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Learning Environments:

-“Many children in our school community are developing English as an additional language, so we educators also bring in other ways for children to share thinking and tell us about who they are as learners.” - Offering multiple ways for students to share thinking (pictures, loose parts/manipulatives, letters/written words, oral)

-“Dedicated time learning outdoors in the forest, pond and garden provides inspiration for observing, questioning and collecting data” - We have an Outdoor Experiential Education class in addition to PE which helps us research, especially with our year long HWW (Cycles in the Natural World).

Experts: A Different Approach:

“Before the visit, we shared that “Dr. O” was interested in hearing about the children’s work/projects/research…it made a lot of sense for him to connect to their work and not the other way around...actively cultivate the children’s identities as Researchers/ Scientists by valuing their work in real time as opposed to something precluding the work they might someday aspire to” - IDEA: Our Job Fair at the beginning of our HWOO (Roles and Responsibilities) unit and then students host their own towards the end?

ATLs

“Communication Skills - Put thinking ahead of knowing” - this resonates with me. My intention is to be process focused however often students and teachers can become focused on acquisition of knowledge as knowing or not knowing, instead of the process of how we might find out. This was a great reminder for me to continue explicitly teaching/modeling/narrating the thinking process.

● record answers to the questions

○ How do they use various environments to support agency?

Andrea Mills speaks to using the outdoors as an opportunity for exploration and a place to conduct research. It is an environment where students naturally are curious and where students have many options and choices in what they want to learn more about.

○ What is the educator talk they use?

How we see children as learners/researchers allows them to see themselves as such. Embedding language like “investigating, discovering, and finding out” allows children to see themselves as capable researchers who understand the tools they require to learn more about the world around them.

○ How do they include experts?

They invite experts to the classroom and front load them on what the students are learning about, allowing the expert and the students to make connections to their learning. Inviting a reciprocal conversation between the students and the guest and valuing the students work in real time.

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How do they use various environments to support agency?

We are very lucky to have an Outdoor Experimental Teacher who takes our students twice a week outdoors in addition to Physical Education classes and recess time outdoors. He connects to our year long Unit of Inquiry - How the World Works.

The classroom learning space is ideally the third teacher in an Early Years setting. I love to design and arrange an engaging learning space that supports small group learning, imaginative role play centres, sensory play, transdiciplinary centres and whole class learning. We also have a calm corner to support social emotional needs. The classroom walls document and celebrate our learning. Even the floor space is used! The classroom space also changes throughout the year to meet the needs of the individual students in the class and our UOI.

What is the educator talk they use?

The students are a reflection of the teacher. EY teachers have an important role often as the students' first teacher of the PYP. We are responsible for introducing the students to the language of the PYP in their everyday tasks and not just formal lessons.

How do they include experts?

I love the example of welcoming an expert to provide feedback on the students learning and flipping the traditional model! If possible I would love to have an expert come in to share with the students as a provocation at the beginning of the unit to spark the interest and then return at the end of the unit to celebrate in their learning journey.

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Nathalie - Supporting  childrens agentic identities 

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Nathalie - Supporting  childrens agentic identities 

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Supporting children's agentic identities
- How do they use various environments to support agency?

When I started working at my school, we only had 20minutes of playground time per day. After 2 years, I had the chance to change that to one hour of playground time per day (minimum). During Covid-19, my school changed into an "outdoor school" with outdoor classrooms for each grade level (Preschool - 8th grade) and we spent as much time as possible outside.
Every since the pandemic, we kept the ample outdoor times, even though we are using the indoor classrooms for a majority of the day. We have noticed a trememdous change in students overall development ever since the increase of outdoor play: - Social emotional skills have improved, students are more calm and resilient, they separate from their caregivers more easily outside than in the classroom, they come up with problem-solving skills, there less fighting or aggression, - students physical abilities have improved (less injuries!!) and their endurance and stamina - they inquire, observe and wonder about the natural world and science, they are caring towards animals and insects (they protect rather than kill a spider or an earth worm an I could go on..
Indoor classrooms provide a safe and nurturing environment and support especially language learning since this was a challenge during the increased outdoor time during the pandemic. Different material can be useds, too. The environment serves as a "third teacher".

What is the educator talk they use:

We engage in discussions with the students, are responsive to their needs and wishes, we ask open-ended questions and I wonder questions, we use resources to find out answers together rather than just answering questions.
We listen. We value their emotions. We don't praise too much but respect and comment on their achievements and thought they put into something.

How do they include experts:

Parents are experts, too. They are always invited to read to us in their native language (we have 30+different nationalities) and share their history and traditions.
We connect with experts (e.g. we just consulted a worm expert about a weird species the children found on the playground). I liked the idea to let experts tell more about themselves and where and how they work. I will include this into our next visits.

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Shares ideas from the reading that can be implemented in your context.

Building strong relationships with students and their families – This area is one of the key areas in my current learning environment. The Chinese culture tends to be very competitive and traditional. Therefore, parents sometimes tend to judge their child’s understanding and ability of others based on how they believe they should be at that age level. Building strong relationships with students and their families helps to close that gap and parents can support more when needed. They can also learn more about their child and how they learn as all students’ abilities are different.

Monitoring and documenting students’ learning and development during play – Through reading I understand the importance of play and how much information we as educators can gain from observing and monitoring students’ development during playtime. We can learn how students are developing their social and self-management skills or even communication skills. I think going forward, I will be more deliberate in this aspect.

How do they use various environments to support the agency?

Simply, where there are many options the likelihood for students to have more choices the more support for student agency. Using various environments as well helps students to have different choices and how to own their learning. Additionally, in my experience depending on the theme we are exploring, I tend to connect the environment to help students to have real learning experiences.

What is the educator talk they use?

Positive language – I believe that educators should use positive language in the learning environment as students often model what they see or hear.

The language used by educators should help to motivate and build confidence in students.

How do they include experts?

Inviting people from the community is always a good idea to help support the inquiry. For example – I recall guiding my p1 students to explore the unit - how we organize ourselves with the central idea of jobs. I invited people from within the school community with different jobs to share. Students were guided to ask their own questions. During the epidemic, experts were not allowed to come in so instead technology was used.

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○ How do they use various

environments to support agency?
Learning environment - I can connect to the idea of outdoor learning experiences, as over the past years, I can see most of my students engaging into quality conversation looking through the window.  Their morning starts with looking outside and finding out if the sun is out or if the leaves are moving to predict the weather.

○What is the educator talk they use?
I have seen a drastic change in student's ability to acquire language in environments where they are exposed to simple language used in correct context, appropriate vocabulary with visual aids. After unpacking a new word, if it is deliberately used in day to day instructions, it becomes a part of students's language too.

○How do they include experts?
Love the idea of working backwards to invite a guest speaker. I have tried it in past with grade 1, may be I can attempt it with Early Years too. As simple as what questions the students would like to ask the guest speaker.

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1. Open-ended outdoor settings are used for inspiration and observation.
I am excited that at our school, we recently broke ground for a new outdoor classroom area that will be used by all grade levels to enhance our IB program.

2. What is the educator talk they use?

Educators should be conscious of the use of language that empowers the learner.

3. How do they include experts?

Opportunities to connect with the community members promotes meaningful dialogue and sharing of skills to make connections. They suggest frontloading to connect with what is being done in the classroom.

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1. How do they use various

environments to support agency?

There is an emphasis on outdoor environments, but classrooms are also important as a familiar and safe place for students.

2. What is the educator talk they use?

When spoken to by educators, empowering language should be used, which will help students build confidence so that students can be effective active participants in their own learning.

3. How do they include experts?

Invitations to experts in the wider community can be made. 'Frontloading' by teachers can ensure that the experts make links to students' own lives and experiences, thus potentially building further interest.

*. Ideas to be implemented in my context:

95% of the students in the EY department, (and throughout the school) are non-native / ELLs. I'd love to find more and more ways for students to show their understanding or to put forward their inquiries and make what they want to know known.

I would also love to make better use of the outdoors for learning experiences with my students. Air quality is an issue in China, and especially in Xi'an in the winter, as we are surrounded by mountains which creates a bowl that holds the pollution, as well as spring sandstorms from the Gobi Desert. However, flexible planning with outdoor and indoor options can combat this.

It would be great to include more community members, (parents etc) as experts within learning experiences for greater context and relevance to our students' lives and UOIs. Luckily, visiting regulations to our school have become less stringent since the 'end' of COVID.

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1. How do they use various

environments to support agency?

Students can be involved in decisions related to organizing learning spaces, which can help to 'promote high levels of independence'

2. What is the educator talk they use?

A focus on various skills that students can develop, such as communication & social skills.

3. How do they include experts?

They recommend collaboration with in school specialists, such as science teachers, librarians etc.

*. Ideas to be implemented in my context:

I would be very happy to include students in decisions related to how space is used in the classroom. I currently allow students to choose where favourite materials and equipment are stored , which allows them easier and more convenient access. and have been toying with the idea of letting them decide table location.

An expansion to this is scheduling. Unfortunately, single subject classes are rigid at my school, but language, maths, UOI and agency time are quite flexible. For next academic year I'm thinking of doing it my way for the first 8 weeks or so, then giving it over to the students. Essentially telling them we need a certain number of each class on the timetable and what the free periods are, then letting them have a crack at it.

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Supporting Agentic Identities - Keri Almeida

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Supporting Agentic Identities - Keri Almeida

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Implemented in my context;
"Ensure sufficient time for uninterrupted play (in responsive learning spaces) to practise and develop research skills."

- this is the one challenge I always face in developing my schedule. How to balance the uninterrupted play with small groups, class community learning and with single subjects. Where is the time?!?

"Provide time for reflection at all stages of learning—before, during and after inquiries."

- the rush of the day, the schedule, the times of all the moving parts, means that many times I skip this part of our lessons. But I know it is the most important part of the learning. If it is scheduled in my daily planner, then I will have a better chance at placing value on it in the classroom.

How do they use various environments to support agency?
- As we discussed in "who they are," students are capable learners. The more opportunities we can provide for our students, the more they will learn and grow. If we provide many learning environments, students can develop their agency for applying their learning in these spaces.
- Providing options allows them to choose options!

What is the educator talk they use?
- If we use the words, the students will too!
- If we say they are shy, the will too. If we say they are observing the environment before they engage, they will too!

How do they include experts?
- the part I love the most about allowing experts from the community to support the learning, allows me to share with the students that I (the teacher) am also a learner. I love the students faces when I share that I am not always the expert and that I too learned something. Students can then see that life long learning is the goal, not perfection.

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From Principals into Practice/The Learner/Approaches to learning in the early years (p. 15 – 19)

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From Principals into Practice/The Learner/Approaches to learning in the early years (p. 15 – 19)

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Principles into Practice:The Learner:Approaches to learning in the early years

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Supporting Children’s Agentic Identities through the Approaches to Learning

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Supporting Children’s Agentic Identities through the Approaches to Learning

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This piece draws from experiences in an early childhood PYP context in Switzer l and . Reflections are shared on ways the Approaches to Learning have the potential to be powerful tools for supporting children's agentic identities with a particular focus on environments, experts and teacher talk.

"Maybe if I get the idea of something. Maybe I get it in a book or maybe I tell [my sister] I'm going to be the one who knows it. Who found it out." - D., aged 4

These reflections by three- and four-year-olds are ideas that have been thoughtfully cultivated as part of in-depth inquiries and a classroom culture that actively seeks to nurture a sense of agency. We educators have found that thinking deeply about the Approaches to Learning as tools for sup porting children's identities as scientists, makers, artists, and in the example above, RESEARCHERS has framed how we plan for explorations connected to inquiries.

The young children's reflections on what it means to be a researcher make clear that they are quite capable of developing a strikingly self-actualized sense of themselves . Without hesitation, they identify THEMSELVES as the researchers-citizens of our community who are highly capable as active participants in meaning-making with strong images and identities as learners.

Many children in our school community are developing English as an additional language, so we educators also bring in other ways for children to share thinking and tell us about who they are as learners. A confident scientific drawing, ease with using materials to represent ideas-these traces of learning give us lots of information about agency, identity and learning.

But getting back to those articulately shared ideas about what it means to be a researcher...  As teachers, we have been considering how lines of inquiry and connected proposals to support learning outcomes might be optimized through the lens of the Approaches to l earning (ATLs). Playing with the idea of developing the skills of Researcher (or Thinker/Communicator, etc.) as central to planning, we have identified three areas which have had a significant impact, including: Learning Environments , Experts and Language (Teacher Talk).

"Children are natural scientists, and an open-ended outdoor setting inherently promotes a sense of wonder and a space ripe for questioning, inquiring and theory-building."

Learning Environments

For an inquiry into ways of how ' exploring and caring for the natural environment leads to discovery ' (Sharing the Planet), much of the "fieldwork" happens in outdoor environments. Dedicated time learning outdoors in the forest, pond and garden provides inspiration for observing, questioning and collecting data. Children are natural scientists, and an open-ended outdoor setting inherently promotes a sense of wonder and a space ripe for questioning, inquiring and theory-building. The outdoors is the ultimate space for developing research skills, but there are others. Classrooms, for instance, have endless potential to support identity and agency. More on that from my far more knowledgeable former colleagues and me he r e.

Experts: A Different Approach

Opportunities to connect with members of the wider community have been important components of many of our inquiries. A visiting musician, an engineer and a professional dancer are just some examples of experts we have hosted. These visits often promote a meaningful exchange of dialogue, sharing of skills and connection. As a team, we have thought a lot about how to optimize these visits. Instead of the traditional invitation to come in and share expertise, we wondered how we might rethink these experiences with a view to reframe the relationship between the children and visiting experts.

Recently, we were fortunate to have a scientist visit as part of a science focused inquiry. Before the visit, we shared that " Dr. O" was interested in hearing about the children's work/projects/research and that a professional scientist might have interesting ideas to share back with us. The children were extremely motivated to share an ongoing color mixing project. Dr. O was able to make connections to his work by sharing, among other things, about how his research also takes place in a lab much like our classroom. Of course, this took some preparation and "frontloading" for our guest but he was grateful to have the teachers provide direction and shared how impressed he was with the children's work and how it made a lot of sense for him to connect to their work and not the other way around. Our aim was to actively cultivate the children's identities as Researchers/ Scientists by valuing their work in real time as opposed to something precluding the work they might someday aspire to - a sh ift in the role of expert toward a dialogue between researchers.

"In thinking about words we use to describe children, we asked ourselves as teachers how this strong image of children as learners might inform the way we speak to children and each other in our classroom communities."

Language (Teacher Talk)

PYP teachers do lots of thinking about how to support the development of the Learner Profile. In my context, some of us have spent dedicated time developing a shared understanding of young children as capable, curious and motivated to be active participants in their learning. In thinking about words we use to describe children, we asked ourselves as teachers how this strong image of children as learners might inform the way we speak to children and each other in our classroom communities. Circling back to those self-actualized young children/researchers at the beginning of this post, we see that their words are weighted heavily with a sense of agency. They spontaneously employed action verbs like investigating , discovering , finding out . They identified themselves as the researchers . They knew what "tools" they required. As teachers, we hope that our conscious use of empowering language contributed to the childrens '  metacognition-their ideas about themselves-as learners.

For most educators, the day-to-day planning for teaching/learning is a practical, often creative, but usually time-consuming labo u r of love. The time we set aside to consider the impact our choices have on children's agentic identities for lifelong learning is also time to appreciate the beautiful work of early childhood education.

Andrea Mills  currently works as both a Primary Teacher and Atelierista /Arts Specialist at The Inter-Community, Zurich. She is from the US, and has a range of international school experiences. Passionate about play based learning, she is also a trained Forest School Leader and is inspired by the educational projects of Reggio Emilia.

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Supporting Children's Agentic Identities through the Approaches to Learning

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This piece draws from experiences in an early childhood PYP context in Switzer l and . Reflections are shared on ways the Approaches to Learning have the potential to be powerful tools for supporting children's agentic identities with a particular focus on environments, experts and teacher talk. "Maybe if I get the idea of something.