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Parents and Teachers signed up to share their Passions with G5 students during Exhibition Launch

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Parents and Teachers signed up to share their Passions with G5 students during Exhibition Launch

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Following a lesson on action, students brainstormed within their groups to decide the different forms action could take based on their focus 

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Following the introduction of this thinking routine, students used it within their own research to guide them in creating higher leveled questions

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Creating Research Questions based on the Question Matrix 

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Creating Research Questions based on the Question Matrix 

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During Exhibition Launch, speakers came in to share about their passions and how it drives them to take action in their own lives

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Cilla led a student workshop guiding students through an exploration of topics vs. concepts to support in creating related concepts for their UOI

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Further Explained

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During the 2013/14 academic year, the Year 6 Exhibition at RCHK took on a new look. Each student was able to authentically follow their passion and share what they had learnt with a wider audience within the school community.

Challenge
* All students to carry out their specific, chosen inquiry, rather than being grouped by a vaguely connected area of interest
* Increase motivation and engagement
* Flexible groupings
* Varied modes of collaboration
* Increase school community access to the exhibition process and product

Threats of traditional model of collaboration
* Student motivation was threatened by vague interest groupings
* Personal learning preference - intrapersonal over interpersonal
* Students become 'passengers' in their team
* Students were only able to work with others from their own class

Moving forward
Each of the 168 children explored their passions and developed these into a potential Central Idea (CI), identifying the issues connected to their area. They then explored how a connection with the transdisciplinary theme 'How We Organise Ourselves' could authentically be made.

Students began their inquiries individually but opportunities for collaboration were offered throughout the process:
* Issue based sessions for sharing and collaboration (environment, technology, animals etc.) across the year level (some groups with common CI formed across different Year 6 classes)
* Groups within the class formed and reformed naturally as all students had access to a Google document detailing the CI
* Collaboration via flexible mentoring rather than one mentor per group
* Collaboration with subject experts (secondary teachers)
* Students collaborated with regards to presentation style, offering feedback and tips
* Collaboration with outside agencies in person or through technology

Pros
* A broader variety of exhibition issues and presentation styles
* More student-driven
* Motivation was high as students were focused on their passion and issues
* More authentic collaboration as it was organic and developed as part of the process, rather than being set at the beginning
* Fewer social issues; students were motivated to solve problems during collaboration as the group effort was purposeful

Cons
* Challenge to organize space for sharing 145 different exhibitions, some individual and some group
* Managing so many different exhibition groups from across six classes
The end result was an exciting and diverse exhibition and fulfilling learning experience for all students. The reward was definitely worth the effort and risk-taking on the part of the teachers. In removing the expectation of students working in fixed groups for the length of the unit, collaboration was enhanced and more authentic.
How do your students collaborate when they do their exhibition? Share with us your PYP exhibition story!

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Tracy Wnek began teaching at the Renaissance College in Hong Kong 8 years ago. She has taught P2 and P3, and is currently teaching and leading P6. She believes that we learn best through discovery and developing our curiosity, and by making connections between ourselves, what we are learning, and our daily interactions.

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Redefining collaboration in the PYP exhibition

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During the 2013/14 academic year, the Year 6 Exhibition at RCHK took on a new look. Each student was able to authentically follow their passion and share what they had learnt with a wider audience within the school community.

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Introduction Slides for Teachers/Mentors 2023

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Introduction Slides for Teachers/Mentors 2023

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Individual Declaration of Academic Honesty

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During the Parent Introduction to Exhibition evening, parents were asked to fill out a questionnaire including information about their work and interests. This was compiled once all groups had a focus and parents were contacted for expert interviews.

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Tips for Presenting Your Work in Exhibition

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Tips for Presenting Your Work in Exhibition

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This article describes how parents guide children in their investigations and reflections through strong issues chosen by them for the Primary Years Programme (PYP) exhibition.
Bolivia is a pluricultural country, full of riches that these cultures grant to those who wish to know them. However, the social problems that worry and sensitize us abound in every day news, either on television as well as in newspapers and social media. The issues that most affect our hearts and make us think, are those that involve children, women and our environment.

At the beginning of the process of inquiry for the PYP exhibition, we went on a circuit around the most problematic areas of La Paz. We involved parents to support us on the trip, since being a large group of students, adults were needed to support the different realities that their children were going to experience. For this, we used thinking routines, such as "see, think, wonder", to provoke questions and guide students to identify the issues they would inquire into. Our main goal was awareness around social problems that affect us as citizens and human beings.

Once back in school, we used another thinking routine "creative questions", to let students wonder about the problems they had just seen. As the days went by, there were discussions and reflections of which issue each group would choose for their exhibition, based on the field trip experiences.

Once each team had chosen their issue, they organized and guided their investigations through primary and secondary sources.

Involving parents as mentors in this process was important, since some of the issues were very sensitive: women abuse, human smuggling and trafficking, animal abuse, pollution and social problems. Parental support to investigate these issues helped to prevent children from being exposed to sensitive information and to help them inquire into and obtain data according to their abilities and levels of understanding.

Parents also helped their children at home, to access resources, experts, places and media to deepen inquiries and to support and strengthen dialogues about their own experiences of the issues chosen. Every day students came to school with profound reflections, more questions and with additional information to guide their investigations.

Parents accompanied children to markets where animals are trafficked and poor treatment is evident and to shelters where they took care of animals, so students could have different perspectives around the same issue. Parents took their children to police stations where they could observe missing people notices and better understand human smuggling and trafficking issues. Another group observed the streets of El Alto, where people pollute their surroundings without any guilt; this helped students to think deeply about environmental pollution. Parents accompanied their children to interview representatives of the Mayor's office to take notice of public insecurity.

During the process and implementation of the PYP exhibition, the students were asked to complete on a reflective questionnaire about each attribute of the IB learner profile to help them discover their abilities and attributes. The reflection was carried out at home and parents were asked to dialogue with them about each question to deepen the reflection on their learning.

Demonstrating critical and reflective thinking about the complicated problems exposed, as well as their own learning during this process, helped students understand their development of the learner profile attributes.

As teachers, our first experience with the PYP exhibition has granted us an innovative vision of what the PYP has to offer. The participation of parents as mentors was vital to help children's research, especially when the issues are of a strong and sensitive nature. Parents were also key when children were reflecting on their learning and the issues they exposed.

The PYP exhibition was a success, thanks to the responsibility that the students assumed towards their work and the mentorship of their parents. Some of the comments the parents gave us during the process of the inquiries were:

"It's incredible how my child has changed; now she sits with us at dinner and talks about the latest news. She gives us the most profound reflections about any subject from her perspective."

"We believe that the experience that our children had with the exhibition taught them that there are many sources to inquire into and how to organize themselves for an in depth inquiry."

We will continue to involve parents as mentors in strategic ways to inspire and guide students to be more reflective, aware and sensitive about themselves, their own learning and the world that surrounds them.

References:

Project Zero. 2016. Visible Thinking. December 2018: Harvard Graduate School of Education website: http://pz.harvard.edu/resources/see-think-wonder-at

Project Zero. 2016. Visible Thinking. December 2018: Harvard Graduate School of Education website: http://pz.harvard.edu/resources/creative-questions-0
Maria Pia Segovia has been a grade 5 PYP teacher at Saint Andrew's School, which is a PYP candidate school, in Bolivia for two years. She is an inquirer teacher who loves to find new and creative ways to inspire and make learning fun for her students.

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Parents as mentors involved in the exhibition

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This article describes how parents guide children in their investigations and reflections through strong issues chosen by them for the Primary Years Programme (PYP) exhibition. Bolivia is a pluricultural country, full of riches that these cultures grant to those who wish to know them.

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Some great feedback from parents on another exhibition. Might be a good example of questions to use or ways to provide feedback to parents at the end.

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How To Find Your Passion - 11 Abilities (Which one is for you?)

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Stamford American International School Singapore

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Developing Lines of Inquiry with students 

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Developing Lines of Inquiry with students 

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An investigation into student-led development of personal lines of inquiry.
Learner agency as terminology is increasingly thrown around in educational discourse as the 21 st century continues to roll through. But I wonder: Is it simply something we talk about doing - that we think about doing - that we think we are doing... but aren't?

In no way am I suggesting that learner agency does not exist in classrooms - it absolutely does. I simply mean to point out the thought process that I went through when I realized that I was short-changing students on authentic choice across units of inquiry.

In light of my thinking, student development of lines of inquiry was the logical starting point for our grade 4 team.

Our students needed a sound understanding of the underlying principles of the unit of inquiry before personal development of lines of inquiry would be effective. Therefore, we bade our time until it felt right - until students were starting to really brim with rich wonderings about the central idea.

To leverage these wonderings, we employed a go-to tool from Rothstein and Santana (2011), Question Formulation Technique (QFT). Defined by simplicity, we used this tool with modifications that helped to draw depth out of student questions and align them to the unit of inquiry. Questions are framed by a QFocus; a statement that provides only a general direction, which in this case was the central idea:
Indigenous people's connection to place and country is changed through exploration and settlement.
Our simple modification is the inclusion of the key concept posed as questions; How is it changing (change)? How is it connected to other things (connection)? What are the major points of view (perspective)? We hoped that students had an embedded understanding of these concepts, having been exposed to them over the years, and that these lines of thinking enhance the questions asked.

The 'rules' of the QFT are:

1. Ask as many questions as you can.

2. Do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer any of the questions.

3. Write down every question exactly as it was stated.

4. Change any statements into questions.

The questioning begins and the classroom buzzes. We do scaffold if necessary and provide students who are stuck with a questioning matrix (Weiderhold, 1991) that gives a kick to confidence that many students require.

Inevitably, the buzz slows, sheets are filled with questions, and the time is right to move on. At this point we do not expect sheets brimming with brilliant questions; instead, we expect that most will be discarded, but that is just the nature of a good inquiry (isn't that how we began?). But here is where the significance of the process is drawn out; the analysis of questions in an attempt to tease out the ones that would lead to the 'strongest' inquiry. Our students used the following points to discuss questions:

Which do we think are the easiest to answer?

Which questions are "Googleable"?

Which questions are "non-Googleable"?

Which will be the hardest to answer? Why?

Which questions are you most excited by?

(Murdoch, 2015)

Each group discussed these prompts and starred their top 3 - the questions they thought would drive an inquiry - and then passed their 'strongest' questions around to the next group. The process starts again, but this time the goal was to identify the single question from that sheet that they thought would drive the strongest inquiry (this should not be taken lightly and students are often passionate about 'their' questions, so justification of choices is necessary).

At this point we had 5 student questions that are transferred onto sentence strips - two steps left. The first step is a quick mapping of questions against the key concepts to reinforce their significance within the context of the unit of inquiry. The second step, and most important of all, is for students take the time to choose their line of inquiry that will be explored collaboratively in the coming weeks.

This process sounds extensive, but it really is not. Instead, it is something that students love to do and something that teachers make available if they want to see students engaged completely in units of inquiry.

References:
Murdoch. K. (2015). The Power of Inquiry. Melbourne, VIC: Seastar Education
Rothstein, D., & Santana, S. (2011) Make Just One Chance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Wiederhold, C. (1995). Cooperative Learning and Higher Level Thinking: The Q-Matrix with Question Manipulatives. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Cooperative Learning

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Benjamin Zonca is a grade 4 teacher at Auburn South Primary School (ASPS) in Hawthorn East, Victoria. ASPS has been an accredited PYP school for almost a decade and continues to seek innovative approaches to teaching and learning. Benjamin holds a bachelor's degree from Monash University and is on the edge of gaining a master's degree from the University of Melbourne. You can follow him on Twitter @benjaminzonca1.

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Student-led development of lines of inquiry

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An investigation into student-led development of personal lines of inquiry. Learner agency as terminology is increasingly thrown around in educational discourse as the 21 st century continues to roll through. But I wonder: Is it simply something we talk about doing - that we think about doing - that we think we are doing...

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Media Center

*links are continuing to be added for each topic, please check back if you do not see any links

*if you find a good resource please share it with Ms. Kelly so she can add it to the website for other groups working on the same topic

*if you need help finding information on your topic please ask Ms. Kelly or Ms. Cross for help. These websites are a good starting point, but we would be happy to help you dig deeper as you move forward in your research.

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CGES - 5th Grade Sharing the Planet - Exhibition | College Gardens ES

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links are continuing to be added for each topic, please check back if you do not see any links *if you find a good resource please share it with Ms. Kelly so she can add it to the website for other groups working on the same topic *if you need help finding information on your topic please ask Ms. Kelly or Ms. Cross for help.

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Mentors and planning

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After a few years of acting as a PYP mentor, this year I find myself working with our Year 6 team on exhibition. Over the next few weeks as part of our exhibition, I will try to document our journey.

The Year 6 team identified that for an exhibition to be powerful, it needs to be authentic, meaningful and above challenging for our learners. We also identified problems in the past.

Too much of a focus on coming up with a 'finished product' at the expense of the learning process. The ability of learners to have multiple attempts was something important to us.

Too much time was spent wordsmithing central ideas and lines of inquiry to parrot back at the end of the process was getting in the way of learning.

Learners were put into teacher-directed teams and given teacher-assigned mentors that were necessarily relevant to their learning.

Mentors spending a lot of time having to get the children to bring them up to speed before the children can utilise their expertise.

Actions children take during the exhibition are not sustained after the exhibition is over.

What's in a name - more than you think!
We're going on an.... expedition? When we looked at our central idea 'individual grow by challenging their personal limits' we realised that the term exhibition didn't really fit. When the teachers thought about how personal limits are challenged we noticed

that once a limit is successfully challenged, we need to look to the next peak in order to grow.

that behind every individual success was a team of people that helped along the way.

that every 'mountain of success' has peaks and valleys.

The name change might seem semantic but we felt it was important to signal to our community that we were looking to shift our thinking around the culmination of the PYP programme at our school.
Children quickly learn the game of 'exhibition.'
A highlight of the exhibition for learners is that the community, their parents, children from other grades and schools, view their learning. However, this level of attention is a double-edged sword. While a bigger audience gives a heightened sense of purpose, children (and, in some cases, parents) put pressure on themselves to perform based on prior experiences of viewing an exhibition. However, this means that the process of learning is not authentic to the child because they are merely seeking to emulate the work of others.

We borrowed from the work of @orenjibuta to look at areas that learners might have a passion to explore with.

We also challenged our learner to think of skills and passions in terms of level of confidence and relevance to them as a learner. The expedition sweet spot is to find an area with a high challenge but also relevance for them as a learner.

In general, the learners who faced a struggle with an aspect of school didn't have much trouble identifying a limit to challenge (even if the area wasn't an explicit focus of the expedition) Meanwhile, many of our more successful learners had trouble finding a limit to challenge.

One child, who identified verbal communication as an area for development, decided his plan was to create a jar with debate topics on slips of paper for audience members to practice was expedition seemed genuinely perplexed that he might need to master the activities he wished to showcase with the community. Meanwhile, another was grasping at a way to 'research project' his areas for development rather than looking for opportunities to put himself in situations where he might need to practice skills. These problems highlight how easy it is for schools to get stuck in the mould of 'learning about' topics rather than connecting learning experiences to our curriculum.

One way we sought to help learners to make links to the challenge they were grappling with and our curriculum is through getting them to plan their own unit. Rather than reinvent the wheel, weused a planning document from @makinggoodhumans. While the learner's purpose might not change much over time, it is likely this document will change.

We also only had one iTime action carry through into expedition. We had so many amazing actions had taken place this year:

a group that set sold juice to people who bought in their cups to highlight the use of packaging waste.

a gender equality action where only males in the community were asked to donate cash when they made purchases at the canteen.

a 'Theatre Tuesday' group that organised screenings of online movies and sold snacks during lunch.

a learner-led talent show with prizes and the proceeds going to charity.

learner-led sports competitions and dance clubs

A challenge for us next year is to sustain this action through the year rather than so much interest and passion fading away because it's 'exhibition time.'
Re-Thinking Support
In the past learners were put into groups and assigned mentors by homeroom teachers.

We saw our learner as being at the centre of a network of people to support their learning and we wanted our learner to do some of the heavy lifting of connecting with these experts.

We sent out a Google slide to collect expertise around our school. We had over 40 staff members sign up, including classroom assistants, parents and members of our non-teaching staff.

We then published this on a wall for our learners to find people with relevant skills to the areas of passion they needed help with.

The expert wall has several advantages over the traditional mentor:

The children are doing the work of finding experts relevant to their interests.

The commitment of the adult is based on need and availability rather than being locked into a weekly meeting over a number of weeks.

Children can connect with more than one expert.

We also asked that a children family member that could act as a mentor. We suggested that the children might want to contact a member of their extended family, in particular grandparents who might be living abroad as a way to bridge the distance gap we face in international schools. To support our mentors we prepared a 'cheat sheet' based on the GROW model of coaching to help the mentors support our learners. We sent this out to both learners and parents to help them.
Re-thinking homerooms
Once the children had been through the process of identifying areas of focus, the homeroom teachers sat down and looked at areas where there might be support and became the support teacher for those group of learners.

The learners are still not in formal 'groups' but we are creating conditions where children may find themselves with children that might have similar needs than their own.

The connections are not always so obvious. One learner found that the advice she was giving another child to develop his public speaking skills could equally apply to her journey to overcome her mathsphobia!
Teachers modelling the learning process
As part of the expedition, the teachers in Year 6 have all picked a limit for us to challenge - drawing and notetaking, improving physical flexibility, reading more fiction. Adults working on the unit models to children:

That learning is lifelong

That the supports put in place aren't just 'busy work' for school but a way of thinking about a problem.

That we need to reach out to others to help us improve.

Modelling setbacks.

The pressure of the 'wow' factor
What's this all going to look like?

The short answer right now is we don't know.

A challenge for our community going forward will be to keep the focus on the learning and worry about the sharing when we have made our way a bit further up the mountain.

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Breaking the mould of the #PYPx - Part 1

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After a few years of acting as a PYP mentor, this year I find myself working with our Year 6 team on exhibition. Over the next few weeks as part of our exhibition, I will try to document our journe...

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We are officially into 'Week 2' of our PYP Exhibition Expedition and I'm trying to blog our experiences of the process.

For those joining the journey be sure to see Part 1
Breaking the mold of #PYPx - Part 1 Time
We started this week feeling pushed for time. Public holidays, school events and other events gobbled up both classroom time and also collaboration time for teachers. Moaning about a lack of time is often an Olympic sport in schools.

Should it?

We need to be mindful that successfully implementing an innovation is just as much about saying 'no' as it is to saying yes.
Learning to talk to adults
According to the IB the exhibition is an "extended, in-depth, collaborative project." But there seems to be a number of misconceptions about what this entails.

Extended - should mean that the learning continues after the unit is over. What it often means for our learners is putting everything else on hold to 'do exhibition' for a few weeks and the experience is quickly forgotten once the boards come down.

In-depth - should mean that learners are engaging in deep thought and questioning during the exhibition process. What it shouldn't mean is all research sources come from the passive screen-based activity.

Collaborative - should mean that learners are connecting with a wide variety of people to support their learning. What it often means is that learners get placed in groups an exhibition becomes yet another 'group project.'

One of the joys of this week has been seeing how members of our school community - parents, teachers from other grades, general academic staff have been in our learning space supporting our children in their learning. Even visitors to our school have become part of some learners' PYPx journey!

This level of interaction has been possible by being clear that genuine collaboration occurs when people are working together for a shared purpose rather than being assigned groups and meaningless titles. One of our staff members remarked that a short interview with a learner felt like a better use of time than traditional mentor role for both him and the learner because his interaction was focused on a specific area of his expertise.

This process has also been eye-opening - many of our learners found engaging with adults outside of their comfort zone challenging. PYPx shouldn't be the first time learners contact adults that aren't the teachers or parents to support their learning. Being able to connect and effectively engage with experts is perhaps one of the most critical skills we all need!
Where's the maths?
The children spent some time reflecting this week on 'where's the maths' in their PYPx inquiry. The answer is plenty - time, budgeting, measuring, data handling, scoring. Yet there is not the same level of concern by both parents and teachers to the potential loss of reading, science, the arts or PE during PYPx as there is about potential maths loss (or more specifically the number strand). Why does maths seem to be the subject lens that becomes the road block to innovation?
The power of the 'do over'
This week for many learners has been about capturing first attempts and look for areas to improve. Yet the pull to share a perfect product still persists. I watched a learner who was practicing her public speaking keep re-recording a speech she was practicing on Flipgrid. "Why did you upload just one," I asked? "It was the one where I didn't make any mistakes," she replied. Even with an explicit focus on 'the journey, not the destination' of our exhibition, it was disheartening to see that the student did not see the value in her unsuccessful attempts as evidence of her learning.
Learning to ride a bike
Many more learners who wished to improve their public speaking skills have spent large quantities of their time researching speeches full of facts while paying scant attention to their body language, intonation or most importantly engaging in situations where they use the skills they wish to develop. Being able to name a bike's inventor, all the different parts and the relative benefits of different bike brands aren't very effective behaviours in learning how to ride a bike. Eventually, you need to get on the bike and take it for a ride!
The pressure of the 'wow' factor redux
Last week, I talked about the 'pressure of the 'wow' factor of PYPx on teachers. This week I found myself wondering about its impact on students.

PYPx is an opportunity for learners to engage in massive levels of personal and academic growth. But this heightened expectation can lead also lead to heightened levels of anxiety for our learners if we aren't careful.

More importantly, what does it say about our approach to other units that teachers don't have the same level of expectation about the learning and personal growth for our students as they do in the PYPx?

Perhaps its time dial down the 'wow' factor of the exhibition by making it a whole year process rather than just a small intense chunk of time? More importantly, we should be upping our expectations for our learners in other units.

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Authentic collaboration in #PYPx - Part 2

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We are officially into 'Week 2' of our PYP Exhibition Expedition and I'm trying to blog our experiences of the process. For those joining the journey be sure to see Part 1 Breaking the mold of #PYPx - Part 1 Time We started this week feeling pushed for time.

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Blogs to Follow: ​Professional Development Sharing PYP Practice A blog dedicated to sharing what PYP implementation looks like in World School What Ed Said Edna Sackson is a Teacher and…

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The International Baccalaureate (IB) is a global leader in international education-developing inquiring, knowledgeable, confident, and caring young people. With more than 7,700 programmes being offered worldwide, across over 5,600 schools in 159 countries, an IB education is designed to develop well-rounded individuals who can respond to today's challenges with optimism and an open mind.

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We have been preparing for the exhibition since September doing different activities, thinking routines and cooperative games that help students to complete their most important journey of the Primary Years.

Now, as we are back from the Christmas holidays things have started to be a bit hectic. Our Exhibition is in full gear. Weekly diary follows. As I asked my students to keep track what was happening, I thought it would be a good idea if I wrote about it, too.

Previous years, we used KidBlog so students could write about their thoughts, feelings and progress there and their peers could leave comments, suggestions and questions about the others work. It worked wonderfully. Unfortunately, this year a lot of things changed so it's a bit more complicated to give peer feedback. Anyway, we kept the idea of the Exhibition diary. Although, it's on paper at the moment and not so interactive but it is still ok to record the progress.

There comes a short summary you our first week:

8-1-18:

Creating/recreating groups.

Although, before the holidays kids decided who they want to work with and what their topic was going to be, they came back to school and some have changed their mind either about the theme they want to inquire on or the group of kids they share the same interest and intend to work with. So we shuffled a bit, rethought the groups and some changes were made to start our work calm and happy. I don't say it wasn't a little hassle here or there but finally it is all set and everyone is ready to go, happy!

9-1-18:

Central Idea

As each group has different topics, obviously they couldn't have the same Central Idea. The first challenge of the year was for them to create their own, unique central idea and that was when they realised, it was not an easy task to do.

Before they started, we read through the transdisciplinary theme and the descriptor. Our transdisciplinary theme is HOW THE WORLD WORKS.

This year, unfortunately kids were not given the chance to choose their theme (it's a different story for another day) but finally it turned out fine and we all think it is a really interesting one to do the exhibition about and to make a difference. The descriptor says:

An inquiry into the natural world and its laws; the interaction between the natural world (physical and biological) and human societies; how humans use their understanding of scientific principles; the impact of scientific and technological advances on society and on the environment.

We had a class discussion about different parts of the descriptor to see how to start creating the central idea and which part of the descriptor is connected with each topic students would be interested in.

As students broke the descriptor into little pieces, each group discovered and decided which part of it corresponding their topic. Some of them were interested in the interaction between the natural world and human societies, others on the impact of scientific and technological advances on society or the environment.

So they had a clear understanding on the parts of the descriptor they could decide upon their central idea whatever they are really interested in.

We talked about the characteristics of a good central idea and I gave them a check list they needed to complete after they had the first attempt to create it. Then, as they checked the list students saw wherever their idea does not match with the given criteria or how they can make it better. So they started to re-write it and re-write it again. Until the point they were finally happy with their self-evaluation.

If you wonder what was on the checklist, find the link to it here: Central Idea Checklist

10-1-18

Essential Agreement with PYP Attitudes and IB Learner Profile.

As students work in their chosen groups, they created their own Essential Agreement which they agree to follow during the time they work together. Before they started with it, we looked at the IB Learner Profile to see how important was to use all of them. We also had a short reminder of the attitudes. I quick brainstorm what to do include that attitude in our essential agreement and during our exhibition journey of inquiry.

11-1-18

Lines of Inquiry with chosen 3 key concepts

To help kids start with their lines of inquiry, we talked about different key concepts first and told the groups to choose a couple of them which they could write their inquiry around and fits best with their topic. We had a good chat about all of the key concepts and the corresponding questions to help them think about their questions.

1. Form: What is it like?

Everything has a form with recognisable features that can be observed, described and categorised.

2. Function: How does it work?

Everything has a purpose, a role or way of behaving that can be investigated.

3. Connection: How does it connect to other things?

The universe is a connection of systems made of individual parts that work with and effect each other.

4. Causation: Why is it like it is?

Things do not just happen. There are always reasons behind events. This is cause and effect.

5. Change: How has it changed?

Everything is always in a state of transforming from one state to another. This happens to everything and everyone.

6. Perspective: What are the different points of view?

Different ways of looking at information. This leads to different interpretations, understanding and findings.

7. Responsibility: What is our responsibility?

People make choices based on their understanding and knowledge. The actions they take as a result, make a difference.

8. Reflection: How do we know?

There are different ways of knowing, it is important to look at our conclusions, to think about our reasoning and evidence we have used.

12-1-18

Internet security

How to search on the Internet.
We had an Assembly with our IT teacher who reminded us different aspects of the Internet. He talked about how to use keywords or sentences during research, how to stay safe on the Internet and how to cite different resources. Although the majority of the kids were aware of these simple things, it still was a useful session as now it is emphasized and crystal clear for everyone. And it is the best time to put this knowledge into practice.
Exhibition Diary Week 2.

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We have been preparing for the exhibition since September doing different activities, thinking routines and cooperative games that help students to complete their most important journey of the Primary Years. Now, as we are back from the Christmas holidays things have started to be a bit hectic. Our Exhibition is in full gear.

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https://pz.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Tug%20of%20War_0.pdf

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https://piedpyper.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/the-pyp-x-files-chronicles-of-an-exhibition-preparing-week-1/

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https://prepr.org/the-q-matrix-inquiry-based-learning/

Cilla and I used this in our lesson last week. It helped us to see how much practice the students need in formulating questions. (Green= Lev. 1 Questions, Orange= Level 2, Red=Level 2-3, Blue= Level 3-4)

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I was invited by the Faria Group to lead a webinar on the PYP Exhibition. This is one of my most favorite things to talk about so it was an easy 'yes'. The enhancements to the PYP have brought about a lot of clarity (in my opinion) as to what the Exhibition is and what it can be. Here is a summary of the ideas shared in the webinar:

This is the 'one word' that I kept thinking of as I was prepping for the webinar. The degree to which agency is present in the Exhibition will likely correlate with the degree to which it exists in all of your learning spaces. If you want students to be agents of their own learning, start now - don't wait for Exhibition! And if you don't know where to start, tap into this holy grail of all things agency as curated by Taryn Bond Clegg.

These are two films I suggested sharing to all members of the learning community as the journey begins. The first one, Alike, will help people see why we want kids thinking for themselves and moving independently about the world. The second one, by John Spencer, will help remind us that it all might be a total failure - but that it doesn't mean WE are total failures. Play them back-to-back to get best effect. 🙂

NOTE: John has a great follow-on video called When Projects Fail which may/may not also come in handy!

The IB Principles to Practice are DEFINITELY worth reading - in particular in relation to the Exhibition. Figuring out the purpose of the exhibition, how it will look in your context, what roles each member of the learning community will play, and the degree of release toward a student-led exhibition, are key factors to consider before getting started.

Collaboration is one of the key components of the exhibition and again, this won't just happen unless we are intentional about it. Destination Imagination has some great resources to help both develop team relationships and then reflect on how they might be made even stronger.

Figuring out what you think/hope the exhibition will look like is a great start. I think most of us have visions of a straight, uncomplicated, but long path. Reality, it looks a bit like spaghetti junction, most of the time. Having a plan before you start is great. Your plan could look something like this:

Identify a global issue or opportunity that has meaning to the student(s) and connects to the school or local context

Collaborate to develop central idea(s)

Identify group or individual lines of inquiry and student questions

Connect with mentors and use class time to focus on ongoing Exhibition inquiries

Designate 'check-in' times with mentors to monitor and document progress, and to provide feedback and feedforward.

Decide on the culmination of the exhibition to share the learning process. Consider the environmental impact of the culminating event when looking for ways to make the learning visible.

Reflect on the Exhibition process

You will then want to think about assessment. What I like about this is that students are asked to have a strong hand in creating their own success criteria. What does that mean or look like? I took the main features of the exhibition and the assessment guidelines and then created a few question to guide students in assessing their learning. Great to share these with the students and to get their input on them too.

Start with the end in mind...

On the topic of assessing, or thinking ahead to what is coming, I like to have students take a leaf from Seth Godin's "Ship It" manual and speak into the future about their own success and achievements before they begin. A powerful way to take a moment to think about what they hope to get out of this process.

Exhibition is not meant to be a solo experience for kids or teachers. Key to the success of the exhibition are mentors. I wrote a post about different ways of including adult support for the exhibition in a post called We(Chat) Are The Champions. It has some good stuff on different ways of making the most out of mentors.

Step by step...

I am not a fan of checklists but I do understand that having some sort of framework when undertaking such a big project is absolutely necessary. Here is my six step version of a checklist. I just implore you to not think of it as written in stone. It's just a guide so when you and/or your kids are wound up in spaghetti junction, you have some idea of which way is up.

Let's get ready...

So, we are now (almost) ready to go! But here's one last-ish word on what that means. It can be really easy to get bogged down with 'research'. I encourage you to consider a bias toward action - a phrase that comes from Design Thinking and the Stanford d.School. Equally, consider developing a Producer Mindset - different from a consumer mindset. Raising Producer Kids by Philip Guo is a great read.

Great questions are the key to a great exhibition and if you want to brush up on your skills in relation to helping kids pose and pursue great questions, look no further than The Right Question Institute.

A tool you might want to consider is the Post-it App. I love this app. It is not a 'must have' but it does make this process fun and there are so many ways to use the kids thinking to build their understanding of the questions they are asking and to help them figure out which questions they REALLY want to go for. Here are some other ways of organizing and categorizing questions:

This visible thinking routine: question sorts, is probably one of my favorites. Questions that end up in the bottom right quadrant are the ones most likely to generate engagement, insights, creative action, deep understanding, or new possibilities, while also being questions that one really cares deeply about investigating. After you have these questions, you could take them and sort them again into concept categories:

Everything you need to know about these cards is on this blog. Check out this post to get started.

A new edition to my Exhibition toolkit (and one I have not tried with PYPX students but use regularly with our XBlock students) is a project summary. This is a one-pager that students can use to summarize their thinking, free from jargon, and with their voice at the front of everything. This would be a tool I would use to conference with students and help them to put a voice to the nature of the project they are about to undertake.

Conceptually thinking...

When students have created lines of inquiry based on concepts, I have found some of them will often get this 'now what?' look about them. What do I do now? The following chart would be a great tool to guide conversations with students about what they might be doing if they were pursuing a line of inquiry connected to one of these concepts. This idea of connecting verbs with concepts was first shared by Cristina Milos and I took her idea and added these prompts.

Action is a key component of the exhibition. Under the PYP Enhancements, action is broken down into a number of categories. These next two images show what those categories are and then the second, what students might find themselves doing depending on what they are trying to achieve:

Link to full post

Learner Profile and ATLs

The following cards are under construction. I am working on the icons in collaboration with our Early Years teachers and I want to work on the language of the guiding/reflective questions. If you have any advice, I would love to hear it!

Suzanne Kitto has generously shared her work on ATLs via her Twitter account. Rebekah Madrid has bounced off this work to create ATLs for MYP students. I was inspired by both educators and made a set of EY ATL cards. You can't go wrong.

In the webinar I pulled math as an example and shared some information about three different ways that three different educators have used to bring math into the PYP. All the details about this can be found in this post.

Documenting the journey

I think most people have ways that they enjoy using (adults and kids alike) to document learning. This might depend on access to technology or student interest, but for the most part, taking the time to document what is going on is a key part of the Exhibition journey. The night before the webinar I had a slide prepped with bullet points about documenting. Then I put my daughter to bed and read "Ish" by Peter H. Reynolds. In that book, Ramon (and Peter) reminded me that it really is ok to NOT document everything - the learning still exists. Love it.

Staging the Exhibition...

When you and your students are getting ready to share, I offer these three things to remember:

1. It is a celebration! Be joyful! Have fun! And remember to celebrate the process, the failures, the false starts, the milestones, the massive achievements. It is all part of the journey.

2. Be kind to the environment. Consider the message your physical products are sending to your audience.

3. Keep asking yourself, "Who's fingerprints are on the work?" - this is a phrase my friend and fellow design teacher uses to remind us that at the end of the day, it's the kid's work. Let their academic voice shine through.

And to the students, I would say:

I will post a link to the webinar when it becomes available. I want to make sure I thank all the educators who so generously share their work with the rest of us. I also want to thank Leila Holmyard from Managebac who helped me think through the process of exhibition and was so open to helping me synthesise and expand on my wonderings based on the PYP Enhancements, and Kelby Zenor of Faria Education for inviting me to the Webinar.

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I was invited by the Faria Group to lead a webinar on the PYP Exhibition. This is one of my most favorite things to talk about so it was an easy 'yes'. The enhancements to the PYP have brought about a lot of clarity (in my opinion) as to what the Exhibition is and what...

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In looking for a way to deepen student understanding of concepts, while still maintaining fidelity to the single subjects, this article shows the work of the physical education (PE) department to create conceptual connections while focusing on knowledge, skills and conceptual understandings pertaining to PE and beyond.
How do we integrate single subjects into the units of inquiry while maintaining the integrity of the discipline and not creating thematic units? We, as a school, felt we were missing opportunities to create conceptual connections through subject-specific central ideas, which could support and deepen student conceptual understanding. For the 2017-2018 Primary Years Programme (PYP) exhibition, we decided to try out a conceptual connection central idea in PE with the aim of deeper learning, more engagement throughout the exhibition and increased choice while simultaneously maintaining fidelity to the discipline.

This year's exhibition central idea was: "Humans shape the future through their actions". Transdisciplinary planning began with a specialist/homeroom collaboration where we asked, "What does this look like in PE?" rather than, "How can PE support this?" One of the grade 5 teachers began thinking aloud about how sport is a great way to fight for social justice. With that, music, art, language, PE and homeroom teachers were discussing a PE connection and our creativity was sparked! After much discussion, we settled on the PE central idea: "Sports can be an avenue to promote social justice and change". We hoped that students would see how humans can shape the future through their actions by focusing specifically on sports, social justice and change.

Our provocation had to grab students' attention and make them uncomfortable enough to want to make a change. Having just finished a games unit in which students learned basketball, we thought a Basketball Challenge was perfect. All was well until, without warning, boys' points were worth 5 while girls' were worth 1. "It's not fair!" and "What is this!" were statements thrown around the court. Suddenly, one team got their basket lowered while the other remained in place. The next blow came when the two strongest players on each team were banned from shooting or scoring. "You can't do this!" someone yelled. As the rules changed, the level of frustration rose for those students feeling the injustice and they wanted to make a change! The game was followed by a class discussion on students' feelings and an introduction to the unit.

The provocation provided the tiniest taste of injustice which allowed students to begin to empathize with our case studies who had experienced larger injustices and used them as an impetus to make big changes in the world. With each case study we used a different visible thinking routine to both deepen and assess understanding. Below are a few examples.

Jackie Robinson showed us the fight for racial equality in major league baseball. We used the visible thinking routine Circle of Viewpoints and students wrote down interpretations of two pictures without knowing the background. They were shocked to find out that what they assumed was happening in the pictures was actually the opposite. This routine allowed us to see their perspectives before and after gaining new knowledge about a historical event. The questions and conversations which this sparked were immense and some students made personal connections to racial discrimination.

Basketball players Bilquis Abdul-Qaadir and Darsh Preet introduced us to the right to express religion through clothing while playing sport. We tweaked the Zones of Comfort protocol to help students identify their feelings about disallowing people to wear certain clothes while playing sports and then the debate began.

Brazilian football player Marta was our springboard to gender inequality. After learning about Marta's fight students completed the below Venn Diagram.

In addition to the above mentioned case studies, students explored:

With each new case study, students expanded their perspectives and deepened their understanding of the exhibition's central idea. They became more confident in taking and defending positions, and listened to varied perspectives with open minds. Some began to independently inquire into other change makers (see below).

A presentation about Katherine Virginia Switzer, the first woman to run the full Boston Marathon in 1967.

Questioning why women cannot play football in home nation (Pakistan) followed by discussion.

Researching athletes who fought for social justice in home countries.

Designing and documenting engaging assessments was a priority. Students were asked to research and write a speech about someone who had used sports to make a change or to fight for social justice. This could be based on one of our class case studies or the athlete of their choice ( see student checklist here). During the unit students would also be preparing for a Mini Olympics and enhancing their skill set in high jump, long jump and 60 meter sprint. Initially we thought it would be great for the medalists to present their speeches at assembly; however, in the end, there were two passionate students (non-medalists) who were our speakers. Athletic skill would be assessed through a Mini Olympics and conceptual understanding would be assessed through the content (not delivery) of the speech. We were looking for students to show:

Knowledge about facts from the time

Understanding of how their case study promoted social justice or change through their actions

Personal connection with the subject of their case study.

Students and teachers used the same checklist to assess understanding and knowledge of the central idea. It should also be noted that throughout the unit, teachers documented learning through the collection of anecdotal notes, pictures, and the collection and presentation of visible thinking routines.

We felt that the combination of the Mini Olympics for enhancing and assessing skills, as well as the presentation and research of case studies related to social justice and change, would allow us to maintain the integrity of PE while deepening their thinking of the homeroom central idea.

The learning which took place in PE was evident in many exhibition projects demonstrating that the understanding of change and social justice had transcended PE. The grade 5 PE teacher stated, "It gave me a fresh perspective on teaching PE. We were able to go deeper into conceptual connections and they (the students) could see how athletics pertains to the real world." While there are improvements to be made, we are excited about the potential of this unit and creating other transdisciplinary units based on conceptual connections.

Works Cited

"April 28: Muhammad Ali refuses Army induction." This Day in History, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/muhammad-ali-refuses-army-induction. Accessed 18 July 2018.

"Circle of Viewpoints." Project Zero, Harvard School of Education, www.pz.harvard.edu/resources/circle-of-viewpoints. Accessed 18 July 2018.

Comaneci, Nadia. "Special Olympic Athletes Are Making History." Huffington Post, 8 July 2015, www.huffingtonpost.com/nadia-comaneci/special-olympics-athletes_b_7753014.html?guccounter=1. Accessed 18 July 2018.

"Jackie Robinson." History Channel, www.history.com/topics/black-history/jackie-robinson. Accessed 18 July 2018.

Litsky, Frank. "Ruth Langer Lawrence 77, Who Boycotted '36 Olympics." The New York Times [New York], 6 June 1999. The New York Times, www.nytimes.com/1999/06/06/sports/ruth-langer-lawrence-77-who-boycotted-36-olympics.html. Accessed 18 July 2018.

Mendonca, Duarte, and James Masters. "'Female Pele' Marta seeks fair deal for women's soccer." CNN, 9 Aug. 2013, edition.cnn.com/2013/08/07/sport/football/marta-pele-brazil-pele-football/index.html. Accessed 18 July 2018.

"MPower Change: Muslim Grassroots Movement." MPower Change, act.mpowerchange.org/sign/fiba-let-them-play. Accessed 18 July 2018.

"Zones of Comfort, Risk, and Danger." School Reform Iniative, www.schoolreforminitiative.org/. Accessed 18 July 2018.
Courtney Hughes is the PYP Coordinator at the American International School of Bucharest. She has been at the school for 9 years. Courtney is originally from the United States where she began her teaching career in New York City Public Schools. She sees the power of transdisciplinary learning and believes that children can do anything. Courtney is a full-time mother, wife and educator. When she has a spare moment, she enjoys working out, eating and traveling to kid friendly locations. She could never have written this article without the support and dedication of Alex Sota and Svetlana Akhundova (the grade 5 PE team). You can follow her on Twitter @cbeishline.

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Deepening transdisciplinary learning through conceptual connections: A single-subject approach to exhibition

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In looking for a way to deepen student understanding of concepts, while still maintaining fidelity to the single subjects, this article shows the work of the physical education (PE) department to create conceptual connections while focusing on knowledge, skills and conceptual understandings pertaining to PE and beyond.

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We are two weeks into our Passion Project and my kids have pretty much narrowed down their area of focus for their passion: travel, gardening, healthy living, animals, music....the list goes on. These are all big, broad areas of interest, so how do we begin on our passion journey?

Our 'way in' was through the PYP concepts. We thought about these in two ways: as lenses and as keys. Some kids really bought into the idea that they were picking up and putting on different glasses with different colored lenses through which they would look at their topic. Some kids bought into the idea that they were standing in a room with eight colored doors and each key in their hand unlocked a different door to step through to their passion. I was pretty impressed with the speed at which they figured this out, actually!
Download the cards below, updated to include related concepts, here.

Each child made a set of concept cards using the following information. A descriptor of the concept on one side, and curriculum area sample questions on the reverse. These were mounted on different colored cards and bound together with a ring. We were ready to begin!

I started with the whole class and a topic close to my own heart and one they could relate to: dogs. We started going through the concepts and thinking of questions that would fit that lens:

FORM: What are the distintive characteristics of a dog?

FUNCTION: How do the lungs of a dog work?

CHANGE: What are the newest medical advances that are now in place to help injured dogs?

Each child was given a large concept question planner and, armed with their passion topic and their concept-question cards, were asked to think of questions for each concept. PDF Concept Question Planner

We discussed that some concepts may lend themselves to more questions and some to fewer questions. As we continue with this on Monday, my hope is that we can help each other focus our inquiries through the use of concepts. I also want to make sure that their time is spent on relevant, engaging and worthwhile questions. I want their questions to be deep and open. But how?

I came across the idea of a Question Quadrant to help see if where your questions 'fit': The Quadrant can be used to distinguish closed and open questions that relate specifically to a text; or closed and open questions that stimulate intellectual curiosity.

I also really like the Visible Thinking routine Question Starts.

Once they have generated questions, I am thinking of using the Visible Thinking Routine, "Question Sorts" to help my students ensure they are really focusing on questions they care about:

A question sort, would be similar looking to the question quadrant:

I am still thinking about how best to help them make the most of their inquiries. I think we are off to a good start! I know a lot of the focus still remains on 'producing a product' which is not the goal of this project but is something that I think people are more comfortable with given that is how we were educated: to produce 'something'. My goal is to keep putting the tools out there and hoping that the more product oriented ideas arise from the deeper inquiry, rather than become the sole purpose of the project.

A mom, educator, designer, creator. I care about kindness, representation, equality, and making a positive contribution. I began teaching in 1997 in New Zealand and have since taught from G1 through G10 in 4 continents. View all posts by Sonya terBorg

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We are two weeks into our Passion Project and my kids have pretty much narrowed down their area of focus for their passion: travel, gardening, healthy living, animals, music....the list goes on. These are all big, broad areas of interest, so how do we begin on our passion journey?

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