days later the students received special permission to paint a zebra crossing in front of the school building for older students to cross the road. They were making a difference in the community they are a part of.

During this unit, the students inquired into the various modes of transportation and understood that people move from place to place through different means. By creating necessity they soon were able to categorize the various modes of transportation according to the medium they operated in, such as road, water or air.

As the students inquired further into various modes of transport, they participated in a real life experience of a bus journey: a mock bus trip on campus with different bus stops along the way, where they got a hands-on experience of buying tickets, counting money and the safety rules to be followed in a moving bus. The students decided on the bus route and stops where they would like to embark.

Similarly, a mock airport scenario was created in the class with pilots, stewardess, security and passengers. Students were excited to experience how to buy airline tickets, print boarding passes, check in baggage and go to the security point. Our in-flight experience included an in-flight menu and a movie. The students carefully paid attention to the safety measures and became aware of the required documents and etiquette of traveling by air.

This play-based method gave the students an opportunity to explore a variety of possibilities, take into consideration others' viewpoints and their own experiences to come to a conclusion about the need of various transportation based on the given situation. This is truly learning through play: agentic learning at its best!
After 6 years of teaching in various schools across the Southern part of the nation, Sangeetha Rajeev is currently in her 3rd year as an early years facilitator at Trivandrum International school, India. Her passion for teaching is not only limited to the classroom and the given resources but extends to the involvement and integration of play and unstructured learning to facilitate student initiated inquiry. With her firm believe in the need to change with time in our means of facilitating education, Sangeetha aims to bring in student-led teaching to the Primary Education System.
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After a presentation on student agency at the South Asia International Baccalaureate Schools Association (SAIBSA) meeting at Neev Academy, a chord was struck within me instantaneously. My four-year-old kindergarten students were going to inquire into transportation under the theme How we organize ourselves soour teaching team collaborated on the idea of creating an unstructured play-based learning environment to facilitate the students' understanding of the need for transportation and how transportation makes our life easy.

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2014 Programme standards and practices.pdf

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I recently became the Chief Academic Officer for the IB after more than two decades of working in and leading IB schools. In IB World Schools, we endeavour to create internationally-minded young people who, recognizing our common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet, help make a better and more peaceful world.

Just prior to taking this position, I led the intense experiential living and learning of a United World College (UWC). I was part of an intimate and remotely-located community of 160 students on the Vancouver Island, who lived in residence with faculty and their families, for two intensive pre-university years of transformational learning. Together, we pursued the UWC mission of making education a force to unite people, nations, and cultures for a sustainable future.

Every year we built a community that modeled what all of us wished for in the wider world. We created a working campus where everyone had a job. All of these jobs were non-trivial, adult roles. If any role were not fulfilled, the well-being of the campus and the community would suffer. On many days, when we concluded our activities and jobs, we met in a circle and asked ourselves:

What should we stop doing?

What should we start doing?

What should we continue doing?

As simple as these sound, they provided us a safe, predictable set of questions that became habits of mind, a way to pause and reflect before engaging in something else. Our aim was to get better at what we were doing.

Humanity cannot wait for students to graduate-whether or not they are in IB schools-and get started on doing things that contribute to a better world. We need to give students in every school, at every age, real agency and authentic opportunities to make a difference in this volatile, unpredictable, complex, and ambiguous world. With this in mind, we cannot be satisfied only with students learning about the world and developing deep conceptual understanding of multiple disciplines. We need young people building an ever-expanding portfolio of skills and experiences of things that they have done, created, and contributed to - things that matter to them, to others, and to the world we share.

How might we help to make that happen? I propose three things that teachers need to stop doing, three things to start doing, and three things to continue doing. And I invite your ideas on expanding this list.

What Should We Stop Doing?
Stop teaching as if we have the answers.
Nothing could more powerfully demonstrate an inquiry-based approach to learning, becoming, and doing than to design ways of engaging students with questions to which we do not know the answers ourselves. In this way, students may contribute to both their own understanding and also to ours.
Stop rushing.
We need to slow down the race to cover content. We need to get more creative about ways to focus on key conceptual understandings, and about designing ways to demonstrate evidence of applying these conceptual understandings. Deep learning takes time.
Stop talking.
Even with the most experiential, project-based approach, it would be good to figure out how much time any one person spends talking compared to listening. Is there much silence after a question is posed by any member of a group of learners? In a classroom setting, what would happen if we reduced teacher talk by 50 percent and increased the pause time between question and response by 50 percent?

What Should We Start Doing?
Start looking for problems to solve, actions to take, and beauty to create.
If we were to do something that really mattered to ourselves, our classrooms, our schools, and our community, the potential for impact would be at once local and global. Start finding ways to engage students in understanding real-world problems, and then support them in solving those problems. Every student should experience the joy that comes with being a unique and positive force in the world.
Start teaching with new discoveries about the brain in mind.
There is emerging evidence that where there is no emotion, there is no learning. Let's bring a full spectrum of positive emotions to teaching and learning. A good place to start is by sharing your passion, personal mission, and the questions and problems that are important to you. Bring all this to your students. And have them bring theirs to you.
Start seeking out authentic, high-stakes audiences for student work.
We often ask students to spend many hours solving problems or creating things that are never shared beyond the teacher or the classroom. Partner with businesses, organizations, and your larger community to showcase innovative work produced by your students.

What Should We Continue Doing?
Continue with your professional development, and model the growth mindset in action.
If we ourselves can't develop and model the 21st-century skills of collaboration, communication, and critical and creative thinking, how can we prepare students to master them? Regularly try new things in the classroom, and ask students for their feedback. Demonstrate that education is a lifelong process.
Continue to place our work with students in global contexts.
We share a common humanity, and that's worth finding ways to be mindful of our interdependence. Foster the sense of connection that comes from seeing oneself as a part of a larger global community.
Continue believing in the potential of every student.
Each student can make a positive difference, and each should understand the importance of investing in his or her own well-being along with the well-being of others. We cannot develop ourselves or contribute to the development of others if we live stressed, unbalanced lives. Introducing and modeling habits of mindfulness and doing what it takes to maintain well-being are critical for our very survival.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on what we as educators should stop, start, and continue doing in the classroom. Please share in the comments section below.
David Hawley joined the IB as the Chief Academic Officer in January 2015.

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Stop, start, continue: Conceptual understanding meets applied problem solving

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I recently became the Chief Academic Officer for the IB after more than two decades of working in and leading IB schools. In IB World Schools, we endeavour to create internationally-minded young people who, recognizing our common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet, help make a better and more peaceful world.

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2020 Programme standards and practices.pdf

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PYP Nano PD: The journey of a central idea

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PYP Nano PD: The journey of a central idea

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In the second article in the series discussing inclusion, IB World speaks to teachers about how their policies are creating engaging learning experiences for all students

"Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies," said South African social activist Desmond Tutu. IB World Schools across the globe agree and are leaning on their student-centered inclusion policies to enable supportive learning environments. Recognizing the diverse range of gifts and talents of all students can develop confident learners who are motivated to succeed.

Inclusion can look different in every school, as we discussed in the first article. But one thing that all schools have in common is that their support extends far beyond learning difficulties. It encompasses all students who may struggle with their studies; be it learning differences and disabilities, language development, neurodiversity, mental health disorders, issues around gender and sexuality, as well as difficult family situations.

Supporting all students

Dwight School, in New York, US, has extensively used the IB's candidates with assessment access requirements' document to design authentic assessment environments for all students.

"For example, if a student receives laptop accommodations for their IB Diploma Programme (DP) exams, we allow students to use the laptop in their courses so they are always experiencing an authentic assessment environment," says Matthew Gonzales, Director of Curriculum and Instruction and DP Coordinator.

The school began its inclusion journey around 25 years ago when it introduced the Quest Program. It is designed to support a wide range of students - including students with cognitive impairments. "The level and degree of support varies based on the individual needs of each student. As the Quest department grew, the philosophy of inclusion spread through the Dwight School," says Gonzales.

Quest teachers work closely with classroom teachers and emphasize the importance of affirming identity and building self-esteem as the building block of good teaching practice.

Dwight School has a multifaceted approach to whole-school inclusion. Starting with the admissions process, Josh Kigel, Director of Quest, works with the admissions team to implement plans to support all members of the student body. All students complete a diagnostic exam prior to entry to determine appropriate course placements.

"The exam is tense, but contains questions that are designed to ascertain what students know and understand in a particular subject area. Students complete diagnostic assessments in language and literature, language acquisition and mathematics," says Gonzales.

Evolving inclusion policies

Chadwick International, in South Korea, has worked to be an inclusive environment since it was founded seven years ago. With changes to the local community - including a more diverse population requiring international schooling - students who would not typically meet rigorous enrollment requirements drove a process of defining Chadwick's inclusion policy, as well as teaching and learning practices.

"As more diverse students were admitted, our inclusion policy and accompanying practices had to reflect our enrolment policy - that all students can be successful learners," says Caroline Rennie, Director of Studies.

This coincided with the implementation of the DP and the Middle Years Programme (MYP).. We were able to understand from the beginning how we would use these frameworks to develop our unique experiential learning experience.

The school provides pathways for language fluency and mathematics, as well as different pathways to graduation. It uses responses to intervention (RTI) to gauge student need and psycho-educational testing.

All students with specific learning disabilities have their own best coping mechanisms, and the IB recognizes that the same accommodations will not be appropriate for all students.

"We have a young man with a reading disorder whose mother tongue is Korean. He finds audio recordings very difficult, as it is a new accent to unpack and understand in a stressful, time-sensitive situation. Being able to designate audio, a reader or a quiet place for him to read aloud to himself shows how forward thinking the IB is about inclusion."

"A student who struggles with processing speed can seem ill-prepared for the rigor and pressure of the full DP," she adds. "However, knowing that accommodations include time for thinking and speaking in oral assessments, allowing a prompter, reader and scribe for tests, and flexibility specific to his needs, this student is off to a solid start on his journey to the full DP."

Support teachers work with groups of students to provide one-on-one support, and teachers to collaboratively plan units that support scaffolding, accommodations and modifications, and mother tongue learning.

"Our school administrators are active in acquiring new knowledge for where student neurodiversity overlaps with the disciplinary sphere. Slowly, the culture is changing toward acceptance of difference and the reliability of support.

"Schools often overlook the need an effective librarian for continual development of resources at multiple reading levels, in different styles and many languages," says Jodi Kittle, Learning Support Specialist at Chadwick International.

Eliminating the stigma

Alvin Dunn IB World Elementary School in California has just finished its first full year of using inclusionary school practices in grades TK-6, and it's been "amazing", says Renee Hasan, Elementary Learning Center Teacher. Previously, some grade levels had slowly been implementing inclusionary practices into their daily routines.

The school has a range of student populations ranging from students with mild to moderate and moderate to severe disabilities, preschool reverse mainstreaming, and second-language learners.

Our greatest celebration this year has been putting our students with mild to moderate disabilities onto general education rosters. This has helped foster more inclusive school practices throughout our entire school.

Special education and general education teachers worked collaboratively to create a variety of co-teaching strategies and developed lessons that are universally designed for all students to access. Students received their grade level academic instruction from teachers with support from an education specialist or instructional aide.

"This model of instruction has also been integral in eliminating the stigma of special education versus general education students among students and teachers. Now, many of our students identify as having two teachers while our staff see everyone in their class as 'our' students rather than 'those' students," adds Hasan.

"All of our students, regardless of ability, have accelerated academically, behaviorally, and social/emotionally. In the primary grades, we have been able to provide early intervention to such the extent that our numbers of students requiring response to intervention has decreased.

"This in turn has lowered the amount of students that are identified with a disability. Students are also learning skills like self-advocacy and building stronger communication skills among their peers.

"I am so proud to be at a school that celebrates students abilities," says Hasan.

Commitment to teacher support

A whole-school approach is necessary for an effective inclusion policy, but for it to be successful in its delivery teachers must feel supported, too.

On-going professional development and the swapping an sharing of information is important, says Gonzales: "The Quest Department uses the Meeting student learning diversity in the classroom document as a resource to share with classroom teachers who may not have a formal background in SEN (special educational needs)."

"Professional development experiences must be ongoing - there must be a commitment to providing training and support to faculty," adds Kigel. "Whenever possible, school communities should create time in teachers' schedules to allow for research, planning and reflection."

Useful learning resources The following IB documents have been produced to support schools and can be found on the programme resource centre:

Learning diversity and inclusion in IB programmes (2016)

The guide to inclusive education: a resource for whole school development (2015)

Candidates with assessment access requirements - (Middle Years Programme) (2015)

Meeting student learning diversity in the classroom (2013)

Candidates with assessment access requirements (2009)

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In the second article in the series discussing inclusion, IB World speaks to teachers about how their policies are creating engaging learning experiences for all students "Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies," said South African social activist Desmond Tutu.

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Making the approaches to learning happen

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This article explores one school's journey to ensure the approaches to learning, an element of the PYP, are planned for in order to strengthen the transdisciplinary nature of their programme. A few years back I shared a post on the PYP transdisciplinary skills, including reflective questions on the role of these skills in your school's programme.

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Developing a transdisciplinary programme of inquiry

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Developing a transdisciplinary programme of inquiry

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This article explores how Primary Years Programme (PYP) students took ownership of the Model United Nations (MUN) experience with their 'How we organize ourselves' unit. Inspired and empowered by the senior students and seeing their leadership in the MUN events, PYP students planned and hosted their first ever inter school MUN.
An exciting idea germinated in the PYP classroom through the discussions emerging from inquiries into the unit How we organize ourselves. Student leaders, who were actively engaged in participating in and hosting Model United Nations (MUN) conferences, gave birth to the first ever Primary Singapore International School (SIS) MUN at our school.

'MUN-ing' has been a part of our school character strengthening through the IDEALS* of Internationalism, Democracy, Leadership and Service, and the attributes of the IB learner profile. For their unit of inquiry with the central idea People create organizations to solve problems and support human endeavor, our grade 6 students had been taking part in our school MUNs as observers and conducting intra-class Mock MUN sessions over the last two years. They enjoyed their learning engagements thoroughly and though it was never a requirement or a norm, they decided to take this experience one notch higher and plan and implement an innovative event. Even though this would be their first experience with a primary MUN, they took on the challenge to be the organizer and host, and invited their peers from grade 5 to become the actual delegates. Thus, the culture of student leadership that was already a part of the school ethos enabled learners to take charge of their own learning and make important decisions about the same.

The primary SISMUN was planned as an inter-school conference. With the guidance of the senior school students and adult mentors, the students planned it modestly, keeping the spirit of the PYP at the core of the issues. The pedagogical leadership team helped them choose committees to ensure that the issues were from local (Lok Sabha) to regional (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) to global (UNICEF and UNHCR). Similarly, the issues would find resonance in their learning from the themes of Who we are (child labour), Sharing the planet and Where we are in place and time (migration due to war), How we organize ourselves (common currency) and How we express ourselves (arts education), thereby blending and synthesizing components of the PYP curriculum.

The Primary SISMUN was held in April 2017 with participation from 4 other primary IB World Schools from Mumbai and Pune. The conviction of the students, backed by the willingness of the pedagogical leadership team, inspired other schools from the network and beyond to participate in this event.

Our grade 6 students put on an impressive opening ceremony and more importantly displayed confidence and conviction as members of the Organizing Committee. We had a Skype interaction with a young CEO from India, selected as one of the top 50 youth initiative based solutions for sustainability by the UN for his startup company, Tyrelessly. Our delegates from grade 5 adeptly debated, discussed and resolved issues with professional ease and maturity. This also resulted in some exciting press coverage.

We were delighted to see our PYP students' achievement in terms of thinking and communication skills, confidence and enthusiasm and being open-minded and courageous, and we hope that they continue to apply their knowledge, conceptual understandings, skills, attitudes and attributes to take meaningful action that will make a difference to the world we live in. Above all, this experience created a domino effect of inspiration and agency in the school community, during the PYP exhibition, and in the planning of the coming year's edition of the Primary SISMUN.

In its mission statement, the IB aims to "develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect." The Primary SIS Model United Nations became an effective platform for students to put this mission into practice.

*Internationalism, Democracy, Environment, Adventure, Leadership and Service
Abhimanyu Das Gupta has been an IB practitioner since the last 13 years and has had extensive experience in the PYP at the Pathways School, Aravali, as a home room teacher, grade level coordinator, PYP coordinator and as the Primary School Coordinator. He has been heading the primary division at the Singapore International School, Mumbai since 2014 , inspiring his colleagues to promote learner agency and thereby, empower students. His passion for teaching and learning is evident in the practices he inspires in the learning community. He strives to promote inquiry-based learning for the students and by the students. You can follow him on Twitter

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How a culture of student leadership can foster learner agency

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This article explores how Primary Years Programme (PYP) students took ownership of the Model United Nations (MUN) experience with their 'How we organize ourselves' unit. Inspired and empowered by the senior students and seeing their leadership in the MUN events, PYP students planned and hosted their first ever inter school MUN.

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This article is based on an example of listening to learning within a pre-kindergarten classroom and how teachers tuning into student voices helped to shape the direction of our inquiry into the transdisciplinary theme of 'How we express ourselves'.
Within our school in Suzhou, China, our pre-kindergarten learners shine brightly as leaders in their quest for understanding and experts in their play. As a co-teaching partnership, my colleague Anna and I understand that often our job is to listen to learning and to take our cues from what we hear.

As we began our inquiry into the central idea that "imagination extends our ability to think, create and express ourselves", Anna and I were supervising outside morning play and talking about how to get started. What provocations might we set up? What stories might we share? As we were talking, a most extraordinary thing was taking place, not five feet from us. One of our students had bent down in concentration, another had joined, and another, until a little group huddled closely, and the buzz of their excitement was reaching us. As I approached, one of our students exclaimed: "Look! Look what we found! It is a blanket from a fairy!" The "blanket" was a golden sweet wrapper, cradled carefully in the hands of a 4-year-old child. As I examined this treasure, our students began to add to the fabric of the tale. "There must be a fairy house nearby! Where could it be?", said one learner. "I hope the fairy is not cold without her blanket!", add another one. Little voices erupted around Anna and I, brimming with excitement and ready to seek out magic.

In The learner in the enhanced PYP communication, it is said that "agency is present when students partner with teachers and members of the learning community to take charge of what, where, why, with whom and when they learn" (IB, 2017). Student agency is supported when teachers marry the interests, talents and skills of the children to the inquiry. Samuellson (2008) notes that play, initiated by children, is often separate to learning, initiated by the adults around them. Within the early learning framework of the PYP, there is a strong case to be made for teachers leveraging students' play and making it the foundation of inquiry, enhancing the status of play and celebrating the competency of children.

Immediately, we realized that the provocation we were seeking had come straight from the perspective and imagination of our learners. Immediately we sought books about fairies from the school library. Supporting our line of inquiry, which was to bring stories we read, share and know to life, we became consumers of fairy mythology. Designing clothes and homes, making beds and blankets, we gave life to our theory of fairies in our playground through shared belief. We naturally began to explore our second line of inquiry, imaginative use of everyday materials, as we played and built.

That evening, I painted a small fairy door and hung it on one of the trees. The next day at play, a shriek of excitement told Anna and I that it had been found. We began to sketch fairies, talk about who might live behind the door, and whether we could only see it now because the fairies knew we believed in them. When the fairies sent us a letter with ingredients for a magical potion, we mixed the ingredients and began to wonder if a small fairy school existed behind the door, where making potions and flying lessons were taught. Students talked, played, drew, sculpted and danced their ideas of what magic might exist around us. We effortlessly explored our final line of inquiry, which was different ways to express ideas.

It may be said that often times, we unpack our central ideas through looking at the words on a page or through a conversation without context. Had Anna and I ignored the voices beside us that fateful day in the playground, we could have had a very different inquiry. Our lesson that day was that the possibilities for magic and wonder that exist when we listen, trust and follow the leads of our students is simply phenomenal.
References:
Pramling Samuelsson, I. & Asplund Carlsson, M. 2008. "The Playing Learning Child: Towards a Pedagogy of Early Childhood". Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. Vol. 52, issue 6.

Primary Years Programme. The Learner in the enhanced PYP. December 2017. http://blogs.ibo.org/sharingpyp/files/2017/12/2017-December-The-Learner.pdf
Niamh Price is from Ireland and has been teaching for ten years. She has been a pre-kindergarten teacher at Suzhou-Singapore International School in Suzhou, China for 6 years. Prior to this, Niamh enjoyed 4 years of teaching and working with children and families in different areas of Dublin, Ireland. Niamh holds a Masters degree in Drama in Education, with a research specialization in play and creativity in the early years classroom. She believes in the importance of establishing relationships with every student who crosses the threshold of her classroom and is committed to finding out not just what each child can do, but who they are. Creating environments that invite beauty, curiosity and collaboration is an essential feature of her practice.

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Listening to learning: Agency in the early years

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This article is based on an example of listening to learning within a pre-kindergarten classroom and how teachers tuning into student voices helped to shape the direction of our inquiry into the transdisciplinary theme of 'How we express ourselves'.

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PYP nano PD: Collaborative planning and reflection

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PYP nano PD: Collaborative planning and reflection

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This article illustrates the importance of listening to students' voices and the powerful learning that can happen when allowing them take the lead. Planning for inquiry
As we made our way through the first year of our Primary Years Programme (PYP) journey, teachers at Summerhill International School shifted their focus from planning a unit of inquiry with their teams to a collaborative process that included the learners' voices in the planner.
Listening to the students' voices
Our five-year-old class was exploring the central idea, Members of a community can cooperate to achieve their common goals under the transdisciplinary theme How we organize ourselves. During circle time, the students discovered that their teacher had gotten engaged during the break and were excited to hear about her wedding plans. Upon hearing that their teacher had not yet had the time to plan for her wedding, one learner said, "It's ok; we can help you plan". Everyone was very excited about that idea and the Wedding Project was born.
Letting students lead

One way of thinking of learner agency is when learners have the 'power to act'. When learners move from being passive recipients to being much more active in the learning process, and actively involved in the decisions about the learning, then they have greater agency.
~ Derek Wenmoth, CORE Education 10 Trends

The students started by thinking about what they needed to plan for the wedding. As they started to share their ideas, they decided that they needed some way to record and remember their thoughts. They recorded their ideas on cards and stuck them on the wall. A system to organize all the ideas and everyone's roles and responsibilities soon emerged as the students were readying to put their ideas into action. After a group discussion, the students decided to organize their ideas into categories and delegate who would be doing what.

As they got started, they began to take on roles within their wedding plan. The students negotiated their responsibilities with their friends, managed their own materials, and then chose a space to store their on-going project. They also used the calendar to manage their own time by counting how many days were left until the wedding party.
Putting it all together
After all of the wedding preparations for the bride, the students turned their attention to the ceremony and celebration events. They had decided that since they would not be able to attend the actual wedding, they would have a class wedding party with their teacher. This launched a new query into how people celebrate their weddings. The children took on roles as wedding planners by planning and organizing the schedule of events, the guest list, what to wear, and how to set up and decorate the room. They even found a way to make sure that the groom was present at the wedding!
What we learned
Throughout this unit, we witnessed the power of learner agency when we involve students in the planning process. Both students and teachers learned a great deal during this inquiry. With reflective dialogue the teachers realized the power of following the students' lead and how empowering this is when students have ownership over the direction of the inquiry, and are truly invested in what is going on. As teachers became more comfortable with the capacity of young learners to steer the inquiry, the depth and quality of the inquiry rose substantially.

At the beginning of our PYP journey, we tried to plan for student-led inquiry by filling in all the boxes in the planner without leaving room for the learners' voices in the planning. As a school that is new to the IB Primary Years Programme, we felt comfort in knowing that the unit was planned for and in a sense, "completed" before we began the learning. Now we have shifted our thinking to a having a planner that starts off with just a few good provocations and an inviting environment. This means that there is space for children's ideas in the planner. Student-led inquiry can only happen when we listen to and honor the children's ideas and take the time to plan the unit together.

Reference:

Wenmoth, D. (2014) "Ten trends 2014: Agency ". Edtalks. http://edtalks.org/#/video/ten-trends-2014-agency
Jenny Yan is the PYP Coordinator at Summerhill International School, and IB candidate school. She has been a PYP educator for seven years and is passionate about supporting the development of critical and creative thinking in learners.

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Supporting learner agency in the early years

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This article illustrates the importance of listening to students' voices and the powerful learning that can happen when allowing them take the lead. Planning for inquiry As we made our way through the first year of our Primary Years Programme (PYP) journey, teachers at Summerhill International School shifted their focus from planning a unit of inquiry with their teams to a collaborative process that included the learners' voices in the planner.

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Your school has gone through authorization and received an official report. What's next? This article explores how one school has used the authorization report to create a clear and actionable 3-year timeline that is shared and reviewed with the learning community.
As PYP practitioners we are constantly striving to grow and learn. For schools, the process of accreditation and evaluation presents itself as an opportunity to receive precise feedback on where we have come from and the directions we should take moving forward. So, after submitting paperwork, welcoming the visitation team and receiving our formal report...what's next?

I began working at American Pacific International School the year after their evaluation visit. Within my first month, I received our formal report that outlined the strengths and areas of need the visitors saw. Using the provided template, I moved forward with making our 5-year action plan, but after completing it I was still at a loss. How could I share all this information with my school community in a way that was clear and concise? I wanted an action plan that could be shared with the entire learning community without overwhelming them. After attending the Role of the Coordinator training, my workshop facilitator gave me the advice to create a personal three-year plan, but I still struggled with a format that would communicate the IB Programme standards and practices that would be accessible to my entire school community.

I decided to create my own method for how to sort, simplify and present our yearly goals to my team. As a PYP teacher and learner, I am very visual and learn best through hands-on experiences. I began by cutting apart our action plan and separating the standards that needed to be addressed. I did my best to physically group standards with a similar theme and gave each group a heading.

I then divided these groups among my three-year timeline trying to put similar goals together (see image below).

I used the headings to create concept-based yearly goals which are expressed similarly to a central idea. Our three-year timeline goals became:

2017-2018: The APIS community and leadership will work to collaboratively align our programme of inquiry with grade level curriculum standards, and we will plan for and support integrated transdisciplinary learning.

2018-2019: The APIS community and leadership will work to ensure that learning and teaching utilizes resources to promote differentiated, constructivist and inquiry-based instruction.

2019-2020: The APIS community will work to design assessments that support understanding of the PYP essential elements, grade level curriculum standards and individual student needs.

By having our yearly goals structured as a central idea, I have found planning professional development to be far easier and more goal-oriented. We can unpack the big concepts and focus our attention on specific actions we can take to improve.

I began by sharing the 2017-2018 goal with my staff and asking them to highlight the areas that were confusing or where they would like more development. They also wrote goal statements including one way they could personally help the school meet the goal and one way administration could support them. As a community, we are now familiar with the expectations of the IB and feel a sense of ownership about working towards meeting our goal, and we review which standards are addressed during our weekly professional development.

We also check in regularly on our progress towards meeting the goal and brainstorm action steps, including future professional development sessions, which would be helpful. Our action plan is now a living, breathing part of our school community. Students and parents see goals posted on the walls, teachers are active participants in reaching the standards and administrators are held responsible for providing the support we need moving forward.
Cynthia Blackburn is a PYP coordinator currently working at American Pacific International School in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She has worked with the Primary Years Programme for five years in various teaching and leadership roles. She is passionate about helping her school to be knowledgeable about the PYP and aligned with Programme standards and practices. You can follow her on Twitter @MsCindyPYP.

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Your school has gone through authorization and received an official report. What's next? This article explores how one school has used the authorization report to create a clear and actionable 3-year timeline that is shared and reviewed with the learning community. As PYP practitioners we are constantly striving to grow and learn.

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This article illustrates how the use of the SOLO Taxonomy allowed our students to progress from shallow to deep thinking.
Of the five essential elements in the PYP, is there one that often gets overlooked when planning units of inquiry?

The planner prompts us to think explicitly about attitudes, skills, action and concepts. But what about knowledge? It can sometimes be challenging for teachers to identify a body of knowledge for a particular unit; it can feel uncomfortable identifying specific knowledge to be learned because it can direct the inquiry in a way that takes control away from students. I would argue, however, that identifying some essential knowledge needed to understand a central idea gives more power to the students and encourages them to become self-directed, assessment capable learners.

In Making the PYP happen (2009), the section on whether it is possible to "identify a particular body of knowledge for PYP schools" is addressed by explaining that, although there are some "core commonalities" that represent shared human experiences (which led to the selection of the six transdisciplinary themes in the PYP framework), schools should develop their scope and sequences to reflect their unique circumstances. But do our scope and sequence documents always document the knowledge associated with units of inquiry?

Lynn Erickson's Structure of Knowledge (2002) is often used in the PYP workshops to illustrate how concepts and knowledge interact to help students form a principal generalization (similar to the central ideas we all have in our programmes of inquiry). The foundations of being able to form these principal generalizations (or understand a PYP central idea) are based on identifying the essential facts that will interact with the chosen macro and micro concepts (or, as we call them in the PYP, key and related concepts).

John Hattie and Gregory Donoghue (2013) define learning as:

The process of [students] developing sufficient surface knowledge to then [enable them to] move to deeper understanding such that one can appropriately transfer this learning to new tasks and situations.

Hattie states that there is a right time for interventions and the use of deliberate learning strategies. Based on his 800+ meta-analyses of now over 50,000 research articles, Hattie has argued that allowing students to inquire without structure too early does not work, having an effect size of only 0.31, less than an acceptable year's growth (the 0.4 'hinge point' which defines a typical year's growth).

This is where the SOLO Taxonomy can come in handy. Although it was developed by Biggs and Collis back in 1982 it seems to have had a resurgence of interest recently. Hattie (2012) describes it as "the most powerful model for understanding these three levels of understanding [surface, deep and conceptual]". In her new book entitled The Power of Inquiry (2015), Kath Murdoch writes that the SOLO Taxonomy "explicates the work of John Dewey, who wrote extensively about our understanding arising from our capacity to see connections". And Pam Hook (2012), who has released a variety of publications to help schools implement the model across a whole range of subject areas, states that it offers solutions to "ensure cognitive stretch for all students, build interest for all students, build confidence for all students and share power amongst all students."

In the SOLO model, there are four levels of thinking. At Seisen International School we have simplified the names of these levels for use with our students: unistructural (which we have renamed 'one idea'), multistructural (which we have renamed 'many ideas'), relational (which we have renamed 'connecting ideas') and extended abstract (which we have renamed 'going further'). The first two levels are surface level learning and require students to find information and collect ideas. The last two require deeper thinking where students have to process the information they gathered in the first two levels. If students are not at a stage where they have an idea about the concept, topic or subject, they are said to be at the pre-structural stage (which we renamed 'getting started').

At Seisen we have had some success adopting the SOLO Taxonomy. Students refer to the levels when reflecting on their progress and setting goals. It has become our language of learning, having aligned it with our own inquiry cycle (Getting Started - Investigating - Connecting Ideas - Going Further). Using a list of appropriate verbs at each level, learning engagements are designed across the continuum so that students can identify where they are and select their next steps. The students become evaluators of their own learning and teaching teams have a tool to use to answer the question posed in box 3 - What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?

By the time the students approach their exhibition year, consistent use of the tool is enabling students to plot their own learning progressions using the SOLO verbs at each stage of their independent inquiry. Isn't this our goal as teachers to structure inquiries in a way that encourages students to become independent, self-directed, assessment capable learners?

Here you can find links to some grade-level examples of the SOLO Taxonomies being used for units of inquiry on our blog.

Are you currently using SOLO in your PYP school? Are you interested in learning more about SOLO? Please contact us at pyp.curriculum@ibo.org.

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Michael Hughes an experiences PYP Coordinator, currently into his fourth year at Seisen International School, Tokyo. Before this he worked in international schools in Singapore and Jordan and has ten years experience in the PYP. He is a work- shop leader in the Asia Pacific region.

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From surface to deep learning: The importance of knowledge

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This article illustrates how the use of the SOLO Taxonomy allowed our students to progress from shallow to deep thinking. Of the five essential elements in the PYP, is there one that often gets overlooked when planning units of inquiry? The planner prompts us to think explicitly about attitudes, skills, action and concepts.

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MTPYPH:IA Day 1 Jamboard - Google Jamboard

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