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As a teacher with 20 plus years of experience in IB and non-IB schools, I am committed to my students and am always excited to see them learn things. I believe in the power of inquiry and transdisciplinary learning. Although I learned about concepts in my introductory course to PYP and am trying to use this in my teaching practice, I am still not sure how I can better support students to develop conceptual understandings within and across subjects. In our teaching team, we select key and related concepts for our units of inquiry but that is about as far as we get in terms of supporting a concept-driven curriculum. I’m sure there is more I can do, but what?

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As a teacher with 20 plus years of experience in IB and non-IB schools, I am committed to my students and am always excited to see them learn things. I believe in the power of inquiry and transdisciplinary learning. Although I learned about concepts in my introductory course to PYP and am trying to use this in my teaching practice, I am still not sure how I can better support students to develop conceptual understandings within and across subjects. In our teaching team, we select key and related concepts for our units of inquiry but that is about as far as we get in terms of supporting a concept-driven curriculum. I’m sure there is more I can do, but what?

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Being a musician and having the opportunity to teach music in an elementary school is the best of both worlds. Living and teaching abroad for 8 years in various international schools has afforded me some great opportunities and experiences. My current school has been recently authorised to offer the PYP - as a result, I’m really eager to strengthen connections to the units of inquiry that teachers are responsible for - can’t be too hard, right? 

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Being a musician and having the opportunity to teach music in an elementary school is the best of both worlds. Living and teaching abroad for 8 years in various international schools has afforded me some great opportunities and experiences. My current school has been recently authorised to offer the PYP - as a result, I’m really eager to strengthen connections to the units of inquiry that teachers are responsible for - can’t be too hard, right? 

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Working in a well established PYP school as a new principal (and being new to IB), I see that assessment practices are generally very good in the classrooms. Teachers use on-going assessment throughout units and document learning through portfolios. I notice through my observations, conversations and in documentation that there are efforts to integrate learning across subjects, however, these efforts are not always consistently showing me evidence of student learning. I’m accustomed to gathering and analysing evidence of learning from a subject-specific standpoint so am not 100% sure how teachers can be assured of academic growth and success when they are asked to assess conceptual understandings. It isn’t clear to me that any assessment data is being gathered and properly used to analyse the effectiveness of concept-driven learning and teaching and the overall programme. As a leader of learning and teaching, working closely with our school’s PYP Coordinator, how might I gain further insight and reconcile my current beliefs about effective learning and teaching within the PYP framework? 

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Working in a well established PYP school as a new principal (and being new to IB), I see that assessment practices are generally very good in the classrooms. Teachers use on-going assessment throughout units and document learning through portfolios. I notice through my observations, conversations and in documentation that there are efforts to integrate learning across subjects, however, these efforts are not always consistently showing me evidence of student learning. I’m accustomed to gathering and analysing evidence of learning from a subject-specific standpoint so am not 100% sure how teachers can be assured of academic growth and success when they are asked to assess conceptual understandings. It isn’t clear to me that any assessment data is being gathered and properly used to analyse the effectiveness of concept-driven learning and teaching and the overall programme. As a leader of learning and teaching, working closely with our school’s PYP Coordinator, how might I gain further insight and reconcile my current beliefs about effective learning and teaching within the PYP framework? 

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Laura Newman
Selecting key and related concepts is a good starting point. Now, you and your students can explore these concepts through a central idea. Provide students with opportunities to call on prior experiences to direct their learning and make connections.

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Your desire to learn more about how to facilitate within the PYP model and your commitment to using the inquiry approach to instruction and learning are important factors that can lead you to being an even better teacher, even after 20 years in the classroom. Finding the right balance between content vs. concept-driven instruction is a challenge. Experimenting with teaching one area at a time using concept-driven methods, rather than focusing on teaching every single lesson that way might alleviate some of the pressure you may be experiencing and lead you to the knowledge that your students will ultimately learn the information and skills that are truly important.

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It is great that you are excited to help support your students and your teachers in their units of study. Creating and incorporating units of study is an ongoing process that will change each school year. I would highly recommend that you meet with the different grade level teams to discuss the unit of study they have created or in the process of creating. That way you can see which standards are being covered in the unit, what are the central idea and lines of inquiry, and how your Music standards can help support the students/teachers.

I would also recommend that you view the units of inquiry as a responsibility for everybody in the school community. As it is stated in the ib collaboration document: "Collaboration supports the learning community in understanding how the expertise and perspectives of individuals contributes to the
fusion of knowledge and new discoveries." Your ideas and expertise is a value component in your school community.

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Amber Powers
Ken has a great starting point, of selecting the key and related concepts for each unit of inquiry. The next step would be to allow your students to ask questions and dive deeper with those concepts you have put into place. This will allow them to take charge of their learning. They can use their previous experiences and insights, in order to make connections and gain a purposeful understanding of the concepts within the inquiry units.

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Ken is at a great starting point.  He knows the key concepts and related concepts that will help to drive his instruction.  From this point he can reference the IB document Concepts-Learning and Teaching.  This document will provide key questions, definitions and related concepts that will help support his understanding.  In the classroom, he should allow students to share connections they have with the concepts.

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After reading about Ken and his experience I think he is at a great starting point. It is important to understand those key concepts and related concepts. Now he can continue to dive deeper into Concept-Driven Learning with the help of the IB references such as the documents and resources that IB and PYP offers. Another step he can take to dive deeper into Concept-Driven Learning and Teaching is focusing on the central ideas and lines of inquiry. He can ask himself how does the key and related concepts related/connect to the central ideas and lines of inquiry. Making these connections and using the right resources will help Ken in a positive way.

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Ken seems to be a well-experienced teacher in Ken seems to be a well-experienced teacher in the classroom, with over 20 years of teaching experience and like many, is a bit reluctant in being a risk taker in trying out and exploring new avenues to provide instructions. He currently uses the content-driven approach to education, which has far less benefit than concept driven approach. I would inform Ken that a concept-driven education focuses on developing an effective approach to teaching and learning; empowering young people or a lifetime of learning, independently and in collaboration with others and preparing a community of learners that engage with global challenges through inquiry, action, and reflection. Concept based instructions introduces a student to universal rules and engages them in the true process of learning. It helps a student create a connection with their prior experience creating a deeper connect with the understanding of content knowledge which further helps students in responding to their learning with appropriate actions.

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Ken seems to be a well-experienced teacher in Ken seems to be a well-experienced teacher in the classroom, with over 20 years of teaching experience and like many, is a bit reluctant in being a risk taker in trying out and exploring new avenues to provide instructions. He currently uses the content-driven approach to education, which has far less benefit than concept driven approach. I would inform Ken that a concept-driven education focuses on developing an effective approach to teaching and learning; empowering young people or a lifetime of learning, independently and in collaboration with others and preparing a community of learners that engage with global challenges through inquiry, action, and reflection. Concept based instructions introduces a student to universal rules and engages them in the true process of learning. It helps a student create a connection with their prior experience creating a deeper connect with the understanding of content knowledge which further helps students in responding to their learning with appropriate actions.

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I believe Tara is on the right path by wanting to engage and learn more about PYP and incorporate it. I would challenge Tara to implement PYP learnings and practices in her everyday life to get a better understanding of how everything connects. By doing this I think she will quickly understand the benefits of PYP and will be able to help students understand and connect as she will have first hand real world experience.

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Tara does need to work closely with the PYP coordinator and closely with each grade level team to understand how they incorporate the PYP framework into their curriculum. Once she understands this, it would be easy to guide her teachers into ensuring it is rigorous as well as meeting expectations.

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Ken is doing great and has what is necessary to begin concept-driven learning as they have the concepts and related concepts down with the teaching team for their units of inquiry. Now it is essential to move forward with provocation in created the essential questions using the concepts and key concepts already gathered. Ask questions and allow time for students to also ask question. These lines of inquiry must be drafted taking in consideration the knowledge Ken knows it is necessary to be acquired but not before also keeping in mind through which skills will the students get to be able to receive the necessary knowledge.

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Picking out the key concepts is a good place to start. It sounds as though you have good intentions, but need some planning time to put the wheels in motion. Attach specific dates and times to your goals. You need time for lines of inquiry to be written. How and when are the lines of inquiry being taught? What opportunities are provided to students to explore these lines of inquiry. Planning time and availability for these "tasks" makes it more likely they will actually happen.

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While we can all agree that Ken is doing a great job, some things he can do to further expand his students knowledge and understanding is to ask more open ended questions, have the students take a different stance on a subject being talked about, or even have them take a step back and have them really think about human actions and the consequences of our actions.

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It is definitely harder than you think. It takes a lot of planning and completely rethinking how best to teach your students.

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In a PYP there are many ways to integrate music with other subjects. The most important thing is to be creative and open mind. For instance, music is considered a language (lyrics-writing and singing -speaking, reading a pentagram notation, listening the songs). Music is a math system because it has counting, rhythm, scales, intervals, patterns, symbols, harmonies, time signatures, overtones, tone, pitch. Music is a science based on sounds that is a vibration and/or wave and the frequency of vibration is what make different sounds, study of acoustics (physics) and sound production according to music instrument materials. Music a universal language and important part of social studies because it is a bridge to connect cultures and societies.

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Ken is on the right path. He needs to explore the IB document Concept-Learning and Teaching to create the central idea and lines of inquiry. I would recommend him to work with his grade level team to share ideas/concepts to achieve this goal.

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For Abdul to further strengthen connections with the units of inquiry that the teachers are covering, he needs to implement music through various forms such as writing songs, researching about musicians, perhaps make a timeline. He should use each unit to his full potential by connecting them with the key concepts.

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(DeMetria Jones) As I understand it, Ken has not provided his students with meaningful inquiry based lessons about the concepts. Ken has continued to teach the content, which might help the students memorize the information. However, the students have not been given the opportunity to engage and inquire about the concept in a challenging way to promote a deeper understanding. Ken can look at his curriculum to determine how to best implement and integrate the concepts. Ken can design lessons that have no limits to the students obtaining knowledge based on inquiry and exploration. Ken may also want to incorporate student choice. Ken has the teaching experience, but needs to inquire and obtain more knowledge on helping students obtain their own conceptual understanding. 

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(DeMetria Jones) As I understand it, Ken has not provided his students with meaningful inquiry based lessons about the concepts. Ken has continued to teach the content, which might help the students memorize the information. However, the students have not been given the opportunity to engage and inquire about the concept in a challenging way to promote a deeper understanding. Ken can look at his curriculum to determine how to best implement and integrate the concepts. Ken can design lessons that have no limits to the students obtaining knowledge based on inquiry and exploration. Ken may also want to incorporate student choice. Ken has the teaching experience, but needs to inquire and obtain more knowledge on helping students obtain their own conceptual understanding. 

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Ken is off to a great start. He has experience in the PYP and is comfortable using the inquiry approach in his classroom. I understand when he says "I am a bit more comfortable with letting the content drive my teaching." It is easier to teach the student than to act as a guide in their deeper understanding. Ken has the tool box to allow his students to facilitate their learning he made need to broaden his questions and no focus so much on the content but the concept it connects to.

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I am in the same predicament as Tara when it comes to properly examining student data to assess growth and success over time.  I suggest Tara the following:
1. Train your teachers on how to gather and assess student data for growth and mastery.  As it is in my District, data analysis and student growth/success are non-negotiables. Data-driven practices are critical to our school's success.
2. As a PYP campus, support your teachers to find a balance between concept-based teaching/learning and teaching for student mastery. The two must go hand in hand to meet state accountability and district expectations. At the end of the day we are responsible for our students' academic growth and success. However, there are opportunities to co-exist with state accountability and the PYP philosophy for teaching/learning. Finding that will be the key to promoting a rigorous, concept-based curriculum while ensuring all students are successful.