Category: Unit of inquiry

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?

A “Think Aloud” about Supporting Interventions in a PYP School’s Programme of Inquiry

A “Think Aloud” about Supporting Interventions in a PYP School’s Programme of Inquiry

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Have you ever looked up synonyms for the word INTERVENTION?

There are 711 similar words….from “meddling” to “treatment” from “interference” to “support”. And the broad range of related word meanings also brings up a multitude of potentials for designing a reading intervention program at your school.

Developing this program is in response to teaching our learners after a full school year online. We want to be ready to get them growing as soon as we can get them onto campus. We want to ensure that they accelerate when they return. We are currently bringing in Reader’s Workshop (aka developing a LOVE of Reading) along with Leveled Learning Intervention (aka the SCIENCE of Reading).

But intervention models typically require those kiddos who need more support to get pulled out of class (Tier 2 and 3). You wouldn’t pull them out of literacy, nor would you pull them out of math, so what would they miss? Their Unit of Inquiry (UOI) time? Hmm…I’m not a fan of that. Because if you add something to your program, something else has to be eliminated, right?

That’s what I am grappling with right now……and I think back to those words “meddling” and “interference”–is this what is going to happen to transdisciplinary learning?

So I’ve been considering how we might use our UOIs in service of students getting the support so they need to feel confident and capable. And since many kids’ growth has taken a hit from learning in a pandemic, I am thinking about a whole school UOI that could be used for our intervention time, but not just to address their deficiencies, but to explore their assets too! What could a UOI like that look like?

Personal

Timely

Goal-orientated

Empowering

Effective

Joyful

That’s what I want for our learners.

What Transdisciplinary Theme?

So I’m starting to think about how we would design a unit like that? My first thought is that this would be developed as a Who We Are and it would need to target many facets of the theme descriptor:

Identity, Relationships, Beliefs, Responsibility, Community–are some concepts that might show up in a UOI

Okay…..so let’s start with some potential Central ideas:

Knowing about who we are as learners can help us to set goals, develop independence and build a strong culture of support. 

Healthy communities develop a strong culture of cooperation, goal-setting, and compassion in order to achieve their objectives.

People’s curiosity and desire to learn can create opportunities for personal growth and build relationships in a community.

Challenges provide individuals and communities opportunities to reflect, problem-solve and develop resilience. 

Discovering who we are can help us to define who we want to become, as individuals and as a community. 

Alright, that’s enough brainstorming for now. There are many possible trajectories in the Who We Are theme.

As I consider the viability of this, we want something that provides breadth so that we focus on the LEARNER, not just on the subject matter. And, although this UOI could be used as a placeholder on our schedules for reading intervention time, we could also use it for math intervention or opportunities to EXTEND their learning. We must be careful to balance deficiencies with assets, spotlighting what makes them unique and helping them to develop self-awareness of who they are. I really need to sit down with teachers to hear their ideas and come into alignment so we can really put something solid on paper. Then grade-level teams can add their polish and shine to any of these potential central ideas and create their own lines of inquiry.

How long?

Once we nail down the Central idea, the next step is to determine the length of the unit. And how might we schedule this? We wouldn’t do it as a typical 6-week UOI!  This will need to be a year-long UOI because we would need a substantial amount of time to work with students.

Lets’s say you take a week to launch it and then provide 1 day a week for intervention (31 weeks on our school calendar) roughly would make this a 5 1/2-6 week UOI. Hmm…that could work, And then different grade levels can use different days of the week to make it easier for our reading interventionist to do “pull out”.  Although once we analyze our student data, we might need more time in certain grade levels, so, although this might be a whole school UOI, the approach might look different. We might need a steady blast of 4 weeks long in Grade 2, for example, and then pull it back to one day a week. So knowing our learners and being flexible will be the key. Even if we do this as a whole school, we don’t have to have the same timelines for each grade level. Could be messy but we have to think about what students need.

Considerations..

The final thing that I wonder about is if we did this as a whole school UOI and scheduled it accordingly, then could we do a multi-grade collaboration, in which teachers could have students move more fluidly between classrooms in order to engage in different kinds of learning? Oh, that could be cool if teachers were open to sharing students. hmm…lots of possibilities, although this would need to be post-pandemic when folks can venture out of their “pods”.

Definitely some food for thought.

I’m excited about providing more support to learners as they develop into strong readers and writers, but I want to make sure we don’t subtract from other areas of the curriculum. I want to honor that we are a PYP school first and foremost, and we embed additional support strutures because we believe in learners’ capacity to grow into flourishing human beings.

As I shared in the post, Should Fear be the Basis of Decision-making in Schools? , I want to do things not because we worry about learning gaps, but we have hope for the future and wish to create a new way forward in education. Although the whole concept of “intervention” is based on looking at what the student is missing, I wish to shift this approach in order to find some new truths in evaluating data.

This is the first draft of my thinking, but as we work together in our learning community, I see a lot of possibilities to cultivate a different ethos around this topic.

Any ideas or suggestions? I’m all ears! Please share.

Math in the #PYP: Can you really “kill 2 birds” with one planner?

Math in the #PYP: Can you really “kill 2 birds” with one planner?

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I’ve been doing a little light reading and exploring the new PYP: From principles into practice digital resource in the PYP resource center. This led me to nose around the Programme standards and practices documentation to see if anything had dramatically changed. I was surprised at how much it had changed in wording, not just swapping section letters for numbers but how some of the ideas have shifted to articulate the “enhancement” of the programme.  Here’s something that stood out to me:

(2014)Standard C3: Teaching and learning

Teaching and learning reflects IB philosophy.

1. Teaching and learning aligns with the requirements of the programme(s). PYP requirements

a. The school ensures that students experience coherence in their learning supported by the five essential elements of the programme regardless of which teacher has responsibility for them at any point in time.

 

(2018) Learning (04)  Standard: Coherent curriculum (0401)

Learning in IB World Schools is based on a coherent curriculum.

Practices: The school plans and implements a coherent curriculum that organizes learning and teaching within and across the years of its IB programme(s). (0401-01)

This led me to question and scan through the standards and practices documentation to examine how “stand alones” are being viewed in the enhancements. Since I wonder how they fit in with this idea of “coherency”, (which was not defined in the glossary of terms, oddly enough) they could be problematic as they might conflict with transdisciplinary learning.

And why do I think this?-because I’ve been struggling with trying to “cover” the math standalone along with the transdisciplinary maths. At schools in which TD (Transdisciplinary) Maths and SA (Stand Alone) Maths are taught simultaneously during a unit of inquiry,  I’m sure many of you PYP educators share my pain and are trying to “fit” it all in while not sacrificing the main UOI.

Oh, I can hear you–

Judy, but TD Maths is supposed to be embedded naturally into our UOIs. We shouldn’t know where one subject begins and where ends in transdisciplinary learning. 

But math is not a noun, it’s really a verb. And unless you write units of inquiry that create the context to do mathematics organically, it hardly lends itself to transdisciplinary learning. Perhaps it is for this reason why our school has created a whole Math Programme of Inquiry (POI) around the strands of Number and Pattern & Function. Christopher Frost wrote a brilliant blog post that articulated his school’s challenge with the PYP planning puzzle: mathematics so I can appreciate why our school has attempted to create a Math POI. However, because we only developed it within those strands, in my opinion, this has further complicated the challenge of integrating math into our units of inquiry.

For example, our last Math UOI  in 1st Grade was:

Patterns and sequences occur in everyday situations.
–Patterns can be found in numbers.
-Types of number patterns
-Patterns can be created and extended.

This was our conceptual rubric for this Unit of Inquiry:

Screen Shot 2018-10-28 at 9.52.48 AM

The lines of inquiry came from the learning outcomes (which we refer to as “learning territories” at our school) from the IB’s Math Scope and Sequence, under “constructing meaning” in Phase 2 in the Pattern & Function strand.  But then this stand-alone wasn’t enough, and we had to then create a TD math focus to go with our How We Express Ourselves unit:

Language can communicate a message and build relationships.
-Different forms of media;
-The way we choose to communicate;
-How we interpret and respond.

So there we were, as a team, staring at this central idea and wondering what would be a natural match, conceptually, with this unit. We could definitely DO data handling as a component of this unit, creating graphs and charts that reflect the 2nd and 3rd lines of inquiry. However, since we were stuck on the CONCEPT (rather than the skills), we ended up focusing on the word LANGUAGE and eventually wrote another conceptual rubric based upon the conceptual understanding (from the Math Scope and Sequence): Numbers are a Naming System (Phase 1, Number), using the learning phases from the Junior Assessment of Mathematics from New Zealand–a standardized assessment that we use across all grade levels.

Screen Shot 2018-10-28 at 10.08.44 AM

Although we felt that we “covered” the learning outcomes or “territories”, we definitely felt dissatisfied with how we approached planning and learning these of concepts. Recently, I read the Hechinger Report, OPINION: How one city got math right, something stuck out at me and made me reflect deeply on our process and purpose of math in the PYP.

The top countries in education have shown that going deeper and having more rigor in middle school are the keys to later success in advanced math. Compared to high-performing countries, American math curricula are a “mile wide and and inch deep.” Students who want to go far in mathematics need a deeper, more rigorous treatment of mathematics…..

Going for depth of understanding in the foundational years, and accelerating only when students have solid backgrounds and have identified their goals, has paid off. This is progress we can’t risk undoing by returning to the failed practices of tracking and early acceleration.

Here are the questions that surfaced after reading that article and reflecting on our context:

  1. Is having TD math and SA math taught during the same unit of inquiry really “best practice”? Are we creating a “mile wide and an inch deep”?
  2. Is focusing on conceptual understandings vs. skills really the best approach to transdisciplanary learning in math?
  3. Do broad conceptual understandings help or hinder the assessment of a math UOI?

Now I’d like to add one more question after reading the Standards and Practices……

4. How can we create coherency, not only by “covering” all the learning expectations for our grade, but create authentic math connections for transdisciplinary learning?

 

Where we are in place and time with Math in How the World Works.

Our new unit began this week. Originally our upcoming Number SA Central Idea was going to be:

Making connections between our experiences with number can help us to develop number sense.

As we were beginning to develop lines of inquiry for our “learning territories”, we decided that this central idea seemed hard to approach and written for the teacher, rather than the learner. (In my opinion, if students find Central Ideas to be goobly-gook, then how on Earth can they make meaningful connections?) We went back to the IB’s Math Scope and Sequence to provide clarity and direction to developing skills.

Will mathematics inform this unit? Do aspects of the transdisciplinary theme initially stand out as being mathematics related? Will mathematical knowledge, concepts and skills be needed to understand the central idea? Will mathematical knowledge, concepts and skills be needed to develop the lines of inquiry within the unit?

When we looked at those questions, our team nodded their heads in agreement–Yes, of course this is a TD Math unit–it’s a scientific thinking unit, for heaven’s sake–the best kind to connect with!

Thus we rewrote the Central Idea and created our lines of inquiry based upon what they might be “doing” with number, recognizing that other math strands might be employed in our How The World Works unit (Central idea: Understanding sound and light can transform experience), thus combining the “Stand Alone” with our “TD Math“. Here is the unit we created:

We collect information and make connections between our experience and numbers.
–use number words and numerals to represent real-life quantities.
-subtitize in real-life situations.
–understand that information about themselves and their surrounding can be collected and recorded
-understand the concept of chance in daily events.

To be honest, I’m not sure if this is the best approach either and I spent a good amount of time cross-referencing pacing calendars and scope and sequences from other national curricula. However, this not only would help us to “kill 2 birds” with one planner, but it also helps us lean towards creating math units that develop the context of discovering vs. “being told” when and how to do math. This is true inquiry, in my mind, whether it is through a SA or a TD Math lens of learning. But when you are trying to squeeze in teaching two maths (TD and SA) during a unit then there is the challenge of approaching problem solving as a rote skill instead of having enough time for students to make decisions based on their math understanding. Documenting and analyzing those student decisions require time in order to evaluate appropriately what our next steps might be and in order to guide them towards a deeper understanding and more flexible thinking. So stay tuned.

If any other schools have been fiddling around with integrating math into units, I’d love to hear some of your stories–indeed anyone reading this blog would!! So please share your approaches in the comments below.  It benefits all of us trying to put “Principles into Practice”.

 

 

#IMMOOC: Where We Are in Place and Time- Student Agency and Models of Inquiry in a #PYP Unit of Inquiry

#IMMOOC: Where We Are in Place and Time- Student Agency and Models of Inquiry in a #PYP Unit of Inquiry

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I am stuck on the question from the #EmpowerBook: What Decisions Am I Making For Students That They Could Make For Themselves? And I am staring at this image inspired by the book Dive Into Inquiry, wondering what part of the pool are we swimming in at this part of the unit of inquiry:diveintoinquiry

When I am thinking about the type a structured inquiry approach, the learning landscape could look like the 5E Model which is helpful for designing a teacher directed lesson. While controlled inquiry might look more like the Big 6 Research Model or guided inquiry might be experienced through a provocation or series of provocations using a model like Kath Murdoch’s.While free inquiry can happen more readily through a learning landscape like Genius Hour. Of course, the nuances of these types of inquiry has more to do with how much time and space you give to students while they are engaged in the learning. Even if you don’t connect with a model, per se, I think if you are pushing the inquiry along, you probably recognize instinctively that you are in the shallower end, while if you are providing more freedom for exploration, then you heading towards the deep end. And of course, student choice and voice play a big role in this. Not enough choice creates a passive stance, while too much choice can create overwhelm and inertia in learning, depending upon how confident a student is in their ability to discover and learn on their own.

From my experience with an inquiry, I feel that there are different parts of the pool that we are swimming in at different times of an inquiry. It’s never a linear path or clear model in play because, in the PYP, each line of inquiry is a microcosm of inquiry of itself–and sometimes we need to really do handholding and scaffolding because we are developing some new and challenging concepts; other times, the kids can be absolutely independent and divergent in their explorations because they feel confident in their knowledge and skills to do so.

For example, look at our current unit from Where We Are In Place and 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

Developing the key concept of perspective through the line of inquiry of “what makes a home”, was tightly related to the key concept of connection in the line of inquiry of “how homes reflect local culture and family values”.  So we used guided inquiry with the hopes of revealing and developing these abstract ideas using a transdisciplinary approach with theatre, art, and language –because these disciplines open us up to a variety of points of views and creative self-expression.

Teacher-Question: What are 3 items that are in your home that are important to your family?: A student’s response: “an iPad to play games, a water bottle because we like to share and drink water, and my teddy bear for when I get scared.”
“Show and Tell”: Students came up with the idea to bring in items from home that reflected family values. They have brought in everything from legos, to necklaces, to family photos. And, both students and teachers, ask questions to reveal what is the significance of these things to the child and their family. 

 

What you see here are the early stages in which we are “tuning in” and “finding out” how our values and culture can be represented in different ways. We also have brought in the idea of “home” as our bodies as we consider what is going on in our brains and hearts, through mindfulness lessons.

We invited parents to come in a share a traditional folktale and read it in their home language. We had about 11 stories shared, from nearly all the continents, Students then had to deconstruct the messages or lessons in the story to determine a value from that culture.

 

Now as we come into the final weeks of inquiry, the sieve begins to tighten, as we move into our summative task: designing a home that reflects their family’s needs, culture, and values (from the line of inquiry: “factors which determine where people live”).  We want the students to create the same product, a model home.  Even though we intend to use design thinking, our inquiry is heading toward the more shallow part of the pool because this means, that we must provide a significant amount of resources and guidance to ensure their success. Although they are free to create their home in any style they choose, they must all be doing the same project, following the same timeline, and adhering to the same criteria.

So does this mean that we are stealing their agency by structuring the inquiry in such a way that drives them toward the home design? Honestly, I’m not really sure yet. My belief is that it isn’t because they are so incredibly inspired and excited to do this project, but at the same time, I hear John Spencer’s voice in my head:

What Decisions Am I Making For Students That They Could Make For Themselves?

Did we steal their agency when we gave them a pre-determined task? I mean they could have painted a picture or written a song as examples of other ways to demonstrate their understanding, right?  But in my teacher’s brain, I think they could add those elements to their home design that doesn’t detract from their self-expression.

So as I reflect on this question, I realize that I have to do my best to not micro-manage their creative process and I allow them to “own the learning”. This might mean that they might fail in some way. And it could be likely that this means collapsing elements of our timetable to allow them to complete the project to their satisfaction.

Inquiry-based learning isn’t always a clean and efficient process-no matter what model you use- but I believe that when we provide students with authentic and meaningful experiences, their agency will naturally ensue.

So it’s safe to say that my reflection on the unit and its ability to spark agency is “To Be Continued” (:

 

#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.

#SOL: 2 Minutes is All You Need to “Catch a Bubble”

#SOL: 2 Minutes is All You Need to “Catch a Bubble”

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“Think about it– we (teachers/educators) have never left school. What does that say about us?”, Chad Walsh leans in to tell me. Chad is always asking provocative questions, and his curious idea lingers in my head all day long as we explore collaboration during our professional development days.

I’ve never heard of the work done by Neil Farrelly but after we had a week-long visit from him, he’s hard to forget. He got our PYP team to playfully share our stories, explore the boundaries of our imaginations,  investigate uncomfortable places and consider different perspectives. We did this through a variety of drama tasks, which, unto itself is an unusual way to explore collaboration. This was not a passive act. We were full-on the whole time.neil

During our reflection about the week, we all had to go around quickly to discuss how we might apply some of our learning into our classrooms. Although we had lots of ideas, what “bubbled up” for my Grade 1 partner and I was to share in the “big group” a simple idea of using the “black box” to create a tuning in activity as we inquire into our line inquiry about what makes a home a home. Because we had such a short amount of time to explain, we were brief and concise.

After we shared our gleanings, the performing arts teacher excitedly comes over to tell the other Grade 1 teacher and I that she “caught our bubble” and has a bunch of lovely ideas for our upcoming unit on homes and journeys. Our presentation was maybe 2 minutes long, but Julie’s hand had ideas scrawled from the top of her palm, reaching below her wrists. It made me think about how important 2 minutes can be when sparking imagination and collaboration. How simple it can be to connect when we are listening and open to each other’s ideas.

When I reflect back to Chad’s question about what it means to “never left school”, it makes me think that we are still eager to learn, that we acknowledge that there is a fine line between ignorance and expertise and we are always exploring that edge to deepen our understanding.

 

 

#PYP: What is a Provocation?

#PYP: What is a Provocation?

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I love the International Baccalaureate but the jargon really can get you jumbled up, especially when you are new to the program. In the PYP, we use a lot of terminologies that others would just call “best practice”.  However, there is a word that pops up quite a lot: provocation.

Now someone might call it the “hook”, something that draws student’s attention into a lesson. But when I say “hook”, I don’t mean an attention grabber like a joke or cute anecdote or a routine of some sort that gets students on task. No, that’s not a provocation!   A provocation is a thoughtfully constructed activity to get students excited and engaged, but a really powerful provocation creates cognitive dissonance that throws kids into the Learning Pit (of inquiry).  Students should be examining their beliefs and ideas as a result of the provocation.

Here is a list of questions that were shared by Chad Walsh which can help filter activities and perhaps refine them in order to transform them into provocations:

  • Is the provocation likely to leave a lasting impression?
  • Is there a degree of complexity?
  • Might the provocation invite debate?
  • Might the provocation begin a conversation?
  • Might the provocation extend thinking?
  • Might the provocation reveal prior knowledge?
  • Is the provocation likely to uncover misconceptions?
  • Does the provocation transfer the ‘energy’ in the room from the teacher to the students?
  • Does the provocation have multiple entry points?
  • Can the provocation be revisited throughout the unit?
  • Might the provocation lead learners into a zone of confusion and discomfort?
  • Does the provocation relate to real life/their world?
  • Is the provocation inconspicuous and a little mysterious?
  • Might the provocation lead learners to broader concepts that tend to carry more relevance and universalitMight the provocation be best during the inquiry, rather than at the beginning?
  • Does this provocation elicit feelings?

That is a very extensive list, isn’t it?

Well, let me share a  few examples of provocations:

How We Organize Itself, The Central Idea: Governments make decisions that impact the broader community.

Students come to class that morning and are treated according to the government system that is being highlighted. (Example, Totalitarian) This goes on for a week and each day students have to reflect on what it was like to be a citizen of this type of government.

Where We Are In Place and Time, The Central Idea: Personal histories help us to reflect on who we are and where we’ve come from.

The “mystery box” (which I think originated from the work of Kath Murdoch): inside a box (or a suitcase, in this example) there is a bunch of seemingly unrelated items that students have to guess what the unit might be about. This is a “tuning in” activity. And since this is a central idea about personal histories, it might include a family photo, an old toy, some cultural artifacts or relics of things we enjoy doing, a clock, a map.

Math Stand Alone, The Central Idea: Mathematical problems can be solved in a variety of ways 

The  “sealed solution“: there are 5 envelopes that have the sum of two numbers “sealed” inside them. Students have to use the digits 0-9 only once to create those sums. What could be the sums inside?

Hopefully, this is helping you to discern what a provocation might be. Even if you are an experienced PYP teacher, reflecting and refining our provocations is something that is critical to developing our student’s learning and sparking curiosity.  A well-designed provocation will not only make it to the family dinner table conversation that night but will have a longer shelf life in a child’s mind and ultimately develops important conceptual understandings.

What have been some of your favorite provocations? What questions or engagements have led to deeper learning? Please share in the comments below so we can all benefit from your experience! (Thanks!)

Mathematics in the Primary Years Program (PYP): Negotiating Transdisciplanary Vs. Stand Alone

Mathematics in the Primary Years Program (PYP): Negotiating Transdisciplanary Vs. Stand Alone

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In the purest sense of the PYP, everything is the Unit of Inquiry (UOI), right? One of the greatest suppositions of transdisciplinary learning is to try to create enduring understandings that connect as many dots with the discrete subject areas. For example, when we think about how young children learn, when they play with blocks, they never think that they are “doing math” or “creating art” or “testing hypotheses”.  So it is our duty to match their curiosity and creativity which curriculum that is relevant, meaningful and engaging. However, as children develop and their thinking matures, we need to challenge them with more complex ideas in our inquiry-based and concept-driven approach to learning. But with Math, it is probably the one subject area that can be the most difficult to naturally incorporate into UOI and make transdisciplinary due to the demands of the mathematical concepts. 

For example, here is a How We Organize Ourselves UOI for students age 5-6 years old that works great for math:

Systems help us to make meaning and communicate.

  • systems in our community
  • ways we use systems
  • our responsibility within systems

Now, this is probably a great unit to develop the conceptual understanding that numbers are a naming system and, for a set of objects, the number name of the last object counted describes the quantity of the whole set; which can then help students to connect number names and numerals to the quantities they represent. (Phase 1, Number Strand of the IB Math Scope and Sequence).

 But then, in this same year group, you have a How We Express Ourselves unit like this:

Creating and responding to art develops an understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

  • what art is
  • how the arts communicate different messages
  • ways we respond and react to art
  • the different ways that can express ourselves through art

At first glance, you are probably thinking, duh!–this is an “art” unit, it’s gotta be Pattern…….or maybe Shape and Space for Transdisciplinary Math (TD)? I could do both, right?

Well, you could, but then you would be “exposing” students to these ideas but not necessarily really developing their conceptual understandings. To further demonstrate how challenging this decision is, think about this conceptual understanding: Shape and Space Strand: Shapes can be described and organized according to their properties;  Pattern: understand that patterns can be found in everyday situations, for example, sounds, actions, objects, nature. So now I am wondering which what part of the central idea or lines of inquiry supports either one of those strands?

You can see that unless you write central ideas and lines of inquiry that consciously make an effort to incorporate math, it can easily get nudged aside during UOI. 

Now, this example is in the early grades, imagine how difficult it gets in the upper grades! How would you write a UOI that could be a “good fit” for teaching decimals, the conversations of fractions and understanding exponents? You could, but you’d have to have a POI that leaned toward STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and have staff that is incredibly skillful at writing this curriculum so that Social Studies, the Arts, and PSPE don’t get sacrificed in the process. Most schools don’t go to such efforts. 

So thus we create “Stand Alones”, which are separate subject-specific units of inquiry, that we put into the PYP planner. There are many schools that do this for Math. Some schools do one-off or piecemeal planners for certain mathematical concepts that don’t fit into the transdisciplinary units while other schools just do this for upper year groups, yet others create a whole school Programme of Inquiry for math. (I won’t open up the conversation of how you might create a scope and sequence for math for these stand alones but please check out this blog post that details one school’s struggle to do so.)

In our school’s case, it was decided to create a POI that focused merely on Number and Pattern & Function Strands since these are the most difficult to incorporate into UOIs. With that in mind, most grade levels have TD maths running simultaneously with our Number/Pattern POI. As a disclaimer, it’s our first thinking on how we might approach improving mathematical thinking and learning at our school, so be gentle in your judgment. To create a POI for math is a daunting task, and there is no doubt that we will reflect and revise on ours.

In Grade 1, we are starting to encounter challenges when we look through the number of conceptual understandings and learning outcomes that need to be developed so we stopped and had a whole planning retreat to delve into this. As we looked through the IB Scope and Sequence and referenced the learning outcomes from other national standards, we wondered how much classroom time would it take to accomplish both Stand Alone AND TD Math?  Furthermore, is having essentially “2 Maths” (2 Math Strands) going co-currently a sensible idea-and how might we make it fit better? At the end of our discussions and debates, we mapped out the rest of the year’s TD Math. In one UOI (Where We Are in Place and Time, CI: Homes reflect cultural influences and local conditions.), we decided to not make a TD Math link because it might be “a stretch” to do so and instead to just focus on Number. Here is the Number central idea and lines of inquiry that we will cover during that time: 

Numbers often tell how many or how much
1. The amount of a number determines its position in a numeral
2. How we know when to regroup
3. How grouping numbers into parts can help us find solutions.

CONCEPTS – Function, Change, Reflection
ATTITUDES – Integrity, Confidence
LEARNER PROFILE: Knowledgeable

You can see that this unit has place value and regrouping strategies for addition and subtraction–one of the foundational conceptual understandings that must be well developed in Grade 1 and so needs more attention and time devoted to it. 

Likewise, we decided that we would make one of our units (How the World Works, whose CI we are rewriting), heavy on the TD Maths and a little lighter on the Number POI because we needed to really spend more time on developing the conceptual understandings within the Data and Measurement Strands. This is the Number UOI during that time:

Patterns repeat or grow
1. The ways patterns can be represented.
2. We use pattern to infer and to make predictions.

CONCEPTS – Form, Connection
ATTITUDES – Creativity
LEARNER PROFILE: Thinker

As you can see, our examination and reflection process is just beginning when it comes to negotiating classtime with TD Math and our Number POI. Sharing our grade level’s experience in this blog does not only reveal a bit of our thinking process but perhaps you are contemplating your school’s struggle with striking a balance between Stand Alone Math and TD Math and have an idea that would help navigate this challenge.

I’m deeply curious what kinds of conversations your school has regarding Math and what have you done to address “coverage” of concepts. Since our school is in the early days of developing and refining our Number POI, sharing perspectives and theories about using the PYP framework would be helpful to discuss and debate in our larger IB community because all of us are striving to create the best learning experiences and outcomes for our learners.  No pressure, but I’m hoping you will comment below. 🙂

 

Does your school have UOIs that were particularly successful at incorporating Math so that it was transdisciplinary?

How does your school balance TD Math and Stand Alone Math in the curriculum?
Reflect and the “How” will Come

Reflect and the “How” will Come

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It’s the final stretch of our Innovator’s Mindset MOOC (#IMMOOC) and I thought about how much of these ideas I have put into personal practice. George Couros reminds us that ” without reflection time and having the opportunity to connect your own ideas and personal learning, it is harder to go deep into the ideas or retain and share them.”

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“I reflect, therefore I learn”.  George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset

 

I’ve been trying to implement D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Reflect), with some days better than others, so it’s a practice that will require practicing. I’ve decided to use my Way of Life App to make me more conscientious by tracking this habit. But outside of formally tracking it, it has begun an inner mantra within me when it comes to my classroom: Next steps……

If we only teach students the curriculum, we have failed them. #InnovatorsMindset

As I read that passage, it got lodged in my mind and made me wonder how I could move out of my comfort zone–not just for the sake of doing so, but because it was important for my students. My students are my WHY, even if I have a limited compacity of figuring out how to empower them. And in the case of the Early Years, it’s very easy to discredit little children because they are small, egocentric, with limited skills and life experience. But they are voracious learners who genuinely enjoy challenges in the quest to be “big”. Shouldn’t I capitalize on that?  I wanted them to experience the feeling of engaging and impacting others through sharing. As soon as I made that intention, the HOW organically began to emerge.

It is commonplace in a Primary Years Programme (PYP)  IB school that classroom teachers hold an end of unit activity with parents in order to showcase the learning and create connections with our families. However, it is not a mandate at our school, because some units lend themselves nicely to sharing while others do not.  In my own classroom, I always find some way for parents to come and engage, but not always as an end of the unit celebration. Yet, I rarely invite other classrooms into my classroom. When I taught upper grades, sharing the learning was more easily done because students do more projects. But when you teach younger kids, these events are more teacher contrived and directed. I wondered if I could actually do this with 4-5-year-olds–could these students actually lead others in presenting their learning?  I know the answer to this question is YES, even if I didn’t know the HOW to empower them.

During this unit, one of our key concepts was Reflection, so I often would do a powerpoint of pictures of the ways we’ve been learning about our central idea, which in this case was: We appreciate the patterns in the natural world and the ones that we create. (It was under the How We Express Ourselves Transdisciplinary Theme). These provide “check points” in their understanding, and allows me to see their reactions and engage them in a discussion. During our final reflection (last week), it occurred to me that this was a unit that naturally lent itself to an end of a unit parent presentation. However, I wanted to try an end of the unit presentation that involved a larger community and invited classrooms as well. I felt in this way, my students could start seeing themselves as leaders in learning, even if they are “little kids”.  I knew they needed to have the experience of leading others, and I believed that it was possible for them to do so.

People never learn anything by being told; they have to find out for themselves.

-Paulo Coelho-

So, I had to get this out of my brain and into their hands. During morning meetings, I asked the students, and they all agreed–let’s invite our friends from other classrooms. Game on! So we listed all the different ways we learned using a modified version of this Visible Thinking Routine. In these discussions, they generated the ways they “liked learning about patterns” and then I guided them in the sorting process into subject areas, which we have been referring to perspectives (another one of the Key Concepts during this unit). This was the Connection part of the routine. (I didn’t draw lines, I circled them in different colors and then reorganized them based upon these perspectives). Then from these groupings, students voted on what they liked best in that category and why they liked it–the Elaboration part. This took a couple of meetings before we determined the “winners” in these categories. Once we had streamlined the activities, I offered some ways that we might share these activities with them and they had to give me agree/disagree with thumbs up/thumbs down, which then became the activities for our end of the unit presentation.  Some students added their thoughts as well, which made us choose to use boxes for organizing the activities. This was the final “guide” that was created for the event and was given to parents and other teachers:

 

guide
If I had more time, I would have made this more student-friendly with pictures and less text.

 

We had 2 group sessions: the first was with parents and 1st graders and the second one was with the 3-4-year-old class and KG class. The groups saw a very brief powerpoint about the overview of the unit of inquiry. Then my students grabbed 2 visitors (ex: a parent and a buddy) and showed them one of the activities listed. I didn’t demand that they do rotations, nor did I give them time limits as our visitors explored the different activities with them. I really wanted to keep this event open-ended so that I could observe and consider how my class was interacting and engaging with others. For example, were they genuinely sharing their learning or were they just doing the activities with these adults and peers shadowing them?–In other words, how active or passive were they in their presentations?

Here are some photos of the event.

Obviously, this is version 1.0 of creating a student-led end of unit presentation but overall it was very successful. Although I set up the activities, they choose them and my EY4s led the visitors around without prompting. I was actually quite proud of their level of independence, especially since I did not prepare them for their roles with any instructions. So I was surprised that most of the visitors got to explore a multitude of activities and could accurately rate their favorite on our graph–I really thought that my students would just stick to their favorite of favorites and not move them along into the other activities.  The visitors seemed genuinely interested in the activities and my kiddos felt a sense of pride in their selections. On our graph, the “art prints” were the least favorite activity and when I asked them why they thought it was rated so low, they all agreed it was because it was “too messy”.  This really made me chuckle out loud, as well as ponder how much aversion there is to “messy” play. Something I am going to think about more deeply as we entered into our next unit.

I don’t think that this event would have been as successful if I hadn’t spent the time reflecting on my students’ learning, thinking of their “next steps” and giving them the opportunity to develop the mindset of being leaders in their learning. I wonder what impact this will have on my students, as well as the classes who were invited. However, I think small steps, made often enough can make a big impact in the learning within a classroom. I wonder what will be the overall result of this event–will my students began to see themselves differently? Has this helped them to demonstrate another level of maturity as they develop agency in their learning? As I pose these questions, I will observe and continue to reflect on the impact student-led events like this have on my learners.

 

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Trandisciplanary Learning

Trandisciplanary Learning

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Transdiciplanary -that sure is a mouthful to say and I think it might take me a lifetime to master but I love the process. I think of it as trying to link as many subject perspectives into a single learning context. A bottle neck of connections. In this case, it was the Central Idea: Humans have values and belief systems that can impact their actions.

As we embarked upon this inquiry, I wanted the students to ponder:

  • How do we know what people believe in? (key concept: form)
  • How do we know if the opinions we have about things are truly accurate (key concept: perspective)

So we began with our literacy link, investigating facts vs. opinions in the books that we had pulled from the library for this unit.  I asked them to do some close reading (and yes, I used the magnifying glasses to illustrate this point), thinking of themselves as “data detectives”digging for clues. Students had to record this information in their journals. Later on we discussed what kind of data was commonly found, and if this was fact or opinion–how can we tell the difference in books, which they recognized as numbers, figures and dates.

After tuning in, I posed them how we might find out what our school community believes in.So now enters the math link, looking at the data management strand of our standards.The students agreed on a survey, in which we spent a couple of lessons developing their understanding of the mathematical principles of collecting and organizing data. We talked about 3 important elements to accuracy in our survey results:

  1. Good survey questions yield accurate data.
  2. We can’t assume answers, we must ask for clarification if we are unsure of their answers.
  3. The larger the survey sample, the more reliable our results.

The students then designed simple, yes/no/maybe questions about various beliefs, which mostly focused on supernatural elements like Do you believe in God?  Do you believe in ghosts?

Students all agreed on a sample size of 30 respondents for their surveys, and started roving the corridors to ask their questions. Afterwards, we analyzed our data, and the students reflected on their results, which then circled back to literacy, in which they had to write these reflections. The students had no idea that they were doing “math” or “literacy” of course. They just knew it was “unit” time, and I think this is the key to what it means to this crazy word that I can hardly spell: TRANSDISCIPLANARY.

 

So now we segue way to how we can communicate our findings to our school community. Many ideas were suggested but we decided to use graphs. I toyed with teaching them the Excel program, but I determined that they really needed to focus more concretely on the math vs the technology–at least for now. So then began a couple serious math lessons on creating pie charts, in which we reviewed fractions and angles before we even began making the pie charts. When we made the pie charts, discussion arose about whether or not we should color them, and if we should use the same colors or different colors. Also, whether certain colors represented certain ideas; for example Yes should be green or yellow.  At the end, the students agreed to let students represent their findings individually, and be open-minded to displaying their results in the way they wanted. I thought this was an interesting discussion, and it was a natural link to what they not only knew about each other socially and culturally but their beliefs about artistry. img_0397

What I loved about this project, which grew out of a couple of questions, was that the students were highly engaged and involved–not in math, not in literacy, not in art–but in LEARNING!  And although this unit is still underway, the thinking hasn’t ended because the project did; it continues on.

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