Category: Student-centered Learning

What Can Pedagogical Leaders Do to Grease the Wheels of Innovation in Their Schools?

What Can Pedagogical Leaders Do to Grease the Wheels of Innovation in Their Schools?

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When you hear the innovative what does that mean to you as an educator?

I think for a long time we thought if we superimposed the business model upon schools, analyzing and improving our school’s mission, operations, outcomes, and personnel, we’d produce high-performance metrics and fiscal efficiency. Gains in test scores and budget expectations would be innovation in itself, but as we examine the high-stress that the high-stakes initiatives have created, it’s hard to call this improvement in education. In fact, I think this approach has been demonized rather than lauded, and countries like New Zealand are backing off standards-based approaches and beginning to embrace a competency-based model of student achievement, as personalized learning is beginning to become more of a focus. I know there a quite a few schools that question “What is school?” and are moving away from classrooms into “studios” while other schools would be better off calling themselves “resorts” in which the whole school timetable is collapsed, and children are at complete choice. Yet there are other schools such as these in America, that look at this same question, “What is school?” and has defined it differently, expanding it beyond the school campus, and look at how they can connect more to nature and their local community for an authentic experience of learning. I think several of these schools ask a more interesting question, instead of “What is school?”, “What is worth learning?” 

deweyLet me explain a bit: recently I sat down with a Grade 11 student to explain how gene therapy works for her Personal Project on cancer treatments (Previous to teaching, I aspired to get my Ph.D. in Genetics and conducted gene therapy research). But as I was chatting with her, discussing the biological mechanism of the treatment strategies, I really wanted to pull out some literature on epigenetics, an emerging field that demonstrates that we have more control over our genetics than we think–a paradigm that I know has yet to get written into the textbooks. So when I encountered this quote below, it made me think about all of the things we teach as “facts” that have contradictory evidence which would shift perspectives and approaches to solving problems in our future:

A school’s mission is to prepare children for the future by teaching them skills, knowledge, and values, which it can only do by drawing on the past—that is, by teaching them what we know now. Much of the curriculum is fixed or slow-changing (fractions, the meanings of Hamlet, the causes of the American Revolution), and many schools emphasize their commitment to enduring truths and established traditions. Education is a conservator’s work. Good teaching is always creative, but not perpetually innovative, and while it benefits from regular refreshers and occasional overhauls, it doesn’t demand the kind of continuous updating that, say, law or medicine or high technology do. Continuity is a core value in school life.

–Robert Evans, Why A School Doesn’t Run—or Change—Like A Business

With this in mind, I think as schools begin to grapple with defining innovation for their unique context, they need to look at both of these questions: What is school?, perhaps looking at this as the operational side of it, and What is worth learning?, the outcomes that we’d want to be achieved. I’d also say that we need to consider “How do we learn?” as an important question to add to our conversations, as we consider the role of technology and connecting to communities as a component of our school’s mission.

innovationThese questions aren’t answered in a 2-hour meeting, they are inquired into over time, in an institutional self-study, and requires getting teachers voice, choice, and ownership in initiatives. So often lofty goals subtract the perspective of teachers, who are the ones held accountable to many of the suggested changes. Pedagogical leaders choose efficiency over effectiveness, and often side-step the very educators who are laying the foundation of change in their learning institutions. Including teachers in all of these conversations, from the initial inquiry into “What is school?” is not only what is best practice when it comes to leadership, but it is critical to buy-in and sustainable transformation. I can’t help but reiterate this, simply because innovation doesn’t happen in closed-door meetings, it’s a community-driven mission, and it requires all stakeholders. I’ll stop my preaching here, but schools need a collaborative approach to cultivating lasting change that has a true impact on our students.

Needless to say, this is a process of probing a school’s values and traditions and asking if they are truly serving to benefit their students and preparing them for their future. All the research I’ve read suggests that when those foundational questions are asked, then a clear and compelling mission and vision can be the springboard to transforming schools. Once that comes into laser focus, the next layer to innovation, involves reflecting on the following set of questions:

  1. How can we create the conditions for a shared vision and a shared instructional language?
  2. How can we provide resources for research and development for teachers and the time to go along with deepening their understanding?
  3. How can we create conditions for team learning? How can you adopt looking at student work protocols?
  4. How can we create conditions for institutional learning?

Common ground and understanding are what creates a culture of community and self-efficacy that is organic and supportive of school goals. These 4 questions develop the glue that keeps the motivation for innovation intact. If I had to pin a job description on pedagogical leadership, it would be to do just that: to keep moving people forward, together, for the better.

I hope these questions give you a pause for reflection and make you start observing your school’s context in a new light, surveying the current values and traditions within your walls of learning. Moreover, I hope it motivates you to start these conversations and start unpacking WHO YOU ARE as a school and start designing WHO YOU CAN BECOME. In my opinion, if more schools had conversations like these, we’d move away from looking at the 1-dimensional performance metrics and expand our awareness and creativity into new territories for education.

Into the “Pit” or upon the “Clouds”: Kensho and Satori Moments in the Development of Number Concept

Into the “Pit” or upon the “Clouds”: Kensho and Satori Moments in the Development of Number Concept

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It’s Sunday morning and as I soap up greasy dishes, I hear Susan Engel say on the Heinemann Podcast: 

One of the things that I think that our schools have unwittingly done is ignored all the processes that kids use at home and try to replace those with a set of formal procedures that aren’t always as effective…. But it’s a shame because while we are busy trying to sort of force these somewhat formal kinds of learning beacause we think they are more “efficent” or “high powered”, we waste a lot of the natural learning skills that students have. And often a lot of the natural teaching skills that grown-ups have.

Huh, I think I know what she is talking about. Whether we are teaching a genre or the scientific process, teachers are constantly “telling” kids what to pay attention to and to think about. When I start examining my current practice and reflecting on Who I am as a teacher, I have come to see my role as a provocateur and coach. I am always considering who is REALLY doing the learning in our classrooms?–is it me, or is it the students?

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I think of this quote often, reminding myself that if I  tell students, then I’m “breaking their egg” and killed the opportunity for their learning.

So I am constantly asking myself that question because I know that “the person who does the work, does the learning“. But when I say “work”, I mean thinking, and there are so many of these micro-moments in our classroom in which I have a chance to tell kids what to do or to ask them what they think they should do to approach a situation or problem.  Sometimes these moments of learning are Kensho, growth through pain, and other times it is Satori, growth through inspiration. I first encountered this term when I read this blog and Kensho immediately reminded me of our teacher-term, the learning pit. You need determination and resilience to get out of that pit and your reward is Kensho. However, we rarely talk about it’s opposite, Satori. Up until this morning, I didn’t think we had a name for Satori in education. It Kensho is the “learning pit” than Satori must be up in the “clouds”, having a clear view and understanding. But Susan Engel articulated best in the podcast:

There are certain kinds of development that children undergo that are internal and very complex and they don’t happen bit by bit. They happen in what seem to be moments of great transformation of the whole system. ……

At that point, I stopped and turned toward my device. I recognized exactly what she was talking about it. I observed it the other day. My ears perked up some more as I moved closer to listen:

When children are little, their idea of number is very tied up with the appearance of things. So, this is a famous example from Jean-Pierre, a line of 10 pebbles to them is a different quantity than a circle of 10 pebbles, because lines and circles look so different.

The idea that it’s 10, whether it’s a circle or it’s straight, is not accessible to them. At a certain point, virtually every typically developing child, no matter where they’re growing up, acquires this sense that the absolute number of something stays the same no matter what it looks like. Whether it’s a heap or a straight line or a circle, that may sound like a tiny discovery, but it’s the beginning of a whole new way of experiencing the abstract characteristics of the number world.

You can’t teach that through a series of lessons. That’s an internal, qualitative transformation that children go through. Once they’ve gone through that, there are all kinds of specific things that you can teach them about the nature of counting and number and quantity.

Yes! I totally know what she is explaining. I was a witness to it. And perhaps, when you reflect on these Zen philosophical terms as development milestones, you may make a connection to your own classroom learning.

Here’s a snapshot from a recent example in our Grade 1.

Some context

There’s a math coach that I love, Christina Tondevold. She always says that “number sense isn’t taught, it’s caught”.  I’m always thinking to myself, how can I get them to “catch” it. This past week, we did just that using the Visible Thinking Routine, Claim, Support, Question making the claim:

The order of the numbers don’t matter–12 or 21, it’s the same number.

The students took a stand, literally, in the corners next to the words and image for Agree or Disagree, with  I Don’t Know, in the middle. This was great formative data! Then we provided the students with a variety of “math tools” to Support or prove their thinking is correct. They had to “build” the numbers and show us that they were actually different. It was neat how the students who stood in the I Don’t Know and Disagree areas were developing an understanding of what a written number truly “looks like”. We didn’t jump in and save them at any point, but some of them were experiencing Kensho. It was painful because they didn’t know how to organize their tiles or counters or shapes or beads in such a way that they could “see” the difference between the 2 numbers. Meanwhile, the students who chose the unifix cubes were experiencing Satori- and it became very obvious to them that these were different numbers. 

In our next lesson, we introduced the ten frames as a tool to help them organize their thinking and develop a sense of pattern when it comes to number concept. We did the same two numbers: 12 and 21, and they could work this time with a partner. Oh man, was there a lot of great discussions that came out as they talked about how the numbers looked visually different. The concept of Base 10 started to emerge. As observers, documenting their thinking, it was exciting to see the connections they were making. But the best part was yet to come.

We then brought in the Question part of the thinking routine. We asked them “if the order of 1 and 2 matters to 12 and 21, then what other numbers matter?” They told us:

“13 and 31, 14 and 41, 24 and 42, 46 and 64, 19 and 91, 103 and 310.”

A Hot Mess of Learning

Once unleashed, the kids grouped up and flocked to resources. There was a buzz. Giving students choices allowed the opportunity to choose whether they wanted to stay with smaller numbers or shoot for the BIG numbers even if they had no idea how they might construct a number past 100. They could use any math tool they wanted: cubes, blocks, 10 frames, Base 10 blocks, number lines, counters, peg boards–anything they wanted. Those choices, of itself, really provided some great data.

Here is an example of one of the groups who went with lower numbers:

But the ones who went for the BIG numbers, were the most interesting to watch because they were Kensho. Most of them grabbed unifix cubes, thinking that the same strategy they used before with 12 and 21 would work with 103 and 310. big numbersOh man, they persisted, they tried, but it took a lot of questioning and patience on our part to help guide them out of the pain that their learning was experiencing. Only one group naturally gravitated toward the Base-10 blocks, and when they realized how the units worked, it was a moment of Satori. They moved on from 103 and 310 quickly; they tried other numbers and invented new combinations. And interestingly enough, those groups, at no point, looked over to the ones engaged in the struggle to suggest that they might try another math tool. It was as if they knew that when one is in Kensho, best to leave them alone to make meaning on their own.

And there we were, in the midst of this math inquiry, and we felt like exhausted sherpas but satisfied that we were able to let them choose their own path of learning and made it to their “summit”.

As I consider how the role of the teacher is evolving in education, I think it is recognizing these moments of pain and insight in learning, and guiding them towards the next understanding in their learning progression. I absolutely agree with Susan Engel that when we see children fumbling around, we should be asking if they are within reach, developmentally, to even acquire the knowledge of skill that we are working on. For me, inquiry-based learning is the BEST way in which we can observe, engage assess our learners to truly discover their perceptions and capabilities. It is through capturing the student conversations and ideas that emerge as they give birth to a new understanding that is the most exciting to watch and inspires me in our planning of provocations that lead to their next steps.

How about you?

 

 

What Really IS “Best Practice”

What Really IS “Best Practice”

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It’s Tuesday at 4:45pm and my brain cells begin to take a break. I’m struggling with my energy level, peeved at myself for not drinking a tea earlier so I had a mental boost for this meeting. Because I care. It’s about the counseling program at our school, and I want to be fully present. I think it’s important.

Now it’s 2:30am, and I am awake, a bit annoyed that I have the term “best practice” ruminating in my mind. Why is this the first thought this morning? And how can I make it stop troubling my thoughts?

You see the other day I had a colleague make a remark that for some reason has really gotten under my skin–“oh, it’s really just best practice, right?”. Here’s the thing, I’m really tired of hearing the term “best practice”. It implies some secret sauce, some cookbook, that if all teachers follow, will result in amazing student achievement. I think that’s an overused term to get teachers to comply with certain boundaries of your curriculum. Think about it, if you teach in a highly structured system (Think a national scheme like France’s, in which all French schools have to be on the same page, literally, on the same day), then they have an idea of “best practice”. However, in our PYP school, we are more unstructured, textbookless, with flexible timelines, and no literacy model or math program (ex: Everyday Math) that we all follow. Needless to say, our idea of “best practice” has less to do with teacher compliance and more to do with teacher creativity. Those are very different perspectives on education. And who is right? Which is better?  Who is the “best”?

Rumi-Quotes-10I’m not here to pick a fight but I want to call our attention to how we throw that term around. In fact, I’d like to toss that term on the ground and squash it. I want to bury it. It’s undefinable in our broad views of education. Because of that, I think it’s a “nothing” word like a cliche or overused term that has lost its precision and value.

John Hattie’s idea of “Know Thy Impact” is more meaningful because it really helps schools to define their context and go deeper into the Why with the How they implement their curriculum, no matter how rigid or adaptable the structure is. I feel that we should use a more active term to define the type of work we do with students:  Impactful Practice.

Yet, I think there is a space in which all of us can connect, an area of our schools that we can all agree upon. It’s the one thing we can all consent to- student relationships matter.  john hattie relationship.png

This is where our dichotomous learning approaches merge. No matter what curriculum we use, the pedagogy of the heart is the central feature of all the work we do in schools. It’s the reason why I made a strong commitment to fight off my tiredness and engage in a meeting about our counseling program because we are talking about the hearts of our students. Connecting with them?–Yeah, I want to do that- Every day, for at least 190 days this year!

It’s now 6am and I have transformed this agitation into a clarity of purpose. Perhaps you, dear reader, may feel the same way.  I hope that wherever we are in the world, despite how we teach, that we can all agree upon really digging in and cultivating an intention of “impactful” practice, connecting to and understanding the emotional landscape and perspectives of our students.  Doing this– that’s the only practice that matters. Don’t you agree?

#PYP Déjà vu or Jamais Vu? Approaching Familiar Units of Inquiry in Unfamiliar Ways

#PYP Déjà vu or Jamais Vu? Approaching Familiar Units of Inquiry in Unfamiliar Ways

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Picking up the strand of LED lights, I felt overwhelmed at the Chinese Hardware Market, I had this disorienting feeling that I’ve been here before, discussing the color of lights in broken Mandarin. As I walked out with 2 meters of lights, I felt like I was in a dream world, realizing that this whole experience was a  déjà vu.

But having the luxury of teaching a unit of inquiry year after year creates the same experience.  You read over last year’s planner, reliving the experience and ready to proceed in the same way. Easy, right?  Then you can tick that off your To-Do list and move onto other things like setting up your classroom or having meetings. But this year, I can’t do that. I’ve promised myself to take myself and the students “where the streets have no name” and that means that I have to approach units of inquiry from a stance of jamais vu, selectively having amnesia about what provocations and activities we used in this unit.

So why on Earth would I toss aside all the thoughtful planning of the past? Because it’s the past. And we’ve grown professionally a whole year since our team originally designed that unit. Yes, we may be re-inventing the wheel a bit, but our experience and knowledge require us to develop more dynamic and empowering units of inquiry. We know more pedagogically. Moreover, we have a whole new group of students, with new interests and questions. We need to readjust our sails because we are going on a whole new adventure.

So when we examined our current Who We Are unit (Our choices and actions define who we become as a community), we decided to use “the end”, with a water-downed version of our summative task, a “learning fair”, to begin our current unit. It made sense that they needed more practice making learning choices so they could cultivate their self-identity and self-management skills. Now we can use this data to reflect and refine how we might use this jumping off point to have them become leaders in their own learning.

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Making choices helps us to appreciate how they see themselves as learners.

I think using the end as the beginning is an approach that we may use again in future units because it provides the context for all the skills and knowledge that we would have “front-loaded” on the students in past units. For example, last year we did several lessons on Kelso’s choices and How Full is Your Bucket?  before we gave them the agency to make learning choices. How silly, right? It’ll be so much better having the context of conflict as a provocation to really engage in deeper conversations. If we bring these resources into the unit, it would because the students needed it, not because we wanted it, because it was on LAST year’s planner.  In fact, coming from this angle has really helped us to see how capable and eager our students are to be in control of their learning. Maybe we don’t have to waste time on the previous year “staple activities”.

As we embark on another year of learning, I intend to embrace the jamais vu, putting old planning aside and coming at familiar units from unfamiliar approaches. And I wonder what insight the children we give me about how I can amplify learning and empower them. This is what I look forward to so much: I grow as they grow. How fun is that?

Lean in, It’s not too late.

Lean in, It’s not too late.

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I don’t want to look at my phone. The chatter of mating frogs is not muted by the buzzing air con. I know it’s too early but my mind is awake even if my body is motionless. I have students on my mind.

may-2018-blog-series-image1You see I made the mistake of reading Two Writing Teachers’ Blog and, as our team worked on our final unit plan and learning overview, it was painfully obvious that time wasn’t on our side. What happened to April? How did May get here? How can we consolidate the great learning, yet still make an impact on the students who need more support?  Oh,  how many more weeks to make a difference?

It’s easy to “slide” out, but I want to lean it, pull up my sleeves and dig into these final moments with the students.  I want to end this year empty–both for me and the kids, knowing that we did our best and gave our all. I’m inspired and renewed that there are educators who are just as insanely committed to making this school year end on a positive note. Perhaps you are too.

 

What If Students Ran the School? (#SOL meets #EmpowerBook)

What If Students Ran the School? (#SOL meets #EmpowerBook)

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I was scrambling down the stairs when a bounding 5-year old announces  “It’s class time! It’s class time!” He leapfrogged from one group of scattered students to the next with his broadcast. As I made my way to the canteen, hurrying to grab a cup of coffee, I noticed that the duty teacher was patrolling the sprawling play space with the same message: c’mon kids, break time is over.

You see at our school, we don’t use bells to signal the end of class periods or break times or even dismissal. In many ways, this seems more natural and authentic, but it also challenging to accept this switch from Pavlovian antics to try to round up and herd children back to their classrooms, especially when we give students free reign over a large swath of our campus. We have a single whistle and a wonderfully orange vest to suggest our authority which entitles us the right to call them off the playground.

But as I was walking back from class, a “what if” began to bubble up in my mind: What if we gave students an orange vest? How might that impact managing break or lunchtime recess? And more importantly, what message would that suggest to our students? Furthermore, what would be the impact on our school culture?

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So as I think about the everyday structures and routines of our school’s life, I wonder what sort of power are we hoarding that could release to our students to give them more agency and develop more self-management skills? I wonder about an experiment in which we gave some students an orange vest to provide them the opportunity to assist the duty managers. Also, I wonder if there are other areas that we could root out in our school’s community which would give students an opportunity to engage and influence the very place that is designed for them. To me, an orange vest is really the tip of the iceberg.

I bet if we posed the question What if students ran the school, how might it be different-what would you change? Now I’m sure we would get answers like more playtime and ice cream served at lunch, but we also might get some genuine gems that would provoke and inspire us to create a more student-centered culture.

#PYP Where We Are in Place and Time: Being Critical of a “Slam-Dunk” PYP Unit of Inquiry. (#IMMOOC)

#PYP Where We Are in Place and Time: Being Critical of a “Slam-Dunk” PYP Unit of Inquiry. (#IMMOOC)

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We have begun a unit of inquiry that could be considered a “slam-dunk”- an easy to teach unit with a clear summative task: designing a home. Here’s the central idea and lines of inquiry for this Where We Are in Place in Time:

Homes reflect cultural influences and local conditions.

  • what makes a home
  • how homes reflect local culture and family values
  • factors which determine where people live

I bet if you are experienced PYP teacher, you have taught a unit similar to this. It’s a “good” unit, right? I’ve taught it before. It can be quite transdisciplinary when you think about all the wonderful social science and physical science that you can pull into this, along with art and math, if students design a model home.

I often ask myself two questions: So What? Now What? But I keep re-reading this sentence from the book Empower  by A. J. Juliani and John Spencer and it makes me want to extend my thinking to be more critical of these types of “slam-dunk” units. Here’s the brief excerpt from the book:

We began to empathize with our students, which led us to ask questions like the following:

What would our students care about (literary devices)?

What would be the best way to learn (the devices)?

How can we engage the students in understanding their purpose and use in the real world?

 

Now, in the book’s context, they are trying to determine the best approach to tackling literary devices for their eighth graders, but I could apply these same questions to any given unit of inquiry. In particular, that last question lingers in my mind.

SO WHAT?: Examining Units of Inquiry for Student Interest and Action

So what part of this is important and meaningful for students? So what aspect of this unit will have a lasting impact and build upon future learning?– is this going to be important for the next unit or next year? How immediate will they be applying these conceptual understandings or skills?

And now if I was to apply this So What principle and add those ideas from the Empower book, then I would begin reflecting on units of inquiry in the Programme of Inquiry (POI) through the lens of students who are driving the unit (and not us teachers).

So what part of this unit will students genuinely care about? (Do they actually care about homes?)

So what would be the best way for them to learn about homes?

So what aspect of the conceptual understandings will have a purpose and use in the real world?

 

NOW WHAT?: Examining Units of Inquiry for Meaning and Coherence

NOW WHAT -this has to do will the impact that learning will have on students.

Now what will students care about as a result of their learning?

Now what would be the best way to extend their thinking and develop new perspectives?

Now what can they transfer to future units? What use in the real world will these conceptual understandings have? Can they apply their knowledge in different ways to other subjects?

We are embarking on Week 3 of this unit. I’m not suggesting that this unit is a “bad” unit–I think that the students will get a lot of learning out of this unit, especially since we are developing their awareness of family values, culture and how homes are designed for natural disasters.  I also think this is really meaningful, that the concept of “home” is a challenging one for our 3rd Culture Kids–is my home the one on my passport? Or the physical space I live in? Or the emotional space I inhabit? There’s a lot of relevance for our students’ learning in this unit. quotes-on-innovation-and-creativity-2

But I think we should always remain critical and challenge “easy” units because this can become very teacher-directed inquiry instead of releasing control of the learning over to students. As I reflect on the summative task, designing a home, I wonder how we can amplify their learning by providing more choice and voice in the matter. Considering how we give students more agency can shift this “slam-dunk” unit into new learning territory. It’s an idea that I will bring forward to our team, and it’s an idea that I hope you will hold in your memory and consider when you also come across these staple sorts of units.

#IMMOOC, Season 4: Does it Matter?- Giving Students Choice (My Personal Inquiry into Empowering Students Begins)

#IMMOOC, Season 4: Does it Matter?- Giving Students Choice (My Personal Inquiry into Empowering Students Begins)

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400 minutes a day is roughly what most students spend in school. After 180 school days, my 1st graders will have spent 72,000 minutes in our learning community (given that they are not absent) and move onto 2nd grade.What will they have learned? Who will they be at the end of that time? Will our team really have developed inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect? (From the IB Mission Statement)

That is an incredibly hard question to answer. I know that we work hard to forge new territory and challenge our learners to become self-reliant, reflective and kind. Sometimes it is easy- a simple provocation might provide the nudge, but most of the time, cultivating the awareness and motivation to do what is hard takes a lot of different approaches. In IB-Speak, we call it being principled however others may call it grit–it’s doing what’s right or the best thing to do even if it is hard, boring or uncomfortable, especially when NO ONE is watching you.

To develop “leaders of tomorrow”, we need to develop them as leaders of today.

-George Curous-  #EmpowerBook

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately-am I empowering students to make good choices or am I handicapping them by making the choices for them?  As a first grade teacher, this is sure easy to do–to “boss” those little ones around and “help” them make those choices for them.  Painful as it is to admit, that certainly happens.

As I begin this season of IMMOOC,  I really want to shine a light into those dark places of my practice. I want to examine whether or not I am consistently and compassionately developing our learners to be challenged and independent in their learning.

So I am excited to be reading the book Empower to take a more critical look at how I approach student learning and develop greater student agency in the classroom. Perhaps you might be keen to join? If so, you can sign up and join a whole load of us educators who really want to make an impact and create these leaders of today.

 

#PYP : 5 Things You Should See in a Successful Unit of Inquiry

#PYP : 5 Things You Should See in a Successful Unit of Inquiry

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Sometimes I wonder why we spend so much time discussing and deliberating Central Ideas and the nit-picky debates over the conceptual understandings. Why not just copy the sample Programme Of Inquiry that is inside the Making the PYP Happen document or other go-to places to find tried and true units of inquiry? We would be done and dusted, right?  But then we would lose the magic of the PYP–the ability to shape our curriculum based on the students’ interests and culture of our schools! That’s the challenge of every school–Who are WE and what defines our community of learning?

Well, as we wrap up our current How the World Works unit, we are reflecting on how much time and energy we put into creating our Central Idea. As teachers, we brainstormed ideas based on scientific concepts that the students need developing and cross-referenced science standards from a variety of sources (like national and independent curriculums other than the PYP Scope and Sequence for Science). We then pitched the ideas to the students with a general interest survey using a Design Thinking approach and then did some pre-packing of the Central Idea. We knew after all of that effort that we had a solid unit of inquiry ahead. What we ended up with was:

Understanding light and sound can transform experience

  • How animals hear sound and see light
  • Transformation of Energy
  • Ways we use the scientific process

Although our central idea was ironically very similar to a unit at NIS, the lines of inquiry and adding the word “transform” made it unique to our students because of what we had been learning about in performing arts and visual art classes. We really wanted to make a strong link to go beyond this being a “science unit” and make it transdisciplinary. This sort of intention really showed in the learning.

In the Enhanced PYP,   there is a shift in developing learner agency, and I can appreciate how it might build upon the idea of Action as we reflect our the design of our school’s Programmes of Inquiry.We spent a few lessons on gauging student interest and “pre-packing” the Central Idea of our unit before we even launched it to capture student voice and choice involved.

So really it shouldn’t be a surprise that when we examined whether students were really engaged and invested in their learning, we found several tell-tale signs. This was some of the evidence we saw:

  1. Students challenging each other’s ideas, particularly when they were generating their scientific questions and hypothesis.
  2. Students bringing in outside resources that added to the conceptual understanding of the unit.
  3. Parents reporting that students are reading and researching the concepts at home.
  4. Students wanting to extend their learning, either at home or at school.
  5. Students asking deep questions and a compulsion to test out their conjectures.

These are just 5 things that we observed throughout the unit. I hope others can add to the list because I think identifying what success of a unit is an important component of every school’s Programme of Inquiry. We need to take a look at our Central Ideas and begin to wonder who is this unit for? And will student action naturally and authentically develop? And when you think about it, the word inquiry means “a search for knowledge” and “a request for truth” so student initiative isn’t really the high bar we should expect in learning, but truly the bare minimum of a successfully designed unit. If we touch a nerve and truly spark interest, then a commitment and motivation to learning should ensue. If I was to be truly critical of whether or not we nailed student agency in this unit, I would say that tuning in and shaping units around their needs and interests were only the tip of the iceberg and we need to challenge our team a bit more to develop this feature in our community of learning.

However, I hope sharing this experience will help ignite some deeper thinking and reflection about designing units of inquiry. If you have any more “symptoms” of a successful unit, please share below. The more conversation we can have around this, the stronger our school programmes will become because we put our learners first. Please add your perspective in the comments below.

#Inquiry: Transforming Learning Objectives and Intentions.

#Inquiry: Transforming Learning Objectives and Intentions.

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I had an Aha-Moment this week and I am bursting to share it! You see I grew up and was trained in the American school system so most of my pedagogical schema is steeped in a Standards-Based Approach to teaching and learning. Lessons must have learning objectives, which usually are framed around the State’s curriculum or nowadays there is the Common Core. When I write or state the objective on the board, there is a magnetic pull that drives the learning towards meeting that goal. I get tunnel vision and achieving this standard becomes a primary focus, if not for the day, then for the week. But can we still attain the skills and knowledge in the curriculum without letting the learning intention be the end-all/be-all in our lessons?

Let me just set the stage for my lightbulb moment:

One of my colleagues had said earlier this year that she feels like when you do inquiry it seems like you have to always make the students guess what they are learning about. It’s as if learning intention is a mystery. And so herein lies the challenge with inquiry-based learning when it meets the standards-based curriculum training. Is there a happy medium? And I think I found the answer and the answer is YES!

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Compliments of the wonderful teachers at VIS, Mr. David, and Mr. John!

Did you catch that? In the example above, they just open up the lesson  with a question and it naturally covered standards that would be typically on the board or stated as you tell your students what they would be learning about in that 4th-grade lesson:

  • Use the four operations with whole numbers to solve problems. (Common Core)
  • 4.1.2.1.f checking reasonableness of answers. ( Singapore Mathematics Syllabi)
  • Know multiplication and division facts for the 2× to 10× tables (Cambridge)

If you’re a PYP teacher then we are always packing our unit planners with “teacher questions”.  I already was well aware that questions are vital for inquiry teaching and learning. But it never occurred to me that I could or should turn the learning intention/objective into a question. It totally changes the dynamic of the lesson, in which a clear path of learning is set yet there is still enough space for curiosity and divergent thinking.

So I’m going to start transforming my WALT (W.hat we A.re L.earning T.oday) into questions so that students have a goal and purpose for learning. And then I’d like to end with a student reflection: Did we answer the question? Why or why not?

I think when we shift from Telling To Asking, we start moving away from didactic approaches and move into curiosity and student agency. I’m going to test out this tweak and I invite others to do the same so that more student interest and inquiry can be sparked.

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