Category: Primary Years Programme (PYP)
Who Cares? Why I can’t “take” it anymore!

Who Cares? Why I can’t “take” it anymore!

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Last week, I sat through student interviews for our school scholarship program. Students could win scholarship awards for Learner Profile, the ATL’s, and Action. It was fascinating to hear young 6-8 year old children summarize what they believe were some of their best qualities and why they do what they do. But the learner profile award was the most telling. And learner profile trait that made me cringe the most when I heard a student talk about it was caring. Caring? I hear you say. I know. It’s a surprise. Let me explain.

First of all, whenever I hear the students talk about learner profiles, it reflects greatly on the teachers, aspects of the school culture, and family values. Children mirror the learning community.

I heard numerous students talk about how they do caring things because they hope others will appreciate them and extend care back to them. In fact, what they described was being generous in order to initiate reciprocity. I recognize that this concept of reciprocity is apparent in my host country’s culture. People often refer to this as Guanxi. Western cultures refer to it as Quid-Pro Quo. I’m just not sure how I feel about it.

Several years ago, Adam Grant wrote a really interesting book called Give and Take. In the book, he makes a compelling argument for why doing good is not only smart, but should be our goal. Generous and caring people in studies demonstrate better life outcomes, such as greater career success, improved relationships, and health outcomes. Even though he may enumerate many ways doing good is beneficial, that should not be why we are caring and kind.

I couldn’t agree more.

Now, I don’t want to be a book spoiler, but Grant explains how people may look like “givers” but are actually “takers”. He uses the example of Kenneth Lay and his abuse of power that ultimately bankrupted the company and left his employees jobless and without pensions. But on the outside, he looked like a “good guy” because he was charitable. I think this is a prime example of using generosity for optics and is the danger of what can happen when “caring” is miscommunicated and reinforced in our society. Clearly, this man had an intellectual understanding of kindness and generosity but not the emotional intelligence to be able to demonstrate ethical behavior and true responsibility for his employees.

We need to do better at educating our children’s hearts, or this pattern repeats itself in our society.

IB is supposed to be the framework that can adapt to any context in which it finds itself, whether a public or private institution or the values within a nation or town. We are flexible and respectful in how we approach curriculum design. Although I think it’s important to navigate the curriculum through these complex lenses, I think the learner profile is where we might need to take a stand. What do I mean by that? I mean, that has a particular definition of what it means to be caring, and guess what?-It’s not a quid-pro-quo protocol. Take a look:

As you can see, we don’t do caring things because we expect good things to happen to us in return. It’s not about filling our spiritual coffer with good karma or our bank account with money. We do good things because we want a better and more peaceful world. Caring simply for the sake of being caring has no benefit other than knowing that we are helping the world be a better place. Money isn’t the goal. Service is. And we must do that in our schools by explicitly developing empathy-building skills. I recognize that we may be swimming against society’s current paradigm, but it matters. It’s worth the effort. Don’t you agree?

So, if you are an educator who has been promoting the status quo of a “taker” (ie: I give so I can get) in sheep’s clothing, take a moment to reflect on where that type of behavior leads to our society. Let’s go back to the definition of this Learner Profile and refocus CARING on using our empathy skills to inspire our young learners to create systems, products and services that make a difference in our future.

**If you have any great resources that help others to make the connection between our minds and hearts, please share them in the comments below. Sharing is Caring, right?!

Reflecting out loud: Change Begins with Me

Reflecting out loud: Change Begins with Me

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I don’t write blogs as much as I used to, and I have wondered why.  Writing used to be a joy, something I looked forward to. I loved waking up early on Saturday morning, making a cup of coffee, and writing about something that inspired me from that week. But Covid changed that, and I have definitely retreated into myself.  It’s just that I don’t feel I have any answers, only more questions, questions that you can’t Google. Larger questions about our humanity, our planet, and my purpose in life.  I bet you asked those questions, too. I know I am not unique or alone in this cognitive dissonance created by the trauma of the past few years.

However, putting these emotions and ideas into intelligible sentences has been challenging. I have written over 60 blog posts but haven’t been able to finish them because print feels permanent, and my perspectives about things are in flux. It’s impossible to hit the publish button when I feel like my thinking about something is incomplete.

But at my new school, we have a professional requirement to keep a portfolio. That got me thinking about why I started this blog to begin with–as a professional portfolio for a course I took about creativity.  This blog has been and always probably will be my professional portfolio. So, it’s pushing me to get back to writing. Moreover, it’s helping me to reflect upon my perfectionism and be okay with incompleteness and muddled ideas.

So now that I have shared this preamble with you, I feel like I can move forward with writing this post. This post, as with many others, is just me reflecting out loud.

New School, Same Person?

It is a mistake to take any approach and assume like a flower you can take it from one soil and put it in another one. That never works. We have to figure out what aspects of that are most important to us and what kind of soil we need to make those aspects grow. -Howard Gardener-

I share this quote by Howard Gardener because, in Brazil, I was starting to feel like a potted plant. I was pretty comfortable in my school. I adored the people I worked with. I believed in our mission and saw real change created by my supporting role at our school. But it was not a place where my whole family could flourish. Even though it was a  painful decision to move, it was the right decision. And I couldn’t be more grateful for my new professional home.

But I know I cannot “copy and paste” what I did in Belo Horizonte. I have new “soil” that I must research and learn how to live in. This new “soil” consists of structures and systems I must become competent in, the mindset and approach to IB and our curriculum design, and the level of collaboration in and amongst teams. Not to forget the dynamics and personalities of staff. When you move to a new school, the first few months are just about building relationships and understanding the context of a school. So, I designed a 90-day plan, but I underestimated my timeline for “unpacking” my new school since there are more layers of leadership and slightly different expectations within my role. For example, I had to evaluate teachers before I even had a chance to get to know them, which made me feel uncomfortable. I held the opinion that there should be a bright line between principals and coordinators, and evaluation is one of those expectations.

Truthfully, I am unskilled in classroom observations because I often go in to observe the learning of students, not take notes on teachers. This is the culture of our school; teachers depend on me for this feedback, and I can’t let them down. I had to pivot. Needless to say, I resisted this expectation, and I had to meditate on that and contemplate what beliefs I must reconcile to support my school’s expectations of me.

This potted plant is still learning.

Wherever you go, you take yourself with you–your experiences, your memories, and your emotional reactions. It made me realize that I may be at a new school and have a new home, but I am trying to be the same person I was back in Brazil. Ha–I have different soil, but I am the same plant! I have to expand my roots and take in what my new school culture and leadership have to offer so I can grow.

In the past, I perceived my role as a coordinator as an ally in learning, not a professional judge of teaching acumen. I saw this as a binary role: ally or judge. However, as I examined this belief, I have come to reflect on how dualistic thinking creates a barrier to stretching my skillset and mindset. So, I can see how I was open to change, but only the change I wanted–not what was needed.  Change is okay as long as it is on my terms. I suppose this is residual thinking from the pandemic. This oppositional thinking has slowed me down and hindered me during this period of readjustment. In fact, it has created discombobulation.

So, here I am, entering the 2nd term and still working on my 90-day plan. The good news is that this 90-day plan is self-imposed. There is plenty of time to continue to work on developing relationships and appreciating the context of our school.  I also feel that I can now evolve my reflective questions and have time to ask myself: What do I need to grow? Where are my sources of energy? 

Now what?…..

I titled this blog post: Change Begins with Me. Not Change Happened to Me. Oftentimes, we feel that the world should bend to suit us. But in reality, that is rarely the case. The structures and systems in our world can evolve, but we must accept what is first. Through this move and transition, I have come to understand that I must begin to change if I want to support the change I wish to see in the world. My professional life takes up much of my time and is the natural starting place.  So, challenging the areas of dualistic thinking in myself as an IB practitioner at our school seems relevant and practical. On the eve of the Chinese New Year, I am making this my aspiration for the Year of the Dragon.

I am infinitely grateful for this opportunity to reflect out loud. Thank you for reading.

PYPC Book Club: Opportunities for “The Fun Habit” in Team Collaborative Meetings

PYPC Book Club: Opportunities for “The Fun Habit” in Team Collaborative Meetings

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In April 2020 I needed to find an antidote to my seclusion.  Not only was I physically isolated but also felt lonely professionally. Although there were lots of webinars and free professional development out there to help us execute online and hybrid learning, there wasn’t a lot that really supported my role as a coordinator beyond “emergency planning”. So I was inspired by a recommendation to read The Art of Coaching Teams: Building Resilient Communities That Transform Schools by Elena Aguilar.  I felt like I needed to discuss and process it with others. So I decided to throw out the idea of forming a book discussion group to the PYP Coordinator Facebook community and the next thing I knew, a true virtual book club was formed.

Books have created a campfire experience, in which we huddle around its pages and tell stories about our lives and our practices as PYP curriculum coordinators.  They can facilitate vulnerability and connection, and help us to take risks in our leadership practice.  It’s the 4th year now and it is a joy to co-construct the reading list with colleagues from all over our global network of PYPC. One of the goals of our reading is to put at least one idea from the book into practice, and in our final meeting for that book title, we share an idea with the group of something that we have or we will put into practice. It’s like professional development on steroids because we are naturally each other’s accountability partners and support mastery in our leadership practice. 

Typically I offer an “Early Bird” read at the end of the summer holiday or winter holiday, depending on your hemisphere. This book typically is adjacent to the work we do in our schools but not necessarily for educators. This year we have been reading The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life by Micheal Rucker, Ph.D. You can tell by the title that its aspirational message is to make fun an integrated part of your life and not just something that happens sometimes. The ideas I share in this post are stimulated by our discussions. 

The PLAY Model

One of the key ideas of the book is to purposely design your life for more enjoyable experiences. To do that you need to take a “fun audit” and determine how and why you are spending your time the way that you do. He suggests you filter your audit through the PLAY model, analyzing your activities by how they make you feel: vibrant, pleasant, “meh” or in suffering. 

In my mind, collaborative team meetings are really a “split screen”; part of the meeting is for team building and the other part is to achieve a particular goal. We can conduct this “fun audit” not only on our personal lives but in our professional lives. When do we truly feel alive as teachers? When is school a drudgery? And in those honest conversations with one another, how can we support each other in moving out of the “agonizing” quadrant to at least the “yielding” if not “pleasant” quadrant? 

Treasure Chest

To me, time is something you don’t get a refund on. The time I spend with teams is precious and I want to help them to reflect on the moments of joy and fun in the classroom. Remembering these moments is important to our mental health and it stirs positive emotions that charge our “batteries”. We get so much energy and inspiration when we can share them moments with others. 

There are many ways to do this. I could provide teachers with a meeting “exit ticket” in which they share a moment that they “treasured”, which could be with the students or with a colleague. I collect those happy memories and put them in a treasure chest, to pull out later at a staff meeting, helping them to recall those times when they enjoyed school life. And if a moment doesn’t come to mind during our meeting, it’s okay–they can hold on to the “ticket” and pop it in the treasure chest later. 

The treasured moment includes:

  • Who was involved?
  • What happened, when it happened, and where it happened?
  • And why it was a treasure for them?

Or if that is too ambitious to bake this exit ticket into our meeting routines, then we do it as a component of an end-of-unit reflection or at least an end-of-term reflection. The goal is to find the good (there’s lots of it!) and to savor those beautiful moments we have with students and each other every day. 

Finding Connection 

Collaboration is a skill that we must develop intentionally with our teams and staff. Mindset and attitude play a vital role in how teams function. Having a desire to work with one another and demonstrating respect is an essential component of facilitating team dynamics. We have to like each other to work well with each other. Congeniality matters.  Developing compassion and trust for members of a team is something that we can support by establishing camaraderie during our meetings. Plus, it gives us great data about the people we serve in our role. The great news–we can make it fun by doing quick “warm-ups” in our meetings. Here are a few light-hearted ways to bring people together. 

  • This or That: Hobbies, movies, music, books, quotes favorite holidays, food–the topic doesn’t matter–it’s the ability to find commonalities is a really important aspect.
  • Roll of the Dice: Dice always add an element of excitement. Create options for things people can share based on what they roll. For example: 1, something that they are proud of. 2, the last thing you read about (can be personal or professional reading). 3, your favorite toy as a child. 4, a place that is on your bucketlist to visit. 5, the last resturant you went to. 6, a social media post that made you smile. (By the way, you could also use a Spinner tool if you don’t have dice)
  • “Yes and…”: This is a fun improv activity in which the team has to plan an event and the goal is to agree with what the person says and add on another idea to the planning. For example: You’re going away on a wonderful trip to The Shire (the mythical home of hobbits in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.”). Clothes and toiletries will be provided for you but you can bring some other items to make this trip special. What will you bring?  Remember, this can be any type of event, realistic or imaginary like this one–anything from a Taylor Swift concert to a something even quirkier like the World Toe Wrestling Championship. You would do a round or 2 just to have a few laughs and practice agreeing with one another.  
  • What meme lives here: show a funny picture and write a quick quip as a meme. Can be done individually or created as a group. 
  • What’s your story?: Show a collage of some funny children books. If you could be a character in one of these books, which one would you choose and why. 
  • Would you rather?: similar to This or That but it can be more silly and can add a 3rd option.

These are just some ideas that will hopefully help you to spark some opportunities for relationship building and infuse some energy into meetings. Remember, the intention is to bring levity and joy to the start of the meeting. These activities should not go beyond 5 minutes. 

Are you the nerdy type of pedagogical leader?

For me, the PYPC Book club has been a source of amazing professional development. I’ve been inspired by other great pedagogical leaders, and it has nudged me out of my comfort zone. I hope this post not only sparks some fresh thinking, but also helps you to consider other ways to connect with other IB educators. If you are a PYPC and you’d be interested in joining, please send me a message so I can share our reading schedule with you.  

 

Navigating Transdisciplinary Learning: Empowering Students in the PYP

Navigating Transdisciplinary Learning: Empowering Students in the PYP

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In the Primary Years Programme (PYP), transdisciplinary learning is not only a mouthful to say, but it’s a very difficult thing to articulate.  You might say that it is when we connect the dots between single-subject lenses, but that is only one dimension. You can say it is when we use real-world problems and challenges to provide authentic experiences for learning, but applying knowledge in a safe context through a project-based learning approach does not fully describe it either. The truth is that it is all of this, but so much more. So if we can barely describe it,  how do we know if we are doing it “right”?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about it differently. With the revised IB Programme evaluation process, our PYP programme development is ever evolving, always unfinished, as we elevate and improve our standards and practices.  So I have come to think about transdisciplinary learning, not like a checklist of “to dos” but more like a compass. As we inquire into how we “do” the PYP in our school’s unique context, we should seek a more holistic approach to our students’ learning, navigating on a path toward more meaningful and transformative learning experiences. So what direction do we need to go?

NORTH: Knowledge and Grit

There are many forms of knowledge. Transdisciplinary learning transcends mere memorization of facts. However, let’s be clear, the retrieval of information is valuable, but learners must realize that truths may change in the face of new evidence. Thus students must come to recognize that learning any content requires an understanding of the ways information is obtained, used, and created. Knowledge is acquired through study and collaboration within and across disciplines, in which new understandings are co-constructed, and thus may be revised.   Although there is satisfaction in knowing facts and figures, we must also remain curious and open to making more discoveries. If students are still asking questions, making connections, and keen to dig deeper at the end of a unit of inquiry, then you are pointing in the direction of transdisciplinary learning.

If not, then we need to come up with ways to create a learning environment that fosters intellectual grit and a thirst for ongoing discovery. Moreover, paving the way towards true transdisciplinary understanding might require more teacher collaboration and interdisciplinary exploration in order to analyze the unit of inquiry for opportunities to invite more student agency and investigation of topics within the related concepts.

EAST: Emotion and Care

Let’s be honest, if the heart is absent during learning, then true learning is impossible. Having an emotional response is key to a student taking an interest in a unit. And when there is student interest, the brain is open to taking in content and connecting this information to its schema. Emotion makes it “sticky”.

Transdisciplinary learning invites personal reflection, creating empathy, compassion, and social responsibility, nurturing a sense of concern for others and the world. According to the UNESCO Futures of Education Ideas LAB, this would look like students reflecting on how we are interconnected to each other and our planet. We impact our communities as well as being simultaneously affected by others and the world, stirring us to work toward a goal for the common good of all. They describe this as a “commoning” mindset or attitude of “caring for”, “caring about” and receiving care (“care receive”).

Let’s put this in a context of a unit of inquiry:

Central Idea: The interconnectedness of living things influences the sustainability of our planet.

Lines of Inquiry:

  1. The interdependence of living organisms in ecosystems(function)
  2. Human actions and their impact on the environment (connection)
  3. Strategies for promoting environmental sustainability (responsibility)
  • Care For: Students might actively participate in environmental conservation efforts, such as organizing a beach clean-up to protect marine life and habitats. They could create posters and awareness campaigns to encourage others to reduce waste and recycle, demonstrating care for the planet and its resources.
  • Care About: During the unit, students might develop empathy and concern for endangered species. They could research and present information about endangered animals and their habitats, raising awareness about the importance of protecting biodiversity and the interconnectedness of all living beings.
  • Care Receive: Students may collaborate with local environmental organizations or experts who share their knowledge and experiences in conservation efforts. These experts could visit the classroom or take students on field trips to engage them in hands-on experiences, deepening their understanding of environmental care and inspiring them to take action.

You can probably think about your own school’s programme of inquiry and start asking yourself if these units cultivate this spirit of “commoning”. If there are units that are blaise or do not invoke students to action, then chances are that their hearts are not ignited. This may require some re-visioning of the learning experiences or re-writing units altogether.

SOUTH: Skills and Habits of Learning

If we want our students to be truly empowered then they must be able to put their intellect into action, and that is harder than it sounds. There are plenty of smart people who sit on their sofas and never lift a finger to improve our world. Why is that? Are they lazy? No! I reckon it’s simply because they never learned HOW to organize their ideas into action.

So, we have to consider the value and importance of utilizing the PYP AtLs (approaches to learning) in order for our students to conduct meaningful research and become resourceful problem-solvers. We need to ask ourselves if our Atls are an afterthought in our planning or are in the forefront of our minds.

So what does that look like? Well, not only should our classrooms provide explicit instruction and success criteria that help students learn how to learn, but we should support students to create their own goals. For example, how often do teachers assess students and then sit down with students to share the results? Teachers may take weeks to do a reading running record but then miss out on the opportunities to discuss the strengths and opportunities for development for the learner, let alone give them the chance to co-construct goals with them. When we reflect on this, we must realize that there are possibilities within our current assessment practices that we can co-construct goals with our learners. This is a perfect moment to empower our students and create a more transdisciplinary approach to learning.

Even small changes in our planning of the Atls can yield big results when we start to brainstorm ways to elevate them in our classrooms.

WEST: Working Together

Developing the desire to live and work together, and thinking about the quality of life and common good for future generations is an inherent aspect of transdisciplinary learning.

One of the most exciting challenges in our programmes is managing the delicate balance of preparing our students to be open-minded while cherishing their heritage. This is why I think having a collaborative learning environment is critical to the PYP. Students must understand the influence of culture and values in shaping our opinions while seeking diverse perspectives when tackling complex problems.

We need to analyze our classroom cultures to evaluate if collaboration is a challenge or an innate part of how learning happens. Students must have opportunities to discover the joys of working together, pooling their varied talents and perspectives together in order to craft innovative solutions. Moreover, they need strategies for when conflict arises (which it ALWAYS does) and how they can find agreement in the midst of disagreement.

If students lack empathy and prefer competition over cooperation, then this is our signal that change needs to happen in our programme. I don’t think the age of the learner matters, a thoughtful discussion about this observation can help generate some new understandings and provide solutions on how the classroom can shift into a more collaborative spirit of work.

Walking in the “right” direction?

Of course our dream as PYP educators is that transdisciplinary learning infuses our students with a desire for a future grounded in unity, empathy, and sustainability. As we examine our programmes, I hope this “compass” helps you to consider what direction your school may need to go in so that transdisciplinary learning can no longer be a theoretical concept but a palpable plan for improving student learning. I think this is a highly personal reflection and gathering insight from a variety of stakeholders can help prioritize which one of these “directions” is right for your school.

If you have other ideas, please leave a comment below so we can engage in thoughtful dialogue. Together, we all can unleash the power of the PYP and move towards a more compassionate, collaborative, and sustainable world.

Want to Learn More? I was inspired by this reading. 

Sobe, N. W. (10 February 2021) Reworking Four Pillars of Education to Sustain the Commons. UNESCO Futures of Education Ideas LAB.  Retrieved from https://en.unesco.org/futuresofeducation/ideas-lab/sobe-reworking-four-pillars-education-sustain-commons

Delors, J. [. (1996). Learning: the treasure within; report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century (highlights). Unesdoc.unesco.org. Retrieved November 6, 2022, from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000109590.locale=en

10 Ways to Use ChatGPT as a PYP Curriculum Coordinator

10 Ways to Use ChatGPT as a PYP Curriculum Coordinator

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Are you resisting Artificial Intelligence (AI), afraid it’s going to lead to the destruction of our humanity, eliminating our jobs and withering our brains? Stop that! No, really that kind of thinking stifles creativity and innovation, and if you are a pedagogical leader, then you have an obligation to embrace emerging technologies. We are guiding our programs to develop our learners to be leaders of tomorrow. We can’t cling to the past. And when I say the past, I’m not talking about 500 B.C.E., I’m talking about 5 months ago. In fact, the past is no longer bygone days of old. It is one hour ago. To keep up with the fast-paced world, we must be open to change and agile.

So, let’s face the facts, just like smartphones aren’t going away, AI isn’t either. I’m not suggesting that you should let AI usurp your intelligence, I’m telling you that can use it to augment it and give your creativity a boost. Our jobs as PYP Curriculum Coordinators are complex, and often times we work in near isolation, so we could use a little help from AI from time to time. Although I plan to dedicate part of my summer learning to tinkering on ChatGPT to figure out more uses, here are at least 10 ways that you might use it to brainstorm and elevate your program right now:

  1. Use it to inspire ideas during planning meetings: From provocations to possible field trips to inspiring student action, if teachers are in a rut, then stoke their creativity with a few ideas from AI.
  2. Write or re-write central ideas: Wordy or confusing central ideas can be banished easily. If you work in a candidate school or your POI needs enhancing, then put in the related concepts and the aspect of your transdisciplinary theme you want to cover. Don’t forget to put in “child-friendly language” into your request before you hit send.
  3. Create newsletters or articles for your learning community: Does your marketing department ask you to create newsletters? Are they due tomorrow? Well, give yourself a helping hand with plugging in your ideas and let it design a first draft so you can improve upon it and make those deadlines.
  4. Generate ideas for parent meeting topics and activities: Ever been stumped on planning a parent meeting, or coming up with novel ways to work with parents to address their concerns?
  5. Rewrite communication to check for tone and bias: Written communication, particularly emails, sometimes can hurt or upset staff or families. This is especially true when we are stressed or the topic is emotionally charged. Better to have AI rewrite your email so that it is more sensitive to the culture and issues in your community.
  6. Come up with ways to improve teacher instructional practice: Some teachers really could use help but you may not be sure how best to help support them. Whether you want to come up with behavior management techniques or approaches to lesson planning, ChatGPT can help you coach teachers.
  7. Develop our Program Development Plans: Oh yes, that’s right, struggle with your action research no more! ChatGPT will help you come up with goals, timelines, and possible ways to collect evidence for your school to move forward with its growth.
  8. Create solutions to scheduling problems: Time is the only thing I can’t get a refund on, so I want to use it wisely.  Whether I’m trying to find creative ways to get collaborative planning time with homeroom and specialist teachers, or I’m trying to figure out better time-management techniques for myself, using ChatGPT to hack these problems seems like a good use.
  9.  Plan Professional Development Sessions: Sometimes I walk out of a week of team meetings and think to myself that I should do a PD. But I don’t always have the time to make good on this desire. Throw the idea into ChatGPT to cut down on the cognitive load of PD design to come up with fun and interesting ways to design professional learning. It doesn’t matter if it is a 15-minute PD or a 2-Day training, it will definitely save time and inspire you to find engaging ways to promote professional learning.
  10. Cross-walk standards: There are so many aspects of the curriculum that we have to manage, and mapping out the expectations and objectives of one set of curriculum standards to another is time-consuming. You can input your standards and ask it to find commonalities to ensure that our programme of inquiry and classroom instruction is comprehensive. Imagine what you could do with all that time if you got a head-start with ChatGPT!!

Bonus idea: Make sense of data: AIs are pattern-finding machines! Use it to help you triangulate data and generate optimal assessment practices for your program’s learning goals.

I hope this sparks your imaginative use of ChatGPT, inspiring and supporting your pedagogical leadership. I bet if you copy and pasted my 10 ideas into ChatGPT, it could give 10 more ways that we could use it. Go ahead! And share that with me! I want to expand and excel in my role as a coordinator. Let’s grow together!

And before I hit publish on this post, I’d like to leave you with some ideas from ChatGPT about some considerations for improving our results when we use it; it told me:

1. Be clear and specific: When you ask a question, try to be clear and specific about what you want to know. This will help the ChatGPT algorithm provide you with a more accurate response.

2. Use natural language: ChatGPT is designed to understand natural language, so try to phrase your questions in a way that feels natural to you. Avoid using overly technical or complex language.

3. Be patient: ChatGPT is an AI system that requires a few seconds to process your question and generate a response. Be patient and wait for the system to provide an answer before asking again.

4. Provide feedback: If you feel that ChatGPT is not providing you with useful answers, provide feedback to help the algorithm learn and improve. You can do this by rating the responses or providing additional information.

5. Stay on topic: ChatGPT is designed to answer specific questions. Try to stay on topic and avoid asking unrelated or vague questions. This will help the ChatGPT algorithm provide you with more accurate and relevant responses.

(By the way, I actually wrote this blog post… But who knows next time? lol.)

Well now that you have some ideas and tips, the skies are the limit! Let’s go forward into this new era of AI together!

Parents-Friends or Foes during the PYP Exhibition? (#PYPX)

Parents-Friends or Foes during the PYP Exhibition? (#PYPX)

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I don’t know about you, but school just hasn’t been the same since COVID. There have been numerous accounts of parents overreacting to curriculum and over involvement in school. I don’t quite understand the roots of polemic attitudes towards school, but so many educators face skeptical families who feel like every classroom lesson contains a political statement, every book has a hidden agenda and curriculum is now a festooned act of indoctrination. This strange extremist view is unfamiliar to many of our IB schools,  who prize open-mindedness and free thinking, in which in pre-covid times had a lovely community spirit that had a common goal for a better more peaceful world. It’s an unfortunate situation if you find yourself in one of these school communities in which educators are now being vilified.

But I think to recede from working with our families (even the whingers and fault-finders) is a mistake. I think we can’t say that we are living our IB mission without engaging fully with community. This moment, albeit tense, will eventually come back into equilibrium, in which the family-educator bond of trust will be healed.  We have to keep the faith and do the work to ensure that a more sane and harmonious time is on the horizon. We owe it to our children’s future to act compassionately, to be a model of our IB Learner Profile.

So it was for this reason why our school invited parents into the process of PYPX. In the past our school had used them as mentors, and they were excellent resources for our students, so making them more involved wasn’t a big stretch for us. In addition to our PYPX Parent Coffee, we host a Family Inquiry day, in which families come in and explore the UN’s Sustainable Goals, brainstorming topics. It is a powerful moment to observe, as parents see their child’s passion shine through and the child experienced how beneficial it can be to consider parent ideas and opportunities for action with them. We feel that including family in the process of helping their children to develop their exhibition topic is a win-win for everyone.  I’m really proud of the work that our teachers did to facilitate these conversations, and amazed by how supportive and collaborative our families are. Here are a few scenes from the event:

Needless to say, when you witness such a powerful moment, you want to share it with others. So, if you haven’t considered inviting parents into the process with an event like our Family Inquiry Day, I would like you to consider 3 reasons why you might want to rethink that approach.

Improves student well-being

With the demands of this project, PYPX is by far one of the most stressful events that a child can go through. Of course we know that this inquiry project helps them grow in so many ways as we support their ability to develop emotional resilience and intellectual stamina. But when we add parents into the mix, students feel more supported and confident, realizing that they aren’t alone on this journey–they get to share it with their loved ones. Even if they go through a rough patch during this process, it is a comfort for them to know that not only do they have their teachers and mentors who understand what they are going through, but the families also have a clearer picture and can be of greater help.

Encourages meaningful action

Naturally when students can stay more focused and can self-regulate their stress levels, they can put more of their attention toward generating meaningful action. And parents can get involved with helping them to make connections with organizations and foster relevant service for their local community. So launching the PYPX with parents in tow, is an excellent opportunity to motivate our students to do great work in our communities. I know that last year some of the best student action came from the groups in which parents were well aware of what the student was exploring; in fact some families banded together and worked with the PYPX group to join in the community service as well. The whole family might have volunteered at the animal shelter or worked

Builds relationships with families.

If you are a parent of a teenager, you may recognize the importance of this milestone moment for the student.  For many parents, this is their last moment to really be engaged in their child’s learning. Their “baby” is becoming all grown up. We know that once students go to the MYP, there is an expectation that students don’t need any hand-holding. For parents, this can be a painful moment to accept, in which peers become more important and family relationships come in second place. As much as a parent may be eager for them to be independent and mature, it’s hard to stomach that they are becoming their own person, with different opinions and perspectives.  Needless to say, giving families this moment to feel connected and involved helps to foster positive relationships that will last into those tumultuous teen years. This is a special moment in the parent-child relationship. Having parents active in the process can really help the student cross the threshold into adolescence.

Learning is a Team Sport

Our school mantra is “it takes a village” and it’s true. When educators and parents work together, it’s the students who win. When students are the center, it’s easy to work together. We want the learning and action developed in the PYPX to be sustainable and long-lastin. I think having parents involved is our insurance policy for our students going on to doing amazing things to improve the quality of life for all.

If you have thought that it was “breaking the rules” to include parents into the process, I would caution you to consider the impact it will have on the students and the wider learning community. Yes, you might have some overbearing parents who might try to micro-manage their child’s exhibition project, but perhaps you should weigh the pros and cons ahead of time. In the past I might have been adverse to this idea, but if we want to change the dynamic of enemy shift to ally, we need our families to go on this learning journey with us and understand the power of an IB education.

Please share in the comments below the ways in which your school involves parents in productive and meaningful ways during the PYPX. Growing our ability for partnership with families is vital for student success.

Press Start, Pause or Stop? 3 Ways We Can Approach Launching a Unit of Inquiry

Press Start, Pause or Stop? 3 Ways We Can Approach Launching a Unit of Inquiry

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Bewildered by my outburst, my sleeping dog popped up her head and twitched her ears when I giggled out a “hmmm”.  But I couldn’t help it. I was so immersed in a recording of the Town Hall discussion with fellow Google Trainers. They asked a question about concept testing that made me make a connection with a recent topic that we had been discussing during our grade level meetings, the cycle of learning and teaching.

What was the question they use during their iterative process of concept design?

“What would you expect to happen ...?”

Their research shows that this puts algorithmic thinking into motion, generating potential scenarios that could be incredibly powerful in articulating the effect of our decisions.

What if we applied this same question as we approach a launching a unit of inquiry? I think this could be and effective way to start a familiar unit of inquiry, creating the impetus we may need in order to contemplate and debate alternative approaches with greatest impact for our learning and teaching.

Entry points in The Cycle of Learning and Teaching.

Where do you begin with learning? Do you launch a unit with TEACHING, picking up your PYP planner from last year and “copy and paste” what you did last time? Do your reflect on your past PYP planner and adjust the learning expectations or reinvent the unit with PLANNING provocations and activities to launch new concepts? Or do you pick up your PYP planner and think about how you might ASSESS the learners to figure out what direction you might need to go to support strong concept development and bringing out the best in the Learner Profile and Atls?

I would argue that there is no “right answer” to this because every unit of inquiry is unique and we have to look holistically at the grade level Programme of Inquiry (POI) and the whole school Programme of Inquiry (POI). It might also depend on if the UOI is a single subject or if it is transdisciplinary. That said, I do think that teachers need to sit down and re-read the planner from last year to reflect on what is relevant and meaningful to their current learners. They need to unpack the central idea and lines of inquiry before determining where they are going to jump into this cycle of learning and teaching.

Decisions, Decisions!

Press Start: Teach 

There are some very valid reasons why we might just start teaching. Time may play a significant factor, especially when we know this unit will introduce never explored content in the school-wider programme of inquiry. Also, if there is a project that the students will work on during the unit and the goals of the unit are more about the process of learning so we have to focus on teaching into the Atls such as the self-management or social skills that will be developed throughout the unit. For example, collaboration or time-management may need to be developed right from the word Go so that groups can effectively do research together. A great example of that is during the PYP Exhibition. Teachers might need to start teaching into stress management or technology skills in order to ensure that students can work independently and effectively.

Teachers who are also single-subject specialists may also jump into the cycle of learning and teaching here, particularly if they have younger students who they feel can safely assume that they have no prior knowledge of the concepts. For example, a music teacher who wants to teach the concept of melody to their kindergarten students or a language acquisition teacher who works with newcomers to a language.

However, we really want to think critically about this approach because research suggests that we need to value our learners more than teaching our content, so we need to carefully consider our students when planning and assessing.

Press Pause: Plan

It is good practice to review previous planners for a familiar unit. As you re-read the planner, it’s important to read the reflections first before digging into the resources, learning activities and assessments that you created in the past. I know that this part of the planner often gets neglected, but it really can be critical to understanding how and why you might make changes to a unit, especially if there are new members of a team who may not be as familiar with a unit. It is especially for this reason why you would want to start with planning. Not everyone interprets units the same way, especially when a central idea is broad. So team members need to “unpack” the unit’s concepts and think about how it could be approached differently, particularly when considering the students you have in your class. I’ve written about the importance of this before in this blog post.I think this is the most common way that teams approach the learning and teaching cycle–Teachers getting together and discussing what might be possible during this unit.

However, you can share the central idea with students and unpack it with them in order to co-construct the unit. The questions and ideas that emerged during those discussions with students then become the fodder to re-write aspects of unit in order to develop more student interest and agency. Sometimes that means we go back are re-write lines of inquiry, change learner profiles or switch our Atls. And sometimes it means that the content shifts. It really depends on what happens during the “unpacking” with students.

For example, consider this unit:

Central Idea: 

Circumstances impact opportunity and the ability to achieve.

Lines of Inquiry:

  1. The attributes of empathy(form)
  2. How opportunity is enabled (causation)
  3. The measurement of achievement (perspective)

A team of 4th grade teachers were going to approach this as a “copy and paste” type of unit, in which the focus has typically been on the role of social class in creating barriers or opportunities to success in life. However, when they unpacked it with students, it became clear that they were fascinated with disabilities and inclusion. It required the team to get back to the drawing board and re-design the unit with student interests in mind. Although the key concepts might stay the same, the related concepts shift from Poverty, Social Class, and Opportunity to Diversity, Innovation and Inclusion because students were keen to learn about how disabilities and neurodivergence lead to developing new technology to help people feel capable and involved in their lives.

When teachers respond to students like this, learning is more dynamic and student action can organically evolve from their enthusiasm. I’m sure you can see how responding like this can change the trajectory of a unit.

Press Stop: Assess

Before putting the car into drive, some teachers choose to stop and assess before beginning a unit. Pre-assessment is always a good idea, but since the pandemic, this approach seems like the most sensible for many units. We just aren’t sure where the conceptual and skill gaps may be, so we may need to do some formal assessments to see where students knowledge base lies. Once we have an idea of what students know, understand and can do, teachers can sit down with the data and then examine what concepts and skills make sense before launching a unit. Again, they may need to adjust content, change Atls and/or learning expectations.

“What would you expect to happen ...?”

I think predicting and reflection are 2 key superpowers that a PYP teacher needs when we consider how we can build strong units. As I continue to mull over this question, I think this question can be an important tool to help shake up unit planning and instigate critical thinking in our approaches. Whether it is asked 2 weeks before a unit of inquiry begins or as a strategy to provoke reflective thinking, this question can help us explore new ways that we could approach the unit.

What do you think? Are there other questions that we need to consider when determining the why and how we jump into the cycle of learning and teaching?

The Role of the PYP Coordinator: 5 Dos and Don’ts When Working in International Schools

The Role of the PYP Coordinator: 5 Dos and Don’ts When Working in International Schools

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It’s a time of year that we are always prone to reflect and come up with wish lists for the new year. There are projects that remain unfinished, books you want to read, and pedagogical challenges that we continue puzzling over. Often this time of year we renew our enthusiasm and commitment to at least some of these things.

That said, whether this is your 1st year or 15th year of being in curriculum coordination, there are always things that come to mind as opportunities for improvement.  I think of these like Boomerangs, items of good leadership practice that I must return to if I had become sloppy over the course of the year. So I’d like to share the 5 Dos and Don’ts that I have to constantly check in with myself each and every year.

DON’T use acronyms, but DO create a common understanding of key principles within your program.

I think we can often assume that we all speak the “same language” in the PYP. We don’t. Using acronyms adds another layer of confusion for new staff (or even old staff who never got the jargon to begin with). Sometimes brevity is unhelpful. Here’s what I mean in a possible email to teachers:

Let’s meet in the LSR during CPT. We will work on our UOI’s KUDs and create SC. Ts need to add them to MB.

Maybe you know what the goals of the meeting are, or maybe you don’t. And that is the point! If you are left scratching your head, then maybe you need to inform what certain acronyms mean or just spell them out. Seriously, acronyms are not that much of a time saver anyway, and can really handicap some teachers who may not be native speakers of English (or whatever language dominates your school’s professional discourse). It’s better to be clear, especially in written communication.

Let’s meet in Heidi and Gustav’s learning support room (annex room 3). We will work on our upcoming unit’s KUDs–what we want our students to K.now U.nderstand and D.o; then we will create success criteria. Teachers need to record these in ManageBac (MB)

Until acronyms are internalized, it is better to write them out so that everyone is in “the know”. Moreover, when new teachers join the team, you will have to be mindful, even providing a “glossary of terms” for those brand new to the PYP of the jargon you use at your school.

DON’T solely have collaborative planning meetings but DO have a variety of focused planning sessions that have a purpose and goals.

Many schools have regularly scheduled meeting times such as a “late start” or “early release” days that are perfect to allocate for collaboration with grade level teams and specialists. These meetings with specialists are “tried and true” ways to promote collaboration for unit of inquiry planning, but they are not the only kinds of meetings that we can promote collaboration. Using these moments to discuss other topics such as assessment practices, how we are promoting student agency, or looking at inquiry practices can also help promote collaboration. Personally I have been thinking about flipping the focus of the collaboration meetings away from the homeroom teachers’ units and instead provide opportunities for specialists to be the focus for support of their non-integrated units. In that way, we can start broadening our ideation for agency and concept development in more supportive ways across our whole school, and in every subject.  Never the less, straying from doing “meetings-as-usual” could help foster creativity and innovation but it’s important to have the purpose of these collaborations clearly stated with intended goals communicated so that teachers feel that the time is well spent and helpful.

DON’T go into classrooms for “special moments” but DO create a schedule of classroom visits.

I realize that not all coordinators have time in their schedule to frequent classrooms, which is why I am suggesting that it gets built into one’s personal timetable. If it is baked into one’s personal calendar, then it is easy to get into classrooms. This could be a 10-minute walk through or you could spend a full period. Moreover, popping into a variety of classrooms is preferable, so this goal might be to visit certain classrooms on a bi-weekly or even monthly basis.

I also want to be clear the the purpose of these visits aren’t just to capture special learning moments (ex: guest speaker, end of unit activity, community action project, etc..) to post on social media, nor should they be “gotcha” moments to find fault with teachers. It should be an intentional moment to observe students during the learning. Write down notes about the conversations that they are having, or any interesting interactions you observe. Teaching is complex and there are lots of things that they don’t observe so having another educator in the room, no matter how brief your visit is, might unearth some data that could help teachers support student learning. It also might provide more helpful information when you sit down in the planning meetings. So, take notes or photos so you can capture some anecdotes to share with teachers later. If those anecdotes are useful to share in the larger learning community, that would be great, but it shouldn’t be the only reason why you come into classes.

DON’T assume you know how to support teachers but DO ask them how they would like to be supported.

You may read all the books and do all the trainings but you know the saying that  “to ASSUME it to make an ASS out of U and Me”– even though this wit and wisdom sounds cliche, it is something that needs reminding regularly. For example, there are times when you go into a classroom and you feel like you are being “supportive” but when you start “co-teaching”, it may be very disempowering or even insulting to the teacher to interfere with the lesson. I think it’s important to ask teachers individually and as a team what are some ways in which they can best be supported. And although you may have asked that question earlier in the school year, it’s important to ask it again in case the needs have changed over the course of the year. For example, I will definitely be asking teachers what needs to STOP, START and CONTINUE with the level of support I have given as we re-boot the school year after our holidays. And I want to add that this feedback will be communicated as their “wishlist” because I have to balance school priorities with their needs, but I will definitely do my best to meet their requests.

DON’T have too many initiatives but DO remind your team what goals were set for the year

Initiative overload is endemic in most schools across the globe. I think the new evaluation process is helping to transition our approach in our IB programs to action-research might alleviate this phenomena. However, it is not an easy habit to break. Wen we try to do too much in too little amount of time, I think the goals become shallow and not a lot of traction can occur. I don’t think it matters if you are a new-to-PYP school or an established school. Having a focus and remaining on track is vital to the long-term growth of your school’s development.

Personally, I have been thinking a lot about this as we jump into the 2nd term, and considering what milestones we might reach at the end of the year if we remain concentrated on the initiatives we set out at the beginning of this year. I want to share this vision with our teachers and get a sense of what their expectations might be as well. In that way, they can feel that they are making headway with their effort, as small changes can make a big difference in the trajectory of our students’ learning.

Although 5 things are hardly an exhaustive list, I do hope these Dos and Don’ts provide some inspiration and ideas to reflect on the ways you can improve and grow in your pedagogical practices. Did any other Dos or Don’ts come to mind as you read this post? Please share in the comments so this community can glean from your wisdom as well.

Wishing you a marvelous 2023!

When is Inquiry not “Best Practice”?

When is Inquiry not “Best Practice”?

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My co-teaching partner leaned across her desk and asked, “So at what point do we stop ‘inquiry into this’ and start teaching them something?”. I responded with nervous laughter because her question sounded like blasphemy. It was an absolutely valid question though and has lingered in my mind for ages, particularly since I am aware of Professor John Hattie’s meta-analysis on high vs. low impact influences on student learning. According to Hattie’s Visible Learning Rankings, inquiry-based learning has a low ranking on its impact scales. I do recognize that inquiry-based learning comes in a variety of flavors, which is well represented by Sarah Plews’ breakdown in her Concept-based Inquiry Mini-PD course:

So I have often felt skeptical of Hattie’s findings because I think generalizing inquiry-based learning is doing this approach a disservice. However, I have come to accept that some content lends itself better to inquiry than others, and some concepts must be developed in a more structured way. I think the reason why inquiry-based learning falls flat on Hattie’s Impact Scales is that many practitioners aren’t sure when and why we might use different approaches.

So, are there moments in our PYP classrooms when we need to put inquiry-based teaching methods on the back burner and provide explicit and direct instruction? Yes, yes there are! And that doesn’t mean we are tossing out all the other PYP practices. This is not a “either/or” situation–either we teach through inquiry OR we are NOT a PYP school. Having a strong PYP program means that practitioners know what content and skills would be best taught through a variety of methodologies.

Ok……so what content and skills might those be, you wonder? Well, here’s the thing, it’s not just the WHAT but it is also the WHO. We have to consider the needs of our students before we decide HOW best to teach them. So what students benefit the most from direct instruction? I think the guidance below is helpful:

Students who learn and think differently. Without explicit instruction, students who struggle with attention or working memory may not focus on the most crucial ideas in a lesson. With explicit instruction, you cue students in to the most essential information.

English language learners. When you use consistent and clear language in each step of instruction, English language learners (ELLs) aren’t overwhelmed with new language demands. Research has shown that explicit instruction can lead to achievement gains among ELLs.

From Understood.Org

When we consider our students with learning needs, it seems obvious that we might alleviate the cognitive load by providing direct instruction. Consider this-When students have a clear understanding of what they are learning about, they are not using their brain power for meaning-making; instead, they are using their working memory to process this information and store it for later use.  This actually helps them, later on, to engage in an inquiry because they have the knowledge to draw upon during a more open-ended lesson. It’s a support, not a deterrent to more inquiry-based approaches.

Explicit and Direct Instruction for the Key Conceptual Lens of Form and Function

One of the filters I use for deciding when we need to explicitly teach something is considering if this is going to be new knowledge to students. Typically it is more efficient to teach the key concepts of What is it? (form) and How does it Work? (function) through a more direct instruction approach when students are acquiring new understandings of concepts or skills. Students need to know the definitions of things and procedural knowledge. Let’s not leave them guessing or feeling confused.

Think about it- can we just send kids with a stack of books and have them generate theories about how language works and then teach themselves to read? No, that would be professional malpractice! We have to explain foundational concepts to students.

Image from https://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au

Let’s think about the words “explicit” and “direct”, another synonym is clarity. You might also think of this as “scaffolding”, in which the teacher is explaining and demonstrating a concept or procedure, and then giving students the opportunity to have guided practice. Educational research shows that when we “show and tell” how something works, it has a greater impact on learning.

Students require more explicit instruction with some of the following content and skills:

  • phonics and decoding skills
  • research skills
  • collaboration skills
  • using mathematical tools and strategies
  • safety skills
  • spelling and grammar
  • understanding time and chronology

So what might this look like or sound like in a PYP classroom?

Sounds like: Today we will be unlocking our thinking through the concept of Form and answering the question, “What is a closed syllable?” . We will be successful at becoming knowledgeable of this syllable type when we can:

  • Define what a closed syllable is.
  • Identify what words contain closed syllables and which ones do not.
  • Read at least 5 words with closed syllables in them.

So you may be wondering, What is a closed syllable? A closed syllable is when a vowel is followed by (or closed in by) one or more consonants.  The vowel sound is ‘short’.  This pattern is often referred to as the CVC pattern (consonant – vowel – consonant), although a closed syllable does not always begin with a consonant. Let’s take a look at some examples……

Now it’s your turn, can you sort these 10 words into the categories of Closed syllables and Not Closed syllables? When you are done sorting, read your words aloud, do you hear the short vowel sound in the word? When you think you have sorted the words correctly, you can compare your answers with a partner…..

Okay, before we go today, I want you to whisper to a friend what a closed syllable is and write at least one new word that contains a closed syllable on this sticky note. You can put your sticky on our Definition Chart for closed syllables. And, if you find any other new words when you are reading, grab a sticky note and write it down with your name on it, and put it on our chart.

Looks like:

  • teacher-selected materials and examples
  • the teacher talks more than the students
  • the students are engaged in a specific task, with little agency over how it is done.
  • there is an explicit “right answer” based on attaining the learning goal.

A closing thought

Teaching is complex, especially in the PYP. Although I have made a stark generalization in what Key Concepts might demand a teacher-directed approach, I ask you to think carefully about your unique learners and consider how best they acquire the knowledge, concepts, and skills they need to be successful. There are moments when we are not actively soliciting curiosity, asking students to problem-solve, or generating theories in our PYP classrooms. And if you choose to develop a lesson that isn’t inquiry-based, it doesn’t mean that you are desecrating the PYP principles.

We want to emphasize that being ‘an inquiry teacher’ does not necessarily mean using an inquiry approach for EVERY lesson.

-Carla Marschall and Rachael French, from Concept-Based Inquiry in Action

So, let’s be thoughtful and skillful in our pedagogical decisions, taking a more teacher-centered approach and providing direct instruction when the moment calls for it. Perhaps if we are more mindful of the merit of the precision of explicit teaching, then our inquiry moments will be more profound.

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

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

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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:

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!

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