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Let your students create their own PE activities

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Let your students create their own PE activities

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Can students connect physical education (PE) to a unit of inquiry and can lower elementary students be in charge of their own PE?
The ultimate goal for a PYP PE teacher is to integrate Personal, social, physical education (PSPE) into a unit of inquiry. When beginning teaching PE in a PYP setting, I was the one thinking of connections and reinventing games that I had previously used, changing them slightly and renaming them. I was satisfied but as I reflected, I realized I could do much better by looking at PE from a different angle. Instead of me creating the activities, I was thinking that the students could easily do it themselves. After all, primary age students are very creative and with 15 creative minds in one class, there would be more chance of having great results.

I decided that for every PE class, from years 3 to 6, I would prepare an activity but before even telling the students what I had planned, I would ask them how they could connect PE to their unit of inquiry. Students came up with a variety of games; for example, a game called book tag that was connect to a How we express ourselves unit on stories around the world, and a Tsunami game that connected to a How the world works unit inquiring into earth changes.

Because I saw that the students could create their own games and activities, I next wanted to see how they could inquire during PE class. I brought out a variety of PE equipment and told the students they could play whatever they liked, but they had to return the things they did not play with anymore. I stood back and watched them. This is what I noticed...

Students were very engaged and started to come up with ideas for games either by themselves or with others. When a student noticed a game that was fun, they would ask if they could join in. They were challenged by seeing others doing things that they wanted to learn to do and they would ask each other for help. Students played in groups that they usually did not play in. The class that usually had the most issues, was very engaged and the usual issues did not come to the surface. After implementing this idea a couple of times, students were very eager to start when they again saw all the equipment out on the floor.

Should you only use this approach? Of course not because there are skills that need to be taught in PE class, and by limiting yourself to this approach some important skills might never be learned. But there is an opportunity for a student-led inquiry in PE and you do not have to dig deep to find it.

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David Lambert has been an international educator for over 12 years. He has been working in several international schools in China. He has worked in Zhuhai International School for one year as a classroom teacher and a PE teacher. He is working towards a Masters in Educational Leadership at the Hong Kong Education University.

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Step back - let your students create their own PE activities

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Can students connect physical education (PE) to a unit of inquiry and can lower elementary students be in charge of their own PE? The ultimate goal for a PYP PE teacher is to integrate Personal, social, physical education (PSPE) into a unit of inquiry.

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In this article you will find a framework for co-constructing success criteria with grade 4 students as part of assessment planning.
I strongly believe that assessment is something that should be done 'with students', not 'to students'. And as part of that belief I often feel uncomfortable when teachers sit together behind closed doors and decide what students ought to learn and how best students can show their learning - specifically when it comes to designing success criteria for an assessment tool. How can we expect students to fully engage in learning and demonstration of learning process when they are kept out of the decision-making process about what should be learned in the first place?

Many PYP educators would agree that co-constructed success criteria-criteria developed by teachers and students together in partnership-is an effective practice. But as with many inquiry-based, student-centered approaches to learning and teaching, the question remains: How do you take that idea and put it into practice with a group of students?

This year, I tested one approach for developing co-constructed success criteria with a group of grade 4 PYP students. I adapted a growing definition thinking routine to help structure the process of getting 23 students and 1 teacher to agree on what ought to be known and understood by the end of a unit of inquiry.

First, I was transparent with the students about why we were going to do the activity and how important I believe it is for them to have an equal say in what ought to be learned by the end of the unit.

I shared the central idea Decisions about energy can lead to a sustainable future for the unit under the transdisciplinary theme How we organize ourselves that the grade 4 team of teachers had designed and asked the students to think about what they think they should know in order to be able to fully understand the central idea by the end of the unit. Each student individually created their own list.

Then, students took their individual list and joined with another student and worked together to synthesize their lists into a new list that represents both of their thinking.

Next, two sets of partners would combine and repeat the process. Each set of partners would read their list and the newly formed group of four would create a new list that represented everyone's thinking. One group of four would then join with another group of four and that group of eight would create a new list that synthesized everyone's ideas. This pattern would continue until about half the class is working on one list and the other half of the class working on another list.

At this point I collected the two final lists so that I could add any criteria that I felt was missing based on the central idea and conceptual understandings that underpinned the unit. I was amazed to see that the final list the students came up with was almost exactly what we as teachers would have come up with behind closed doors. The closer I looked at the list, the more I realized that many, if not all, of the PYP key conceptual lenses were represented as ways to understand and inquire our central concept of energy.

From here I typed out the list onto our rubric template and only added one criteria for success that I felt was missing.

This rubric became the rubric we used for all diagnostic, self, peer and teacher assessments.

Using the growing definition routine turned out to be a great structure for allowing 23 students and 1 teacher to all have their voices and perspectives heard and honoured in the process of deciding what ought to be known and understood by the end of a unit of inquiry.

Doing this part of assessment planning with students had many positive implications on student learning and also on our class sense of community. Students had a clearer picture of where they needed to be by the end of the unit. The rubric became a tool that students understood and constantly referred to throughout the learning process and helped our class feel more like a community of learners. We were truly partners in the co-construction process, where our voices were equally valued and included in the decisions that were made. Overall, it felt like a fair and inclusive way to respect and support students' involvement in their own learning.

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Taryn BondClegg blogs at Making Good Humans which is her small attempt to continue to make sense of the PYP, of inquiry, and of how to make a real difference in the world through education. Taryn has always felt a calling to change the world - to somehow leave it in a better state than we found it. She saw teaching as a way to make this happen. You can follow her on Twitter

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In this article you will find a framework for co-constructing success criteria with grade 4 students as part of assessment planning. I strongly believe that assessment is something that should be done 'with students', not 'to students'.

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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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Rubrica de Avaliação da Resposta ao Desafio

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Rubrica de Avaliação da Resposta ao Desafio

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Sesion 6 & 7 - Prototipo de plantilla de rúbrica

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Speed dating: duas filas, as pessoas conversam em duplas, e depois vão trocando de par.
Diamante: escrever 9 conceitos e ordená-los em forma de losango. Depois comparar e negociar com outra equipe.
Concurso de palmas
Reflexão em quatro esquinas: as ideias que eu mais gostei, ideias que poderiam se desenvolver mais, coisas que não compreendo, novas ideias para considerar.

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Where do you fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum?
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We're asking for your email address so we can sign you up for our weekly newsletter! Please know that we are not collecting any other information. (Also, we do love you all, but we're afraid we can only offer this personality test to our visitors from the U.S.)

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Where do you fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum? Take our 10-question test to find out! We're asking for your email address so we can sign you up for our weekly newsletter! Please know that we are not collecting any other information.

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The article talks about the use of social media to connect what is going on in a single-subject classroom with the outside world. It illustrates how Twitter enabled the music teacher at an IB World School to share his lessons with music educators around the world.

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4 copias Herramienta - F2F Acción, Indagación, evaluación

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4 copias Herramienta - F2F Planeación colaborativa

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4 copias Herramienta - F2F Ambiente de aprendizaje

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Caja de herramientas - Estrategias de aprendizaje

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PYP students as leaders of learning
Returning as a teacher to the elementary homeroom this year, I wanted to take the opportunity to fully explore the latest themes in PYP education.

The notion of learner agency(1), that students can and should be the drivers of their learning(2), was something that seemed familiar, but in practice would provide me with a year of growth and challenge.

As an early years educator I hold an image of the child(3) that views students as capable, competent and intrinsically-driven inquirers. Encouraged by the PYP's focus on learner agency and action, and eager to apply my philosophy in my new classroom, I was raring to get the school year underway.

Genius hour: My "Brilliant First Flop"(4)

I opened the year by communicating that 'kids are the boss' in our learning environment. Our initial class meetings delved into what being the boss would mean in practice.

The conversations went well and at this stage I was feeling rather pleased. The class agreed that starting a genius hour(5) would be a terrific application of our co-constructed essential agreements.

We were all excited, but our enthusiasm quickly began to wane. Students would arrive at school with burning questions on the tip of their tongues, or a passion for a project that they were desperate to work on. And yet, these flashes of inspiration rarely coincided with our scheduled genius hour.

Of course, we would commit to return to these individual projects either later in the day or week, but it was clear to see that our genius hour had become a non-starter. It seemed like just another part of the schedule that the teacher valued and the students "did". Some students were keen, others benignly obliging, but the thrill was gone(6).
Transdisciplinary learning and the tyranny of the schedule
As I reflected about the lack of spontaneity, and the unresponsiveness of our genius hour sessions, my attention turned to my weekly schedule.

In my previous school's authorization report, an area for attention related to expanding faculty awareness of the transdisciplinary nature of the PYP. I still recall reading the IB's report and cringing in uncomfortable self-recognition.

Yes, I had been guilty of displaying on my whiteboard a daily schedule which I dutifully updated for the students. You might know the type. It was splendidly laminated, enhanced with magnetic backs and had colors corresponding to different subject areas: mathematics, English, unit of inquiry. I thought it was helpful and certainly students have the right to know what to expect from their day.

Yet, by dividing the day into fragmented blocks of time, I was not just reducing learner agency, but also expressing to my students that their learning was unconnected. By boxing curriculum, I was boxing student thinking and their understanding of the world.

I now firmly believe that if you really want to position your students as the owners of their learning, then focusing on who owns the schedule? has to become a priority. Schedules are a balance of many factors and an interplay of the many priorities within schools. Whether school schedules are flexible or rigid depends upon the pedagogical approach taken by teachers and administrators(7).

The classroom schedule had positioned us as disciplinary learners.

I responded by seeking simplicity and flattening the schedule. We established that there would be times when adults would guide or lead learning and times when students would take on this role for themselves and their peers. It was that simple. This was what 'being the boss' would really mean for our class. Educators and students can step in and out of the lead role within a culture of learning.

As the educator, I remained accountable for ensuring we made connections to all the outcomes required by the curriculum and reporting process. At the same time I increased my expectations that my students would also be accountable for approaching their learning as reflective, balanced and enthusiastic students(8).

During our (now student named) Personal Project Learning Time, students could select from a range of learning activities, keeping a balance of their individual learning targets in mind. During any single session, students can work on a variety of tasks, covering all areas of the curriculum. At times, students would add their own learning activities to the menu. This suggests we had started to transition from a learner-centered to a learner-driven model(9). See below several practical tips for implementation.

My next step would be to engage with other adults and classes in the learning community(10) as I have discovered that working in isolation installs a glass ceiling above our heads.

At last, after a year of experimentation and a gradual release of control, the class community is basking in the glow of a more holistic, student-directed learning environment.

As the lead learner in the room, it is highly inspiring to say the least.

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References:

(1) Students take the lead, via SharingPYP blog
(2)Personalization vs. Differentiation vs. Individualization Chart V3.
(3)Your Image of the Child: Where Teaching Begins by Loris Malaguzzi
(4) Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty
(5) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
(6)The Thrill Is Gone by B.B. King
(7)The Case for Time, by Nathaniel Atherton
(8)Six Ways the Teacher's Role is Changing, by John Darcy
(9)The Personalized Learning Look Fors by Kettle Moraine School District
(10)Young Students Benefit from Self-Directed Learning Days by Western Academy of Beijing

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Dylan Meikle is an elementary counselor at United Nations International School Hanoi and is an experienced homeroom teacher in the PYP. He is a member of the IBEN and an Apple Distinguished Educator. Dylan is passionate about learning environments and contributes to a blog on the subject at www.makespace4learning.com. He welcomes feedback, collaboration and further discussion via Twitter @dylan_meikle.

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PYP students as leaders of learning Returning as a teacher to the elementary homeroom this year, I wanted to take the opportunity to fully explore the latest themes in PYP education. The notion of learner agency(1), that students can and should be the drivers of their learning(2), was something that seemed familiar, but in practice would provide me with a year of growth and challenge.

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14 Visible Thinking Routines to use with students 

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14 Visible Thinking Routines to use with students 

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Dinâmica de apresentação: nome e perfil do aluno (escolher dois com os quais mais se identifica).
Construção de "regras da sala": cada estudante dá uma ideia, e o restante do grupo concorda ou discorda (thumbs up, thumbs down), construindo coletivamente as regras.
Meu progresso: identificar onde estamos em uma linha de progresso.
3,2,1,ponte: em grupos, escrever 3 ideias, 2 perguntas e 1 analogia sobre o tema. Revisitar depois.
Estratégia de agrupamento: sortear adesivos, doces de diferentes cores, agrupar por interesse
Cartaz (sobre agência): diagrama em forma de Y, respondendo como se vê, como se sente, como se escuta (looks like, feels like, sounds like).
Passeio na galeria: observar cartazes feitos pelas outras equipes, colocados nas paredes. Marcar um "check" no que for igual, e um "!" no que for interessante.
Speed dating - participantes fazem duas filas, uma de frente para a outra, e compartilham suas respostas com a pessoa à sua frente. Depois de um minuto, uma das filas andam e trocam-se os pares.
Auto-avaliação - Costumava pensar... Agora penso...

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Día 1
08:00‐8:30 Presentaciones
08:30‐9:30 Sesión 1
9:30‐9:45 Refrigerio/descanso
9:45‐11:45 Sesión 2
11:45‐12:45 Almuerzo
12:45‐14:15 Sesión 3
14:15‐14:30 Refrigerio/descanso
14:30‐16:00 Sesión 4

Día2
08:30‐10:00 Sesión 5
10:00‐10:15 Refrigerio/descanso
10:15‐11:45 Sesión 6
11:45‐12:45 Almuerzo
12:45‐14:15 Sesión 7
14:15‐14:30 Refrigerio/descanso
14:30‐16:00 Sesión 8

Día3
08:30‐10:00 Sesión 9
10:00‐10:15 Refrigerio/descanso
10:15‐11:45 Sesión 10

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Seleccione tres competencias de las seis siguientes en las que le gustaría centrarse mejor a lo largo del taller.

1. Soy capaz de establecer, mantener y participar en relaciones colaborativas que favorezcan el bienestar de la comunidad de aprendizaje.
2.  Puedo negociar ideas y comprensiones con compañeros y otros miembros de la comunidad de aprendizaje.

3. Soy capaz de identificar mis propias necesidades de aprendizaje profesional y participar en experiencias de desarrollo pertinentes.
4. Soy capaz de reflexionar sobre mi propia experiencia de indagación y aplicarla al diseño de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje basados en la indagación en el aula.

5. Soy capaz de usar la tecnología para ampliar el momento, el lugar y la manera en que se produce el aprendizaje.

6. Soy capaz de brindar oportunidades para la colaboración entre los alumnos.

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Mi nombre es Simone Garcia y seré su facilitadora en este taller.

¡Estoy tan emocionada de finalmente conocerles en persona e intercambiar ideas!

Trabajo como maestra en Ada Merritt K-8 Center, una escuela IB que ofrece el programa PYP en inglés-portugués o inglés-español desde 2006.

Soy originalmente de Rio de Janeiro, pero he vivido en Miami hace 15 años.

Amo a los perros. El nombre de mi salchicha de 13 años es Habibi.

Ahora cuéntame algo sobre ti completando el formulario "Primera cita". El enlace al formulario está en el cuadro al lado:

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Conociendo a los participantes del taller