His name is Edward and he is 11 years old.  He attends an IB school in Fort Collins, Colorado.  His parents are originally from Mexico, but now live in the United States.  He is fluent in both English and Spanish.  His parents are well educated and hold high expectations for him.

He is naturally inquisitive and is constantly asking questions and seeking out new information.  His curiosity is higher than most other students his age when it comes to learning about the world around him.  His mind is constantly in motion.  

Edward is intrinsically motivated to learn about new things.  However, his mind works so fast that he makes many careless mistakes in his research and reading.  His sentence structure and organizational capabilities in writing are lacking, and it is difficult for his teachers to get him to slow down and think things through before he starts writing or creating a presentation.  

Part of the reason is simply because he is an eleven-year old boy.  He has difficulty with impulse control, and this can also lead him to have conflicts with other students in class in additional to performing poorly on assignments because of careless mistakes.  

Kim is a 10-year-old boy who has recently moved from South Korea to Hong Kong with his family. He is attending  a new IB PYP school.  This is the first time he has been away from his home in Korea. This move came about as his parents have accepted an overseas posting with their company.  

 

He is very well behaved, polite and friendly. He has already made several friends and students in his class enjoy learning with him. While learning in an international school is quite different from his prior local school. He is not limited too much, and feels a lot of chance to learn independently. Sometimes, he can be involved very well but sometimes he has no idea what to do because in local school, teachers are the leader of the classroom and tell him what to do all the time.

 

He is keen to find out as much as he can about his new school and country, even though the language of instruction in class is new for him.  When unsure, he questions. Teachers and students encourage him a lot.  He loves football and becomes a sport star in his class.

 

K is very open-minded, with a positive attitude.  He is enjoying the challenges a new way of life is bringing.  He has a supportive family and a love of adventure.  At the moment, everything is new and exciting.

A 10 years old. She lives with her grandparents, because her parents work in another country. She has an older brother, who is studying in the Diploma program.
What makes them unique?

She likes music and dancing. She dreams of becoming a famous singer. She does not enjoy communicate with others much. She likes to talk with her grandparents, because she thinks they understand her better than other people or classmates.
 How are they motivated?

She is passionate about music, knows a lot of songs and about the lives of famous singers. She loves to perform on a stage, so she often participates in school performances.
Why do they behave the way they do?

She does not like making friends, because she often studies in different international schools.

Sara is a 9 year old girl who was born in Brazil but grew up between Belgium and Holland. She now lives in Buenos Aires with her mother (Brazilian), father (Dutch) and her 3 siblings. Sara and her family travel around a lot for her father’s work (Dutch Embassy). Sara adapts well to new environments as she has a bubbly personality. She is fluent in Brazilian, French and Dutch, but is an English language learner .

 She appears to be quite self-contained and although she works well in pairs and groups, she is just as happy to listen to the teacher, and take notes. She has a special interest in sports where is feels confident and appreciated by her friends, family and coaches which makes her feel accepted.  

How are they motivated?

Sara is motivated to learn more when the teacher uses a lot of pictures  when teaching. She enjoys reading about something rather than hearing it which helps her to picture it in her head. She is keen in reading all the sports news from newspaper or articles but finds its challenging as language becomes her barrier. 

Sara needs to be motivated to get in the habit of sharing her  thought processes aloud. She needs to be thoroughly explained of  what is being  asked and the expectation by the teacher.