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Without judgement, honestly and critically reflect on the following questions as a personal reflection.

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Let your students be the boss - Sharing PYP Blog

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Let your students be the boss - Sharing PYP Blog

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Developing approaches to learning - Sharing PYP Blog

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Developing approaches to learning - Sharing PYP Blog

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The International Baccalaureate® aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.

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Introduction to From Principles to Practice

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Introduction to From Principles to Practice

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https://resources.ibo.org/pyp/videos/pyp-getting-started-2018/?c=8afb216c

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A class of 6-7 year olds in the United States inquires into the central idea, "A community is impacted by the involvement of its members" under the transdisciplinary theme of How We Organize Ourselves.

A class of 7-8 years olds in Germany inquires into the central idea, "The properties of construction materials influence the design of buildings and structures" under the transdisciplinary theme of How the World Works.

Signs and Symbols

A class of 5-6 year olds in Australia inquires into the central idea, "signs and symbols can be used to communicate a message" under the transdisciplinary theme of How We Express Ourselves.

Language and Race/Ethnicity

A Theory of Knowledge class in the United States explores language as a way of knowing by reflecting on the question, "How does the language we use shape the way we think and understand race and ethnicity? Does language construct reality or describe reality?"

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All for One and One for All A class of 6-7 year olds in the United States inquires into the central idea, “A community is impacted by the involvement of its...

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Slow down. "If kids are asking questions that are interesting, don't tell them, 'we have to get through chapter 5,' " Fine said. "Slow down as much as possible to get a richer, deeper, slower inquiry." Consider what you're trying to teach-the skills of historical inquiry, say-and address those skills in the context of the student's question. Though deviating from the day's plan, this approach can accomplish the same goals while addressing kids' curiosity.

Yoke assignments to the real world. Students feel more connected to their work when it touches on their interests and life outside the classroom. At one school the authors studied, most student projects involved hands-on creative work that had some practical application. With a startup approach in mind, students identify real-world problems that trouble them and create prototype solutions, all under the guidance of a teacher. The authors call the school's ethic of contribution, which is manifest in student projects that address real-world concerns, one of the most distinctive and motivating features of the school.

Think open-ended. Teachers who approach their subjects as on-going endeavors that are full of mysteries inspire student learning. Viewing the subject as dead and done, on the other hand-here are the causes of the French Revolution, these are the lessons of A Separate Peace -can stultify curiosity. Better to adopt a stance that welcomes new interpretations and views students as possible contributors to the field-or apprentices who are beginning to develop something under the supervision of their teacher and with input from peers.

Offer choice and agency. Students are free to choose their extracurricular activities, and this choice is motivating and reinforcing. Unlike required classes, where student interest is irrelevant, a club or sport that teenagers select out of curiosity builds a community of like-minded kids where each feels accountable to the others. As one teenager put it, "I'm happier to be at rehearsal than at school, because it is something I want to do, love to do, with people who want to do it." To mimic what works in these looser extracurricular settings, those who teach required classes might add as much choice as possible to their course work. A chemistry teacher intent on teaching the scientific method, for instance, might allow students to choose the content of their experiment. In English, the teacher could invite students to select some of the books they're analyzing. The more agency students have over their learning, the more apt they are to engage deeply in the content.

Ask yourself, "what will my students need in life?" The most compelling teachers they found were over 35 and experienced in the classroom. The perspective they'd picked up allowed them to see more clearly what students needed, broadly, to succeed every day. Usually, this boiled down to three abilities: to write, communicate and think critically. Regardless of the subject, these top teachers oriented their instruction around these skills.

Think about times when the learning was deepest and do more of it. "What made it better or different?" Fine asked. If the class was engaged during an elective, where choice was plentiful, find ways to introduce more options into top-down classes. Reflect on what worked best in one setting and apply it to others.

Develop a detailed and clear vision of sound teaching. The best schools Mehta and Fine observed possessed a crystalline vision of how students should be taught, which permeated the classrooms. This "north star," as they call the shared vision, helped guide decision-making about how and what to teach, and minimized variation in quality among classrooms. School leaders striving to build a place where deeper learning can happen should start by defining that vision for high-quality instruction that is owned and shared by teachers.

Create "thick mechanisms" of learning for teachers and administrators. To enact that vision, all adults in the school need to be educated about how to get there. "Thick mechanisms" give adults the openings and the time to see clearly what they're trying to do and allow them to work with other knowledgeable staff to figure out how. At an International Baccalaureate school the authors studied, for example, teachers went through several three-part feedback cycles: first, a conversation to identify a problem; then a class observation; and finally a post-class discussion between teacher and observer to hone the thinking and approach to the problem. Other thick mechanisms included giving new teachers an abbreviated course load to allow for more coaching and extending opportunities for new staff to work with mentors.

Guide teachers just as they guide students. Fine and Mehta call this "a quality of symmetry," wherein schools apply the same stance to teachers and students. Thus, in schools that prize collaborative learning among students, teachers too are expected to work together to solve problems. In schools where students are expected to bring outside-the-classroom experiences to their work, so too are teachers invited to call on and use their practical knowledge with their students. In one project-based school the authors examined, for example, new teachers started their tenure with a two-day, collaborative project that reflected what students did. "Structuring the model so that teachers' experiences mirror those of their students adds critical energy and coherence to the school's work," the authors write.

Be visible. In schools where learning runs deep, student and teacher work is public to all. This transparency invites accountability and allows teachers and students both to see and own the shared school vision. Greater visibility also gets away from the "egg crate" style of many schools, where each classroom seems to exist in its own veiled space and teachers are unable to learn from one another. When classroom practices are visible, teachers are motivated to keep up with their peers; "no one wants to be the one playing a fool," as one teacher told the authors.

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Going for Depth: How Schools and Teachers Can Foster Meaningful Learning Experiences | KQED

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Slow down. "If kids are asking questions that are interesting, don't tell them, 'we have to get through chapter 5,' " Fine said. "Slow down as much as possible to get a richer, deeper, slower inquiry." Consider what you're trying to teach-the skills of historical inquiry, say-and address those skills in the context of the student's question.

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Formative assessment-discovering what students know while they're still in the process of learning it-can be tricky. Designing just the right assessment can feel high stakes-for teachers, not students-because we're using it to figure out what comes next. Are we ready to move on? Do our students need a different path into the concepts? Or, more likely, which students are ready to move on and which need a different path?

When it comes to figuring out what our students really know, we have to look at more than one kind of information. A single data point-no matter how well designed the quiz, presentation, or problem behind it-isn't enough information to help us plan the next step in our instruction.

Add to that the fact that different learning tasks are best measured in different ways, and we can see why we need a variety of formative assessment tools we can deploy quickly, seamlessly, and in a low-stakes way-all while not creating an unmanageable workload. That's why it's important to keep it simple: Formative assessments generally just need to be checked, not graded, as the point is to get a basic read on the progress of individuals, or the class as a whole.

7 Approaches to Formative Assessment

1. Entry and exit slips: Those marginal minutes at the beginning and end of class can provide some great opportunities to find out what kids remember. Start the class off with a quick question about the previous day's work while students are getting settled-you can ask differentiated questions written out on chart paper or projected on the board, for example.

Exit slips can take lots of forms beyond the old-school pencil and scrap paper. Whether you're assessing at the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy or the top, you can use tools like Padlet or Poll Everywhere, or measure progress toward attainment or retention of essential content or standards with tools like Google Classroom's Question tool, Google Forms with Flubaroo, and Edulastic, all of which make seeing what students know a snap.

A quick way to see the big picture if you use paper exit tickets is to sort the papers into three piles: Students got the point; they sort of got it; and they didn't get it. The size of the stacks is your clue about what to do next.

No matter the tool, the key to keeping students engaged in the process of just-walked-in or almost-out-the-door formative assessment is the questions. Ask students to write for one minute on the most meaningful thing they learned. You can try prompts like:

What are three things you learned, two things you're still curious about, and one thing you don't understand?

How would you have done things differently today, if you had the choice?

What I found interesting about this work was...

Right now I'm feeling...

Today was hard because...

Or skip the words completely and have students draw or circle emojis to represent their assessment of their understanding.

2. Low-stakes quizzes and polls: If you want to find out whether your students really know as much as you think they know, polls and quizzes created with Socrative or Quizlet or in-class games and tools like Quizalize, Kahoot, FlipQuiz, Gimkit, Plickers, and Flippity can help you get a better sense of how much they really understand. (Grading quizzes but assigning low point values is a great way to make sure students really try: The quizzes matter, but an individual low score can't kill a student's grade.) Kids in many classes are always logged in to these tools, so formative assessments can be done very quickly. Teachers can see each kid's response, and determine both individually and in aggregate how students are doing.

Because you can design the questions yourself, you determine the level of complexity. Ask questions at the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy and you'll get insight into what facts, vocabulary terms, or processes kids remember. Ask more complicated questions ("What advice do you think Katniss Everdeen would offer Scout Finch if the two of them were talking at the end of chapter 3?"), and you'll get more sophisticated insights.

3. Dipsticks: So-called alternative formative assessments are meant to be as easy and quick as checking the oil in your car, so they're sometimes referred to as dipsticks. These can be things like asking students to:

write a letter explaining a key idea to a friend,

draw a sketch to visually represent new knowledge, or

do a think, pair, share exercise with a partner.

Your own observations of students at work in class can provide valuable data as well, but they can be tricky to keep track of. Taking quick notes on a tablet or smartphone, or using a copy of your roster, is one approach. A focused observation form is more formal and can help you narrow your note-taking focus as you watch students work.

4. Interview assessments: If you want to dig a little deeper into students' understanding of content, try discussion-based assessment methods. Casual chats with students in the classroom can help them feel at ease even as you get a sense of what they know, and you may find that five-minute interview assessments work really well. Five minutes per student would take quite a bit of time, but you don't have to talk to every student about every project or lesson.

You can also shift some of this work to students using a peer-feedback process called TAG feedback (Tell your peer something they did well, Ask a thoughtful question, Give a positive suggestion). When you have students share the feedback they have for a peer, you gain insight into both students' learning.

For more introverted students-or for more private assessments-use Flipgrid, Explain Everything, or Seesaw to have students record their answers to prompts and demonstrate what they can do.

5. Methods that incorporate art: Consider using visual art or photography or videography as an assessment tool. Whether students draw, create a collage, or sculpt, you may find that the assessment helps them synthesize their learning. Or think beyond the visual and have kids act out their understanding of the content. They can create a dance to model cell mitosis or act out stories like Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" to explore the subtext.

6. Misconceptions and errors: Sometimes it's helpful to see if students understand why something is incorrect or why a concept is hard. Ask students to explain the " muddiest point" in the lesson-the place where things got confusing or particularly difficult or where they still lack clarity. Or do a misconception check: Present students with a common misunderstanding and ask them to apply previous knowledge to correct the mistake, or ask them to decide if a statement contains any mistakes at all, and then discuss their answers.

7. Self-assessment: Don't forget to consult the experts-the kids. Often you can give your rubric to your students and have them spot their strengths and weaknesses.

You can use sticky notes to get a quick insight into what areas your kids think they need to work on. Ask them to pick their own trouble spot from three or four areas where you think the class as a whole needs work, and write those areas in separate columns on a whiteboard. Have you students answer on a sticky note and then put the note in the correct column-you can see the results at a glance.

Several self-assessments let the teacher see what every kid thinks very quickly. For example, you can use colored stacking cups that allow kids to flag that they're all set (green cup), working through some confusion (yellow), or really confused and in need of help (red).

Similar strategies involve using participation cards for discussions (each student has three cards-"I agree," "I disagree," and "I don't know how to respond") and thumbs-up responses (instead of raising a hand, students hold a fist at their belly and put their thumb up when they're ready to contribute). Students can instead use six hand gestures to silently signal that they agree, disagree, have something to add, and more. All of these strategies give teachers an unobtrusive way to see what students are thinking.

No matter which tools you select, make time to do your own reflection to ensure that you're only assessing the content and not getting lost in the assessment fog. If a tool is too complicated, is not reliable or accessible, or takes up a disproportionate amount of time, it's OK to put it aside and try something different.

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7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

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Formative assessment-discovering what students know while they're still in the process of learning it-can be tricky. Designing just the right assessment can feel high stakes-for teachers, not students-because we're using it to figure out what comes next. Are we ready to move on? Do our students need a different path into the concepts?

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A room with a view to learning - Sharing PYP Blog

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A room with a view to learning - Sharing PYP Blog

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Blog Post on Inquiry & Asking Questions (Factual vs Conceptual)

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Blog Post on Inquiry & Asking Questions (Factual vs Conceptual)

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Now that we’re fired up about teaching inquiry, it should come along easily, right? Yes and no. The main part is that you are being open-minded to inquiry. Yay! This is the first major…

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Download and print these helpful sketchnotes from all of Trevor's publications to support adopting inquiry and strengthening implementation in your classroom and school. Thanks go to Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt for collaborating on these sketchnotes and for bringing these ideas to life through the power of imagery. Follow her at @rbathursthunt for an inquiry in the kindergarten classroom perspective.

Also head to the Exclusive Content area of our site to download more amazing graphics!

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Facilitating language development through concept-based inquiry (blog post)

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Facilitating language development through concept-based inquiry (blog post)

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Educators today are commonly working in multilingual classrooms and face the challenge of engaging a linguistically diverse population through concept-based inquiry while simultaneously supporting language development for the language of instruction. These students enter the classroom with funds of knowledge on which new learning can be built. This article brings together effective practices for language development and concept-based inquiry to simplify some important principles all educators should consider.
As an international educator, most of my action research questions have focused on the needs of language learners. I have been driven out of a desire to meet their needs and help my students achieve their full potential. Questions about how language works, how to teach literacy skills efficiently and effectively, the role of home language, what tools and systems will help, and finally how to both foster and capture conceptual understandings drove me to read, research and attend professional development courses. Through research I have discovered a few fundamental learning principles that are relevant to all international educators no matter the context or language of instruction. These learning principles can positively impact the learning for all students. Conceptual understandings can both deepen and become visible to the learning community. Their self-efficacy and sense of agency will grow as they reflect on learning that was relevant, engaging and comprehensible.

Principle 1
Give sufficient time for exploration through experiential learning. Use it for pre-assessment, to identify misconceptions, to draw out questions and to cultivate curiosity while making language development relevant.

Piaget and Vygotsky have shown that learning is constructed through tangible, concrete, social experiences (Woolfolk, 2014). The more concrete, hands-on experiences our students can have throughout the unit of inquiry, especially in the first couple of weeks, the more powerful and meaningful the inquiry will be for them (Fahey, 2012). Using concrete learning experiences fosters language development by making the content comprehensible (Hamza, 2016). It makes learning tangible, which in turn fosters the curiosity needed for questioning. Through experiential exploration, students can make connections to their funds of knowledge, and identify relevant local issues alongside deepening questions for the investigation stage (Custance, Dare and Polias, 2012).

During "where we are in place and time", our central idea was about settlements and landforms. Through research, I discovered scripted process drama (Barnes, Johnson & Neff, 2010). After giving my students time to cultivate some curiosity through listening to short stories read aloud, listening to guest speakers share stories about migration, observing pictures of early settlements and a field trip to the Citadel, I was able to facilitate the scripted process drama to engage their imagination, pre-assess understandings and draw out some questions for our investigation such as:

How did people build homes in the past?

How did people survive in the past?

How do people find a spot to start a town?

Through the weekly use of learning stories, I was able to monitor developing understandings as students reflected each week. Reflections showed developing understandings.

"We learned how people in the past were working to get water and food to survive. They need a home and wood to make a home."

Principle 2
The learning environment as the third teacher is where learning takes place and should be a stimulating, anxiety free space where mistakes are seen as opportunities and where the voice of the child is heard as a social environment.

All learning-is itself linguistic activity. Whatever you learn, you are engaged in language; learning involves 'languaging' - M. A. K. Halliday (2016)

Foster a learning environment that meets the students where they are and cultivates a culture of curiosity, growth mindset and social construction of ideas within their zone of proximal development (Dweck 2016; Woolfolk, 2014). The environment should honor learning and provide resources to make learning accessible. According to Loris Malaguzzi, the learning environment is the third teacher as it represents our values and beliefs about children, delivering the unspoken messages about children's rights (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1998). John Dewey wrote about the power of an environment and its role in social function for bringing about change and social improvement over perpetuating the old behaviors that benefit a few (2015). Value home identity and culture through the strategy of translanguaging to foster understandings by using home language to make meaning at critical times (Garcia & Kleyn, 2016).

Make home language welcome in the classroom from the first day of school by honoring the student's identity through language profiles. Translanguaging used thoughtfully, at critical learning moments enables students to converse in their home language to make meaning (Garcia, & Kleyn, 2016). Use the think-pair-share strategy for a translanguaging moment. Visual scaffolding connects pictures with text for meaning making (Harrel, & Jordan, 2015). The environment in my classroom became a visible language rich resource and my students could easily refer to the displays to support making connections and language needs.

To foster a social learning environment, recognize that all learners benefit from time to learn together as a whole group through modeled thinking and instruction, in small groups and in pairs (Custance et al, 2012). Students need opportunities to deconstruct things such as a genre or process and to construct as a whole group and in small groups before you can expect them to try it alone (Custance et al, 2012). That is why transdisciplinary learning is so beneficial for the inquiry-based classroom. Language reading and writing skills can be taught and developed throughout the inquiry process within a relevant context as they learn to read and write about what they are learning through the transdisciplinary theme. Integrating the targeted genre via a summative assessment task, gives the genre context for meaningful engagement with the language strands (IB, 2018). Below are some examples of genre integration.

Sharing the planet

How we express ourselves

How the world works

How we organize ourselves

Living things depend on their natural environments for survival.

Traditional stories tell about cultures and beliefs from around the world.

Materials behave and interact in certain ways, which determine how people use them.

People create organizations to solve problems and support human endeavor and enterprise.

Informative

Prepare a non-fiction text about the living thing investigated. Provide visuals, graphs, maps, and interesting details. Use headings, sub-headings and captions.

Narrative

With your partner, write a retell of a favorite folktale, fairytale, legend or myth complete with illustrations.

Procedural

Write the procedure for conducting a science experiment that helped investigate the answer to a question. Include a list of materials and steps to follow.

Narrative

Interview a person who overcame a significant challenge. Write a Human Story including the elements (before, the problem, overcoming the problem and now)

Principle 3
Explicitly teach, model and construct generalizations together throughout the inquiry process. Give more time for thinking and synthesizing.

Hattie and Yates suggest that concepts serve as mental "coat hangers" allow our students to organize their learning to make sense of it (2014). Just as we take the time to explicitly model and teach literacy or mathematics processes and skills, it is essential to teach and model the skill to make generalizations. Generate-Sort-Connect-Extend is an example of a visible thinking strategy that encourages students to make connections between concepts by drawing a line to connect concepts and identifying a new generalization (Ritchart et al, 2011). It extends the concept map to facilitate transfer. Hexagonal thinking is another way for students to organize their learning visually and then create generalizations to state why the concepts are connected to each other.

The IB Prmary Years Programme (PYP) approaches to learning now include the skill of "information transfer", which recognizes our role in facilitating transfer (IB, 2018). There are many tools that you can use to help students make connections to the concepts while also making their thinking visible to the learning community. Begin to explore this area of instruction. Our language learners can participate in concept-based inquiry while learning a second or third language if the supports are in place. Language learners develop understandings and language simultaneously when provided the support, tools and a language rich environment.

References

Barnes, M K, Johnson, E C and Neff, L. 2010. Learning through process drama in the first grade. Social Studies and the Young Learner 22 (4) 19-24.

Custance, B, Dare, B and Polias, J. 2012. Teaching ESL in the mainstream: language and learning across the curriculum, 3 rd ed. South Australia: DECD Publishing

Dewey, J. 2015. John Dewey: The collected works of John Dewey [Kindle edition]. PergamonMedia.

Dweck, C S. 2016. Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York, NY: Random House.

Edwards, C, Gandini, L, and Forman, G. 1998. The hundred languages of children: The Reggio Emilia approach - advanced reflections, 2 nd ed. Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing.

Erickson, H L. 2007. Concept-based curriculum and instruction for the thinking classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Fahey, J. 2012. Ways to do inquiry: Guiding children to deeper understanding. Cardiff: International Baccalaureate

Garcia, O and Kleyn, T. 2016. Translanguaging with multilingual students: Learning from classroom moments. New York, NY: Routledge.

Halliday, M A K and Webster, J J. 2016. Aspects of language and learning, 1 st ed. Sydney, NSW: Springer.

Harrel, A L and Jordan, M. 2015. 50 strategies for teaching English language learners, 5 th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Hattie, J and Yates, G C R. 2014. Visible learning and the science of how we learn. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hagemans, M G, van der Meij, H, & de Jong, T. 2013. The effects of a concept map-based support tool on simulation-based inquiry learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(1), 1-24. doi:10.1037/a0029433

Learning and teaching. International Baccalaureate. 2018. Cardiff, Wales: Peterson House.

Murdoch, K. 2015. The power of inquiry. Northcote, Vic: Seastar Education.

Ritchart, R, Church, M, and Morrison, K. 2011. Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence of all learners. San Franscisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

William, D. 2011. Embedded formative assessment. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Woolfolk, A. 2014. Educational psychology: Active learning addition, 12 th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Hamza, T. Stephen Krashen: Language Acquisition and comprehensible input. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnUc_W3xE1w. 28 January2016.

Van de Walle, J, Lovin, L H, Karp, K S, and Bay-Williams, J M. 2014. Teaching student-centered mathematics: Developmentally appropriate instruction for grades pk-2, Vol. 1, 2 nd ed. New York, NY: Pearson.
Evelyn Galan has 15 years of experience in working in international education, having lived in five different countries. She currently works as an international educator, serving as the Deputy Principal and PYP coordinator at MEF International School in Istanbul, Turkey. She is a certified Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction (CBCI) workshop leader. Previously she was a homeroom teacher in an IB PYP multilingual school in Erbil, Iraq teaching grade 2 as well as facilitating English as a Second Language in the mainstream workshops for the faculty. Evelyn began her career in international education in Cancun, Mexico where she served as English coordinator and homeroom teacher in a bilingual school over a period of 11 years. Working with language learners throughout her entire career in education has taught her to seek out best practice strategies in order to meet the learning needs of her students and to support the needs of her colleagues. You can follow her on Twitter

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Ways to facilitate language development through concept-based inquiry

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Educators today are commonly working in multilingual classrooms and face the challenge of engaging a linguistically diverse population through concept-based inquiry while simultaneously supporting language development for the language of instruction. These students enter the classroom with funds of knowledge on which new learning can be built.