# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Today I feel ...........and I am hoping to feel ............after this workshop.

# data[].attributes.headline
L.E:1.1 Inclusion ActivitySharing your name and your experience in PYP.

# data[].attributes.subject
L.E:1.1 Inclusion ActivitySharing your name and your experience in PYP.

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 3.1 Go to jam board link. Put the appropriate theme and description side by side

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 3.1 Go to jam board link. Put the appropriate theme and description side by side

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Every participant can write their suggestions regarding "Essential Agreements" in the comment field below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Blue Playful School Time Table a4 Document

# data[].attributes.body
Log in My ib account to reach related resources

# data[].attributes.body
Share your ideas about the visual

# data[].attributes.headline
Go to jam board link and share your ideas

# data[].attributes.subject
Go to jam board link and share your ideas

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 2.1 What is international-mindedness?

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 2.1 What is international-mindedness?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The IB develops inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through education that builds intercultural understanding and respect.

We value our hard-earned reputation for quality, for high standards and for pedagogical leadership. We achieve our goals by working with partners and by actively involving our stakeholders, particularly teachers.

We promote intercultural understanding and respect, not as an alternative to a sense of cultural and national identity, but as an essential part of life in the 21st century.

All of this is captured in our mission statement:

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.

The IB's history and philosophy

Download presentations on the history of the IB, and on its educational philosophy. There are also presentations about each IB programme.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The IB develops inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through education that builds intercultural understanding and respect. We value our hard-earned reputation for quality, for high standards and for pedagogical leadership. We achieve our goals by working with partners and by actively involving our stakeholders, particularly teachers.

# data[].attributes.headline
Go to following jamboard complete the diagram

# data[].attributes.subject
Go to following jamboard complete the diagram

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The version of the browser you are using is no longer supported. Please upgrade to a supported browser. Dismiss

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 2.5 Readings on the roles of language and play

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 2.5 Readings on the roles of language and play

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 2.5 Readings on the roles of language and play

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 2.5 Readings on the roles of language and play

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 2.5 Readings on the roles of language and play

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 2.5 Readings on the roles of language and play

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 2.5 Readings on the roles of language and play

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 2.5 Readings on the roles of language and play

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 4.1 What does concept driven learning look like? LE 4.2 Exploring key and related concepts

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 4.1 What does concept driven learning look like? LE 4.2 Exploring key and related concepts

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 5.1 Looking into approaches to learning 

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 5.1 Looking into approaches to learning 

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 5.1 Looking into approaches to learning 

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 5.1 Looking into approaches to learning 

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 5.1 Looking into the approaches to learning

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 5.1 Looking into the approaches to learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article summarizes how reflections help learners choose how they want to act. It shares a real-time example and utilizes an opportunity to appreciate the beauty of the PYP and how implementing it ties together all the elements!
As a committed PYP practitioner for five years, I keep appreciating the uniqueness of the programme. However, moving from theory to practice is not always an easy journey. The PYP stresses achieving a balance between acquisition of essential knowledge and skills, development of conceptual understandings, demonstrations of positive attitudes, and taking of responsible action. Making this a realty in a classroom and making it meaningful for learners will bring the outcomes of the programme to fruition.

The IB approaches to learning are unarguably the most important to acquire not only in the units of inquiry, but also for any learning and teaching that occurs within the classroom and in life outside the school. The five categories and their respective sub-skills encompass what is needed for a learner in the 21st century. In this dynamic, fast evolving world we need people who are not just knowledgeable but are critical thinkers and problem solvers.

Year after year I work with a new set of learners, each of them unique in their own way. This year I am working with learners who are highly energetic, curious and incredibly open-minded. We often engage in reflection sessions during which we discuss how we are learning in classroom, what is going well and what is not. Learners come up with sincere reflections including that we often fall short at displaying our skills.

Learners reflected that if they could work consciously towards displaying all the sub-skills, they would resolve most of the problems they face in and out of the classroom. In tandem with this thought process we as a class managed to develop a means to help assess our commitment to display these skills in classroom - The skills wheel.

This assessment model is based on Carol Dweck's theory of Growth Mindset and the idea of "NOT YET" (Dweck, 2014).

Learners set up a skills goal for a period of 2 weeks. We display all the sub-skills of that category in an accessible area so that students know what they will be assessed on. After the observation period, the class meets up to discuss how they displayed each sub-skill. Learners provide each other feedback and those learners who have consistently made efforts to display the particular skill will be placed in the pink circle and those learners who have "not reached there yet" will be placed in the yellow part. Gradually, learners who try to work on their goal areas will be moved to the pink area too.

I have experienced a positive change in learners' thinking and learning behaviour in the classroom while utilizing this tool. Learners evidently show more ownership to their actions as they are a part of this solution. It also encouraged learners to show commitment to their choice and be more open minded to feedback.

Although small, I feel this model acted as an effective means for me to make approaches to learning categories and sub-skills more meaningful for my learners. It gave our learners the opportunity to choose to act; to reflect and decide the course of their actions. That, I believe, is responsible action.

References:
https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve

-
Rachana Kothapally is a PYP facilitator at Silver Oaks School Bangalore, India. She has been an IB practitioner for 5 years and is passionate about developing critical thinking and problem-solving abilities of learners.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This article summarizes how reflections help learners choose how they want to act. It shares a real-time example and utilizes an opportunity to appreciate the beauty of the PYP and how implementing it ties together all the elements! As a committed PYP practitioner for five years, I keep appreciating the uniqueness of the programme.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article showcases the concept of living things through the process of inquiry. It also reflects the constructivist approach where a child constructs knowledge through experiences gained by exploring the environment.
Play-based learning is always supported by inquiry. The entire process is led by the child, which is only possible when given space and time to explore, experiment, assess and ask the questions to augment knowledge.

My students were inquiring into a unit with the central idea: Living things have requirements in order to grow, change and stay healthy. We began the unit with a provocation corner with various seeds like kidney beans, chickpea, wheat and sunflower. The students soon questioned: "How will this small seed become a plant?", "How many days will it take to become one?", "We eat kidney beans, will they grow in our stomachs too?".

While playing in the garden, a group of students approached me with a ladybug which was still and had turned orange. The children were anxious as to why it had turned orange. "I think it is dead!" said one child.

For deeper understanding we invited parents to come to school to speak about caring for pets at home. Some parents also shared how they had lost their pets to sickness and age. Students soon theorized that all living things need care and why the ladybug may have died.

My students continued to stay fascinated with living things. For one of our mathematics engagements, students peeled pea pods and while peeling a child found a small green caterpillar, which triggered excitement and curiosity. Students spoke excitedly: "Hey, it is a caterpillar!", "It is a living thing, see it is moving!", "Is pea its food?".

The students decided to keep the caterpillar in a jar. We covered it with net to provide air and added some peas because they insisted that peas might be its favourite food as they had found the caterpillar in a pea pod. Slowly they found that the caterpillar had formed a cocoon around itself and thought it had died. This sparked a new question: "Why did it die when we gave it food and air to breathe?".

In order to help my students answer their question we read The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle which helped them understand the life cycle of a caterpillar. To make a personal connection, I asked parents to send a set of 2 photos; one current and another from the time of birth. At first students were given photos from the time of birth, which only a few of them could recognize. When seeing their current photos, they were astonished that they had changed so much. They began to understand that they have a life cycle too, just like the caterpillar.

By just giving time and space, we can see students inquiring, questioning and struggling to reach understanding. This will not only strengthen their confidence, but also deepen their thinking and assessment skills. What my students learned from this inquiry will never be forgotten and will support them in applying these understanding in the future.

Reference:

Carle, E. (1969). The Very Hungry Caterpillar. United States. World Publishing Company.
Jessica Manglani is a PYP teacher at Pathways World School, Noida, India. She has over 3 years of experience as an educator, teaching Business Management to under graduates. Her desire to contribute at the foundation level landed me in primary teaching. Inquiry, experiment, instigate, curiosity words with different meaning and method to take on differently with age group of different levels, has expanded my thinking process and exposed me to new methods of teaching.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This article showcases the concept of living things through the process of inquiry. It also reflects the constructivist approach where a child constructs knowledge through experiences gained by exploring the environment. Play-based learning is always supported by inquiry.

# data[].attributes.body
Resources to support engagement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Listening to learning: Agency in the early years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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'.

# data[].attributes.body
Resources to support engagement

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

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

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

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

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

Reference:

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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Supporting learner agency in the early years

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

# data[].attributes.headline
Collaborative relationships support well being

# data[].attributes.subject
Collaborative relationships support well being

# data[].attributes.body
Resources to support engagement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Agentic learning in kindergarten | SharingPYP Blog

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 7.1  Sharing responsibility for learning, health and well-being

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 7.1  Sharing responsibility for learning, health and well-being

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 7.1  Sharing responsibility for learning, health and well-being

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 7.1  Sharing responsibility for learning, health and well-being

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 7.1  Sharing responsibility for learning, health and well-being

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 7.1  Sharing responsibility for learning, health and well-being

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A room with a view to learning | IB Community Blog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PYP learners: Take ownership of their learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The PYP ignites curiosity and encourages learners to ask questions. In this video, PYP teachers and students explain how inquiry and critical thinking skills are used in the classroom and beyond.

# data[].attributes.headline
LE 10.4 "GOTS" & "WANTS" Revisit the donut diagram day 1 to reflect how workshop expectations were met 

# data[].attributes.subject
LE 10.4 "GOTS" & "WANTS" Revisit the donut diagram day 1 to reflect how workshop expectations were met 

# data[].attributes.body
Please ask your questions and share any queries in the comment field