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What are we doing right? Where are we fully IB as a school?

Where are we falling short? What are we not doing that we should be? What does it mean to BE IB as opposed to DOING IB?

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What are we doing right? Where are we fully IB as a school?

Where are we falling short? What are we not doing that we should be? What does it mean to BE IB as opposed to DOING IB?

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What are we doing right? Where are we fully IB as a school?

Where are we falling short? What are we not doing that we should be? What does it mean to BE IB as opposed to DOING IB?

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What are we doing right? Where are we fully IB as a school?

Where are we falling short? What are we not doing that we should be? What does it mean to BE IB as opposed to DOING IB?

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What are we doing right? Where are we fully IB as a school?

Where are we falling short? What are we not doing that we should be? What does it mean to BE IB as opposed to DOING IB?

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I know we do a great job in the lower school in offering opportunities for students to experiment, play, and discover deep understanding for themselves with teachers as facilitators. We do this through learning centers, actively helping students to find the answers to questions they have, and offering choices as much as possible about how to show their learning (Agency)

Some examples I have seen in the lower school in the last few weeks have been, an instrument build in music class where students created an instrument that originated in the country they are researching, Pre-K students sorting different items into the senses they use to explore them, a write the room activity where students find the vocabulary word around the room that corresponds to the definitions they have, as well as many others.

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As I teach, I often forget to use the vocabulary of the IB and infuse it throughout the lesson. This makes these skills feel more like an add-on. One of the only times that I authentically use the language of the ATL skills is when students are completing their written reflection at the end of the unit. How can I remember/ make it a practice to use that language and help the students really understand it's meaning?

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What are we doing right? Where are we fully IB as a school?

Where are we falling short? What are we not doing that we should be? What does it mean to BE IB as opposed to DOING IB?

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It is difficult to walk throughout the Middle School at NDA and not see student centered instruction at hand. Just in the last few weeks, the following activities have taken place in the middle school:

-Designing Class T-Shirts with Canva

-Constructing their own "world" using elements of map design

-Conducting chemical and physical changes with hands-on lab materials

-Showcasing student designed infographics to PYP students of what to expect in middle school

-Speaking French during lunch with their French teacher

-Helping each other solve math problems and receive peer feedback

The ATL skills of research, communication, self-management, thinking, and social are embedded in all subjects across the curriculum, and all MYP teachers use the IBMYP Command Terms to assess our students for depth of understanding.

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The Role of Command Terms in the MYPIt’s not just semantics!

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Realise the role of using Command terms in the MYP through well-designed rubrics to navigate student expectations, vertical alignment and assess performance.

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While many teachers have the MYP Learner Profiles hanging up in their classrooms, there is not much else that addresses these profiles school-wide. I wonder how we might develop an award or celebration system to honor students who are exhibiting the learner profile attributes?

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We have strengths in being a solidified unit in each IB programme. The Middle School Team in the MYP, while informal at times, constantly engages with each other to seek support, guidance, or share ideas. I wonder how we could structure time within the schedule to have more formal collaborative planning to address the standardization of command terms, summative task calendars, and interdisciplinary units.

There also is room for growth in bridging 5th to 6th grade and 8th to 9th grade. The Personal Project allows students to showcase the skills they have built throughout their experience in the MYP- I wonder how we could team the middle and high school MYP levels to ensure students are equipped with the skills they will need to be successful at the next level. The same collaboration could occur with 6th grade teachers throughout the 5th-grade PYP exhibition.

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Engaging teachers in collaborative planning is an important part of developing the MYP curriculum at your school. In these meetings, teachers work together to ensure that common threads like the key concepts, global contexts and ATL skills are incorporated into individual units and developed coherently throughout the programme.

In order to illustrate that your school has planned to embed collaborative planning into the culture, you will submit a description of the collaborative planning meetings that take place. This description should demonstrate that teachers have regular, scheduled collaboration time to plan and implement the programme, incorporate the IB philosophy into the curriculum, address the elements of an IB education, and ensure a holistic and coherent learning experience for students. For each meeting, indicate who attends, the frequency and the objective(s) of the meeting. Here are a few examples:
Example 1
MYP Collaborative planning meetings for 2022-2023

MYP Staff Meeting

All MYP staff

Monthly; after school

Programme-wide development activities, including:ATL planningHorizontal and Vertical Curriculum MappingDeveloping understanding and implementation of the IB Approaches to Teaching

Subject Group Meetings

Subject group teachers and the MYPC

Bi-weekly; during common prep time

Subject-specific collaboration, including:Planning and reflecting on Units of InquiryStandardising assessment

Grade Level Meetings

Grade-level teams

Five times per year; on planning half-days

Grade-specific collaboration, including:Planning Service as ActionIDU PlanningPeer-editing report card comments

Example 2
There are two days of collaborative planning meetings before the school year begins. In addition to general administrative and orientation tasks, there is time allocated for the following MYP activities:

Orientation to the MYP for new teachers with the MYP Coordinator

Review of programme development goals for the year, including roles, responsibilities and timelines

Review of MYP updates

Throughout the year our school has a late start every Wednesday morning for collaborative planning. Meetings are 75 minutes long. The cadence of the meetings is as follows:

First Wednesday of the month: All staff meeting for vertical and horizontal planning, professional development

Second Wednesday of the month: Subject-group meetings for unit planning and standardisation of assessment

Third Wednesday of the month: Grade-team meetings for student support, IDU planning, service as action planning

Fourth Wednesday of the month: These are as-needed meetings for initiatives such as personal project planning, service as action planning, international-mindedness activities, social-emotional learning

At the end of the year, there are 2 days of meetings which are primarily devoted to reflective planning. MYP-specific activities include:

All-staff review of the Programme of Inquiry

Reflecting on progress towards the programme development goals; refining/establishing goals for next year

There are lots of ways that MYP schools can organise their collaborative planning meetings. There is no single best way or right way to do this. The important thing is to work within the structures and routines of your school to find the best opportunities for teachers to work together to develop your school's MYP curriculum.

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Teacher Collaborative Planning | First steps for MYP candidate schools

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Collaborative planning is essential for developing the MYP curriculum. Discover different ways to organise collaborative planning meetings and ensure a holistic and coherent learning experience for students. Craft a description of your meetings to illustrate that your school has implemented regular, scheduled collaboration time in order to strengthen the MYP.

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-Greater emphasis on Vertical Alignment

-More intentional about interdisciplinary units/lessons beyond PYP

-Keeping students together more (i.e. not separating DP and non-DP Jrs/Srs - if possible)

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As an IB School our focus is on student growth and we assess and evaluate accordingly

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There are a lot of ways that we are already IB (student-centered instruction, having students CREATE rather than RECALL, etc.). However, we don't always connect it explicitly to the IB. I think it's from a lack of understanding the IB in general.

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We utilize IB Coordinators at all levels and implement PYP, MYP rubrics with common objectives (differentiated by grade level)

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Do we ever get too hung up on meeting IB policies and practices to stop us from actually being IB?

Letter of the law vs. Spirit of the law

For example - does meeting instructional hours make us overlook opportunities to grow from shared experiences?

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What I do and what I don't/can't in my "IB" class

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What I do and what I don't/can't in my "IB" class

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Do:

Encourage thinking

Encourage inclusivity

Encourage hands-on

Don't/can't:

Missing international-mindedness sometimes

Don't always talk about the process because running short of time to finish syllabus

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-Majority of Upper School students not IBDP bound - why is that?

-IB path seems to be the exception rather than the expectation

-AP and "on level" curricula not IB related

+Within individual DP classes, seems to be *doing* IB, authentically engaging with issues, learning for deep understanding, rather than just preparing for exam

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I also think that the IB can be overwhelming. When creating units, there are so many different elements that are required, and it can be intimidating to remain faithful to all of the requirements all the time. It's rigorous for the students, but also for the teachers. But it's worth it.

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Marist Charisms and IB Learner traits go together - and we do our best to make that evident. However, it could probably use more intention in the US.

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We do a good job of promoting the Learner Profiles with students. I often hear students making connections to characters in our novel studies and showing certain Learner Profiles.

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Right: Teaching critical thinking, discussion skills, and problem-solving. It's very clear when new students join us who are coming from different backgrounds.

Struggling: Implementing programs and having time to implement changes. Also, students struggle to have a growth mindset - where is the love of learning? Students can be still very focused on grades.

Be IB = It's a culture that has to be built - from the top all the way down to the students.

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We are all teaching using IB even though we don't always realize it. We are wondering if the reason we have such few Upper School DP students due to students enrolling students that have not been through the full program.

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As a first year NDA IB Teacher, I can see that the students are current in IB learning or not. The students in the MYP and US are well versed in the IB subjects. The LS has several IB students and several new students. This takes cross training from me the art teacher to teach the Curriculum and the IB ways. I have visuals hanging in the room as reminders to all grade levels and age groups. My teacher training is in Montessori and STEAM so these work well alongside the IB teacher.

*IB structures (compared to other schools) is amazing at NDA. I am not able to compare it to other IB schools.

*We need more relfection and writing (in art this is needed)

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Can outsiders looking in differentiate between the two? Do we appear different?

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Things done well:

Continually building on unit planners from year to year

The UOI crosses all areas of the student's days so that there are connections that can be made.

The student binders that follow them through their lower school years show the growth and learning that is happening.

Things that need improvement:

*Scope and sequences across the grade levels are inconsisent, which allows the students to fall into cracks

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--Celebrating diversity and making sure everyone is included and respected.

--Teaching that the world is huge place and we are from many different places, with many different cultures and languages.

--Asking questions about the different cultures, and wanting to explore and learn about where different people come from.

--It would be good to have more time to devote to IB and asking questions and reflecting.

--Make sure that we are focusing on the whole child.

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--Collaborating as a whole school makes all the difference.

--Trying to compete with the new world of technology and social media is difficult to do as educators.

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We have students from a variety of backgrounds and cultures that contribute to the IB experience.

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-lower school student experience is driven by IB

-hard when learner profiles, attitudes, and attributes change

-need more PD in IB upon coming into the school as a new teachers and continuing our understanding the longer we work at NDA

-specials utilize units to create plans

-PYP mainly covers science and social studies, while MYP covers all subjects

-ATL skills can be integrated more equally across all subjects in lower school to make the transition from lower to middle easier

-could use a type of ELA program in lower school to include atl and command terminology/language