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I'm thinking that a big challenge for us is going to be resisting the temptation to assimilate 'what we already do' into the next chapter. We need to make sure we really take on board the differences between the next chapter and our current practice if we are going to renovate our written curriculum, but there are plenty of reasons (time, pressure of work, conflicting priorities) that are likely to mean that we could all too easily be resistant to the change.

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Holly, I too only see my students once a week for a double period - would you be kind enough to tell me how many units you manage to do for the year? I am struggling to meet all the strands too.

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At the moment, one thing that we are doing is 'migrating' our unit planners from Atlas to Managebac. We also have moodle as a VLE, and shared drives on the school network. This means that information can be found in a variety of different places, and over time new platforms have been introduced without the existing ones ever really having been subject to rigorous 'pruning'. It can be difficult to remember to focus on really ensuring that the written curriculum expresses the core values of the MYP documentation when you are involved in what can feel like more of an administrative task than a creative one. Sometimes it's tempting just to get the unit up in the right place, without really taking the time to reflect on whether elements in the unit planner really provide the reach and challenge for students that you're aspiring to create.

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Hi Sue - I'm certainly finding the time needed to complete the course quite demanding - it's difficult to complete the activities to the level that you would always like, if you're like me, because I like to think about things between the reading and writing. It makes it a challenge fitting in the course around school. Keep going, however, it looks like you are doing rather better at completing the tasks than me!

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I totally agree, I dont have internet at home so all my work has to be done at school. This is compounded because then the internet at school has its issues too, so I too am challenged with the lack of time and internet! At our school we have already been trying to develop statements of inquiry with the key concept as a basis. I dont think the challenge will be the statement but the best suited global conext beacuse you could use various ones to focus the learning and make it relevant, which is what what was highlighted in one of our activities.

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Sue, I hear you!  We are wrapping up our year

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Sue, I hear you!  We are wrapping up our year

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A further, simple challenge - Sharon Holoboff

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A further, simple challenge - Sharon Holoboff

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A more basic challenge we face here is the internet!  In our country it is not always reliable and we have frequent power outages, etc. that disrupt service.  That makes program like this a bit more challenging, but also the future of our program and learners.  Things like "eAssessment" and "one to one" technology plans automatically strike a bit of trepidation as our internet is unreliable.  We cannot consider a 1 - 1 tech program as our current internet service is incapable os supporting such a transition.  I susoect this sometimes puts us at a bit of a disadvantage.

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I am almost done with Module 3 - this one has been the most work and definitely exceeds the 4-6 hrs, more like 12 hours! The only time I can do it, is evenings and weekends - struggling to juggle time for planning my lessons for school as well as this course. I would love to know if I'm the only one struggling with the time factor. I found the ATLs Skills Progression the most difficult, as I was not too clear about planning across the year levels and whether I was hitting the right mark.

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It would help if access to this wall were a link!

Time time time..

I am agreeing with what I am reading! I only see my Grade 8 students once a week and if some event comes up- like the kidnappings here in Mozambique- this may not happen. As the year draws to a close, even meeting the 2x each objective per semester is difficult.

I just noticed- spell check for the modules would be helpful (as it is here)!

Thank for reading!

Holly

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Sue Dance - time factor for units

Being new to MYP this year at our little new school, I am struggling to judge the time factor for each unit, knowing that there is alot to address with concepts etc. I find some students naturally take to working in the journal and some get impatient and want to skip through to making and creating. I think I have to find different strategies to accommodate all students, not to kill the impulsive and enthusiastic desire to create, but perhaps only work with a few strands at a time, to build up process, but also time to actually make.

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Sue Dance - Challenges

I added something to this wall, but it seems to have disappeared!! My biggest challenge this year, with our new school opening this year, is finding enough time for us to do inter-disciplinary planning. This is a challenge that we all want to address next year.

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1. Currently - the 4 hours required for this course - it is taking me at least double that time and I seem to be missing parts as you write on the presentation when it asks, but then you also have to post them in a second location. Reading through all the posts is really time consuming.

2. MYP: I am leaving my current school and starting a fresh in August and my head space is everywhere. So I am asked to reflect - so I think of my current school, yet all the work I am currently doing for curriculum planning is for my new school situation.

3. Writing the Statement of Inquiry are my biggest concern and I am really hoping to learn more about this aspect in this course. I have had a 2 day intro to MYP workshop and the presenter was not clear herself if we were on the right track. Just need time working with them to wrap my head around it

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One of the challenges we face is the Interdisciplinary Unit planning.  It can be easy to find themes to connect on and many of our staff have ideas, but the actual unit planning that happens does not usually meet the MYP definition of an IDU.  I hope to become familiar with the IDU planning and implementation processes as fortunately there are three of us from our school taking the course so we can make an effort to work through the IDU process and gain valuable expertise to be then extended to other disciplines.

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My school's challenge is to work more collaboratively and make more efforts towards the interdisciplinary nature of the program. I taught the PYP at another school before entering my current position two years ago and I was frequently collaborating with head teachers and linking to units in the students' classrooms.

We have also entered the WASC accreditation process which should be used as another guide to further develop our curriculum, but it's implementation hasn't been handled well. We need a plan.

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The biggest challenge I foresee  is working the IB curriculum in within the state/district standards and probationary models of struggling schools.  My question is how do IB schools align with state and city standards? Do the IB standards have a specific approach to working within Explore/Plan, or PSAE components? REACH?  To me, standardized testing and Data driven instruction stand very much in the way of student centered learning and the philosophy of  ‘what would you like to know’. The other challenge for our school is creating an IB learning environment and vibe throughout the building. We can call ourselves a 'wall-to-wall' IB school all we want, but until we cultivate all the aspects of a truly global thinking model in the building, from the staff and students-we are just another struggling school with a new hat,  trying to turn itself around.

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Sarah Arteaga

The biggest challenge I foresee  is working the IB curriculum in within the state/district standards and probationary models of struggling schools.  My question is how do IB schools align with state and city standards? Do the IB standards have a specific approach to working within Explore/Plan, or PSAE components? REACH?  To me, standardized testing and Data driven instruction stand very much in the way of student centered learning and the philosophy of  ‘what would you like to know’. The other challenge for our school is creating an IB learning environment and vibe throughout the building. We can call ourselves an IB school all we want, but until we cultivate all the aspects of a truly global thinking model in the building, from the staff and students-we are just another struggling school with a new hat,  trying to turn itself around.

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Our challenge is time;
time for collaboration on all levels. It is very difficult to try and plan
collaboratively and moderate assessments due to our schedules. Also IDU’s are
of some concern, as there some units that are purely thematic; however it seems
they are being referred to as IDU’s. I feel we need to try harder to find correlating
schedules to ensure all IDU’s are carried out accurately and effectively.

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A challenge I foresee impacting my school will be the important connecting students , teachers , administration and parents. I feel that in order for our New IB program to be successful, everyone involved in our school needs to be aware of the expectations and implications of attending a Wall-to-wall IB program. There are many changes coming next year, hopefully these changes will be administered in an organized manner than ensures we'e all on the same page.

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The biggest challenge my building faces is centered around assessment. We have come along way with how we assess, but it's when the scores go into the grade book that causes the disconnect. It is almost like we revert back to the old practice averaging grades instead of looking for the preponderance of evidence to show levels of achievement. It would be much easier to make the shift if our district fully supported standards based grading. Currently everything we do has to be transferred back to a letter grade for the final reporting in our student management system. I am hoping that this will be the year we can stop trying to live in both worlds.

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I am worried about the consistency of our program. As a new IB school, I worry about the scheduling of students into IB classes and what that looks like. Right now I have IB students that do not want to be IB students. Next year they plan to change things but I worry about what will happen when they combine IB students with Non-IB students in a classroom and what effect that will have on a classroom environment. It is hard also to teach a split class of IB students and Non IB, I think it will be big challenge for me...Please send me some words of advice if you teach split IB classes, I am curious to see how that works for others! Thanks!

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Sue Dance - Collaborative planning time

We are a small school in central London, which has only just started this September and we are struggling to find horizontal and vertical collaborative time within our schedule of the week. This makes things tricky for doing IDUnits.

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I'm not currently in a school but during my ten years as an IB Diploma and Middle Years Coordinator, I found that some of my biggest challenges were opening access to all students, giving equity to all subject areas, and maintaining commitment to the program through constant turnover of upper administration. It's almost impossible to implement and sustain any program without full administrative support. If the stakeholders are not on board - believing that IB is a strong curricular and philosophical option for the children - then it is very difficult.

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It's interesting what Christine says - we don't have the distinction between core teachers and others in my school in the Netherlands, so that's not quite the issue. One thing we do have, though, is a strong tradition of intra-disciplinary teaching in the Arts, with Drama and Music collaborating on units at different times in the MYP program, for example. This means that Arts teachers can have quite different expectations to teachers from other subject areas when it comes to interdisciplinary teaching. Often it feels like teachers in other subject groups want to utilise arts 'expertise' to enhance the experience for learners in units that they feel are likely to motivate or engage students, without really wanting to integrate teaching and assessment with the Arts, or reflect upon how interdisciplinary teaching can allow them to reflect on their own practice / processes. This can result in some tension between what different teachers expectations are regarding interdisciplinary teaching, which can be quite difficult to manage.

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Jolayne/Challenges

I hope I am in the right space. The hardest part for me so far is the technology. I keep placing my work in the wrong area, then I do not know how to move it. I also seem to be posting everything twice!! Oh well, I know as I continue with this online course, I can only get better at the process. I am really enjoying everyone's work. It is great to have so many people from around the world doing this course will me. It is truly global and ib at its best! The main challenge currently for us at my school is there is not enough time to do everything with the depth it deserves!! I wish constantly that the day was longer with the students , at the same time longer to explore and develop my unit plans ,and then longer still to review the process and reflect with my fellow Year 1 teacher, and then of course more time for assessment and authentic conferencing with my students and parents.

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One of the biggest challenges at my school is working collaboratively at the same level as a core classroom teacher. Most teachers in my building don't agree the "The arts" is just as important as a core classes therefore I am looked at as I am not at the same level as they are. But when they need something to create or need supplies they are then looking for me. It is tough because if our student's core/homeroom teachers don't respect the arts then I find that the students feel the same way.

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Things are going well. I agree with the others, one of the biggest challenges is our grading and assessment. We have some support at our school, but the answer to our question changes from person to person, deeming it very difficult to get a straight-forward response. We are working on having enough time to collaborate, but it often turns into what issues we're having, instead of strict planning. I'm still trying to grasp IB, and I feel that I'm doing a good job, but I feel that i'm not asking my students the right questions yet.

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I feel one of the biggest challenges for my school/staff is going to be collaboratively deciding on grading/assessment criteria. As it currently stands, we do not get the appropriate amount of time to plan/collaborate. This alone makes it difficult to determine similar assessments and plans.

Secondly, I feel as though our staff hasn't stayed with one program/idea long enough to see how effective it can be. While I try my best to work with any program given to us, I know there will be some staff that are hesitant to start another new program. Any suggestions on how to get a staff like this on board?

~Stacey

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Well, I think I've worked through this lesson. It took all weekend long. I didn't think I was a slow learner, but I'm definitely questioning myself. The positive is that I am feeling more like I understand the process. The Negative is that I still don't know if students will come out really owning skills that will allow them to make music for the rest of their lives. I really tried to develop a unit that was something I felt strongly about kids learning (how to read music) but by the time I worked through the planner and the lessons, I have something very different than what I think really needs to happen.

To Melissa, I can relate to the stress of new admin. Ours is new, too. I'll be out on our school wide exploration of Tanzania this week, so I really wanted to finish the unit before I left.

I think the thing that clicked for me this week was that if you work through the weekly notes, you will complete all the requirements. That lowered my stress level about 50%. My coordinator suggested going through the notes without doing anything the first time, just jot down the pages that have assignments on them. Cross off each assignment as you do it, and it doesn't seem so overwhelming. Having said that, I hope I did it right. I was confused about the assessing student work. There were multiple pieces of work, but it said to do one. I also only did one criteria, because that is what it said, not "criterion". I hope it's sufficient. See you all next week!

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Hi everyone, I just read all of our posts. I'm feeling the pressure!

This course couldn't have come at a more stressful time in my teaching career (maybe apart from my first week on the job!). We are experiencing HUGE administrative changes at our school, most in a hostile, nasty means. Most of our staff is new this year, and about a quarter of us are brand-new, first-year teachers. We were all educated in the traditional means, and none of us have an IB background. We hired a new principal and he started on the 10th, and report cards were two at the end of January, and tonight (in fact, as we speak) are parent-teacher interviews. Oh, and this course!

I agree with many of you about IB being very wordy. We are implementing IB in our school now, the PYP has been established for a few years, so the young kids know it inside and out. Our MYP kids do not know anything about IB and they don't like it. They often say to me, "Miss Hickey, can we use smaller words?", or something similar to that about the differences in IB. They are struggling with it. I see some great aspects of IB, but I still struggle with the wording, and where to put the "objectives", and where to put the "content", and how to reflect properly at the end of the planner. How long should a unit take? My units take anywhere from a month to two months. Should all the teachers have the same length of units? Should we all be trying to focus on the same global contexts at the same time?

I'm also finding the course difficult to navigate, it's getting better, but it was tough at first.

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This is HARD. This is HARD HARD HARD. And, I am trained in Kodály, Orff, have a master's degree, and my Teaching English as a Second Language endorsement. IB is HARD. It's so much thinking, really wordy (agreeing with everyone about the ESL people) and I don't know if it's worth it yet. I haven't seen any really good IB teachers in a classroom working with kids to buy into the program. When I went to my training in New Orleans, the training was awesome, but even the people who have been teaching IB for years and years are not confident with the process. That worries me. I worked really hard to be good at Kodály, and good at Orff, and good at teaching all my ESL kiddos. I don't want to work really hard to find out I am not good at IB.

I am slowly buying in, I don't mind doing hard things, but I need to see it work somewhere!!! Is there a video of the actual teaching?

As for tweeting and this padlet-I am sure it is just supposed to be a way to get us more excited to use technology; the way we would do with our kids. Look kids! Practice the same thing a different way! Exciting new toy!! Whatever, we're grown-ups, let's just get the job done! I agree with Katie--the forum is there too and it seems like a waste to post all over the place.

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Having worked through most of module 2, I think my greatest concern at this point is not being confident in the writing process. I'm not yet sure that I'm getting this just yet. Practice will help, I also think access to more examples of completed unit plans will help too. :-)

~Stacey

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My greatest challenge is with time! As many teachers know, there isn't a down time during the year. Balancing all the performances, rehearsals, and meetings amongst the daily activities it tricky. I'll get it all done, though.

The system is tricky as well. I finished an online masters program about a year ago. VERY different from this, so I fee like I'm re-learning everything. Anyway, hopefully we can all help each other through this. I look forward to working with all of you!

~Stacey

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I could certainly empathize with the struggles with English, since I myself had a difficult time figuring out what that statement was trying to get at.

And I also agree with Colleen. Learning to navigate the system is challenging. I knew there was a problem with the statement in the resources library, because i had read the comments, but when I tried to go back and figure out where the info was given, I couldn't find it. There are too many confusing platforms. I also thought i had done everything, except maybe comment on other posts. Now, I'm not sure. I think even the checklist is confusing. I guess I need some direct feedback, and some guidance. It's not that I'm unwilling. I'm confused.

I don't understand why we need this padlet part. Doesn't the forum serve the same purpose?

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My main challenge, as with all online courses I have ever taken, is that I have to read all the directions. So, when I completed the two activities posted in the announcements section, I assumed I was done. Thanks to that checklist, I'm not done. It would be great to have the checklist at the beginning not at the end.

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The example statements of inquiry are quite wordy. We have a high percentage students who are acquiring English.

My challenge - how to write good statements of inquiry that are sufficiently challenging but that are easily understood by those with a lower level of English

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Hello All! Welcome to the padlet!

Marcela