Above and Beyond: 3 Things that Teachers Must Do to Get “Good” at the #PYP

As a PYP Coordinator, I am involved in the recruitment of teachers and their subsequent professional development. I’m always designing and redesigning the “induction” of new teachers into the PYP, reconsidering what it is that teachers need to get “good” at in order to become successful in understanding and delivering our framework.. You see, I think becoming a PYP educator requires you to have basic teaching skills as the basis of your pedagogical prowess on top of other frames of thinking around how students learn best. You have to go above and beyond certain professional requirements in order to be effective in using the PYP framework. 

Being the nerd that I am, I brainstormed a list of key teaching capabilities that I think make up the tool-kit of a PYP practitioner based upon the 2020 Programme standards and practices and this graphic from page 43 of Learning and Teaching:

Just in this graphic alone, there are 20 practices that PYP teachers need to develop competency in. But where do we begin to support the transition of thinking and planning like a PYP teacher?  After reflecting on this list, I think there are 3 main skills that teachers need to get good at in order to become proficient practitioners: 

1. unpacking standards/curriculum and developing questions to explore, 
2. creating learning opportunities that foster content knowledge, and 
3. listening for learning. 

Although each of these areas deserves its own blog post, I will summarize what these foundational competencies mean to me. 

Competency #1: Turn Objectives into Questions

I am starting with this because it is the most pragmatic skill to develop and encapsulates 2 main aspects of our framework: concept-based learning and inquiry. That being said, it isn’t  necessarily easy to wrap your head around this but it is the heart of what we do when we develop students who thirst for understanding the curiosities of our world. 

Whether we are looking at a “boxed” curriculum or examining our content standards, we have to be thinking about the questions that live in them. Writing these questions down and then prioritizing them helps us to create a scope and sequence for the learning. We then use these questions as the basis of our daily or weekly learning objectives.

Let’s look at an example from the Common Core Grade 3 English Language Arts Reading Standards:

Phonics and Word Recognition:

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.3.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.3.3.A Identify and know the meaning of the most common prefixes and derivational suffixes.
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.3.3.B Decode words with common Latin suffixes.
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.3.3.C Decode multisyllable words.
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.3.3.D Read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.

Although I believe there are many ways to develop teacher questions, I always like to model how we can teach using Key Concepts by using them as the basis of brainstorming teacher questions:

Key Concept	Key Question	Teacher Question
Form	What is it like?	What is a prefix? What is a suffix?
Function	How does it work?	How do readers decode multi-syllabic words?
Change	How is it transforming?	What happens to the meaning of a word when we change the prefix?
Connection	How is it linked to other things?	How can identifying the base word help us decipher the meaning of a word?
Causation	Why is it as it is?	Why does Latin form the basis of our language?
Perspective	What are the points of view?	How are English words spelled differently in different English-speaking countries?
Responsibility	What are our obligations?	What are some ways we can remember irregular spellings of words?

As you can see, this is NOT an exhaustive list of possible questions from those standards, but it helps to start the generative process and cultivates a lot of discussion into what students need to be able to know, understand and do to acheive mastery in this standard (phonics and word analysis). 

Competency #2: Teach Learning rather than Content

One can say that the Approaches to Learning (AtLs) are when we put the Learner Profile in action. So targeting this skill in our teaching craft is a vital component of our PYP practice.

Personally I think philosophically everyone agrees that we have to teach students HOW to learn, but putting the Approaches to Learning into practice feels a bit like roller skating on a dirt road at first. Moreover, this can be a really big shift for some teachers, especially for teachers in the intermediate grade levels who feel committed to covering the content in a discipline. So practitioners have to develop an understanding that the content becomes the context for learning HOW to learn, rather than merely acquiring knowledge.

We can use the example above with the 3rd grade ELA standards, extending this exercise in creating teacher questions with exploring what AtL is the focus/ could be the focus as we learn this. As we begin to ponder the AtLs, it also supports the practice of “split screen thinking”–that a lesson’s objective is a combination of the disciplinary knowledge/skill and development of the attributes of a learner. 

Answering the question, what AtL is the focus/ could be the focus as we learn this? really depends on the goals of the unit of inquiry and what feels authentic during the learning engagements. Determing whether or not to target Social Skills, Thinking skills, Communication Skills, Self-Management Skills or Research Skills is also great fodder for a robust planning meeting. 

Using the previous teacher question chart, here’s what this might look like:

Key Concept	Key Question	Teacher Question	What AtL can be developed?
Form	What is it like?	What is a prefix? What is a suffix?	Communication Skills: Students can define and give examples of prefixes and suffixes.
Function	How does it work?	How do readers decode multi-syllabic words?	Thinking Skills: Students can use word attack strategies to read and spell words.
Change	How is it transforming?	What happens to the meaning of a word when we change the prefix?	Thinking Skills: Students can analyze parts of words to understanding the meaning of a word.
Connection	How is it linked to other things?	How can identifying the base word help us decipher the meaning of a word?	Social Skills: Students can work in partnerships to examine words and identify the base word’s meaning.
Causation	Why is it as it is?	Why does Latin form the basis of our language?	Research Skills: Students can take notes and share their understanding of Latin’s influence on the English language.
Perspective	What are the points of view?	How are English words spelled differently in different English speaking countries?	Social Skills: Students can work in groups to generate a list of words that are spelled differently.
Responsibility	What are our obligations?	What are some ways we can remember irregular spellings of words?	Self-management skills: Students can come up with 3 ways that we can remember irregular spellings.

I’d also like to add that is excercise is a great scaffold for developing PYP assessment practices. When we consider which AtLs will be the focus, then it makes creating learning goals and success criteria more straightforward for teachers. 

Competency #3: Listen More than Speak:

They say that you have to learn to walk before you can run. Well, this skill is in this same line of thinking: You can’t develop a penchant for student agency until you can be student-centered in your approach to learning, and you can’t be student-centered unless you value their voice during classroom learning. 

I think developing this practice requires intention and being honest in answering this question after learning engagement:

What do we know about our learners that we didn’t know BEFORE this learning engagement?

Not only does answering this question help us to build our listening muscles, but is an essential component of teacher reflection and how we approach assessment in the PYP. We need to cultivate the skill of listening for learning in order to unearth possible misconceptions and analyze what needs to be the next step in the progression of conceptual understanding. If teachers dominate “air time” then we can’t make informed decisions. In my opinion, this is a precursor skill to documenting learning and helps PYP practitioners create structures to make thinking visible in the classroom. 

In summary, I think if you want to get good at the PYP you have to develop your competencies to Question, Support, and Listen for learning.

I’m curious, if you are a seasoned PYP practitioner, what do think are the first steps and entry points for new-to-PYP or early-career PYP teachers? Share and add to this discussion!