Designing for Humans: Thinking Beyond a Checklist for the Enhanced #PYP Planner

This past year we trialed a new PYP planner, and the intentions were good with letting the students’ responses to our provocations direct and lead the unit, but we ended up having a planner that was so complex that it became cumbersome to actually fully complete. It was christened “The Big Book”, which should have clued us in that this was an exercise in paperwork. Clearly, it’s back to the drawing board.

So what are “The Basics” that have to be on the planner? As I see it, there need to be 12 components that are fundamental to the planning document:

1. Transdisciplinary Theme
2. Central Idea
3. Lines of Inquiry
4. Key Concepts
5. Learner Profile
6. Approaches to Learning (ATL)
7. Questions
8. Provocations/Engagement Activities
9. Resources
10. Assessment
11. Action
12. Reflection

As I began to wonder what is the “special sauce” that would move a planning document beyond “the basics” and make this planner “enhanced”, I decided that I needed to go back and listen to the webinar that addressed this aspect of the enhancement.

My big takeaways from the webinar were:

• The document takes us through a PROCESS of CO-CONSTRUCTING learning.
• It encourages COLLABORATION with staff.
• It fosters REFLECTION.
• It not only documents STUDENT AGENCY but reminds us that this is central to the learning. Teachers need to consider the WHO just as much, perhaps more so than the WHAT.
• It influences the ROLE OF THE TEACHER and how they inspire ACTION in students to support SELF-MANAGEMENT skills.

While I considered the ideas shared, I was thinking “What would be the purpose of even re-designing the PYP planner?” I mean, they have given us a “refreshed” and updated example that we may use and other schools have already created other templates that could be integrated into our school. Truly, there is no immediate demand that schools HAVE to create their own planner.  But now schools have the liberty to design their own, yet it isn’t a mandate. So, if schools were to embark on creating their own, it would only be for the sole purpose of improving their collaborative planning at their school in an effort to increase student agency.

Agency is about listening.

Sonya terBorg

As I contemplate the benefit of redesigning the PYP planner, I wouldn’t dare create a copy and paste version of the templates shared. Not because they aren’t wonderful, but because they aren’t unique to the needs of my school.–which would be the purpose of even embarking on this journey. In my past school’s pilot of the re-designed planner, it was a hard copy only. This worked well for our initial planning session, but on-going additions to the planner weren’t possible unless you were to have the hard-copy in your possession. And because it was a “big book” it took up a lot of space on one’s desk area, which became problematic since we had 6 Units of Inquiry plus 6 stand-alone Math planners. You might imagine the frustration of all those paperwork piles in one’s workspace, which created a disdain for planning since it meant that one teacher had this A3 sized booklet taking up a lot of real estate on their desk. This was an unintended consequence of going “retro” with our planning. I wouldn’t recommend this. So, with this in mind, if the planner isn’t digital, with equal-access available to all teachers, then it’s set up to fail. That’s like putting square wheels on a bike–it is taking us nowhere with collaboration.

With this in mind, I would utilize Design Thinking, focusing on human-centered design principles of really understanding what would be the needs of the users of this planning document. Also, since human-centered design considers the interaction along with the actual “product”, the experience is of vital importance. Here is the overview of the process:

Framing the Context: Understanding our Users and Their Problems

Human-Focused Design optimizes for human motivation in a system as opposed to optimizing for pure functional efficiency within the system. -Yu-Kai Chou-

What is the challenge: Let’s be honest, the main reason why teachers don’t appreciate using the PYP planner is that it seems like a time-consuming document that doesn’t seem to support their day-to-day planning of the unit of inquiry.

So how might we design a planner that is collaborative, compelling and ultimately results in better learning outcomes and increased student agency?

Hmm…..

In the first phase of design, Planning, we have to consider the audience for this document. Teachers, right? So, when we consider feasibility, we should ask ourselves what might be the biggest barrier that we will need to overcome in order for this document to work?

I’m rather practical so as a teacher, I would say TIME poses the biggest challenge to collaboration.

Thus, when we create this document we need to think about the amount of time it might take to fill out this document, especially since we might imagine that the initial planning will involve multiple teachers who represent a variety of subject areas. Trying to get all those educators in a room can seem like putting the planets in alignment. So, if we UNDERSTAND these teachers, then we must take into consideration that this document will most likely require at least 40 minutes of time to begin the planning process, with opportunities to plug into the document to give feedback and feedforward into the learning (at least another 30 minutes of individual or grade level teacher time). Lastly, there will need a final block of at least 40 minutes for teachers to get together to reflect on how students responded to this unit of inquiry. So, with that in mind, the document, from start to finish, needs to be completed in 3 planning periods; 2 of which will include multiple voices and perspectives in the room, and at least 1 planning period in which teachers or a grade level team get together to discuss how the unit is progressing and what direction it might need to take. So let’s just say, this collaborative document takes at least 2 1/2 hours to complete, give or take 1/2 hour.

Then, as we peel the layers of the onion, we know that the 2nd biggest challenge will be ensuring that this document is truly collaborative, with the opportunity for multiple voices to be present, particularly our subject area specialists, who often feel marginalized during planning.

Furthermore, this document must create a holistic process of learning about our students, so we can create learning opportunities for our students, in that we can examine what learning came from our students. It has to fuel conversation and inspiration among teachers to develop student-directed inquiries and motivate student-led action. Moreover, it should get teachers discussing how they can access the larger community, whether local or global, to tap into resources that expand the learning outside the 4 walls of the classroom.

Lastly, when teachers engage with this document, I would want them to feel excited and anticipating the best that could happen during this unit of inquiry. I wouldn’t want this to feel like “ticking a box” but instead designing learning that changes lives. (Because, truly, that is what we are doing, every day. How cool is our job, right?!)

Learning Phase: Perspective and Use by Teachers

I know that this planner has to contain the “Basics” but I’d think about the teachers first and not the “boxes” that it needs to tick. Already I’ve made some assumptions, such as identifying some barriers and challenges to using the planner. However, those are inferences and my own biased opinions. I have yet to tap into the perspectives of the teachers directly at my school, which might produce different ideas. I must put on my researcher hat and use some of the methods of Human-Centered Design to get an accurate picture of the challenge and its possible solutions.

From a design point of view, I might start from one of the PYP planner templates shared, observing teachers “in the wild”, using the document during the collaborative planning process.  I would record reactions with the Empathy Map to evaluate their experience with the planner. Since I’m not just considering the physical experience with the document, I need to collate the responses of the emotional experience of the teachers when deciding how to help craft a new one. Remember, I’m not trying to devise a fancy planner, I want the planner to actually get teachers to have rich discussions that connect and extend the learning of students so that students can ultimately become self-motivated and feel a great urgency to take action. I’d need to be a fly on the wall, leaning in to listen and notice how planning is being “enhanced”.

Brainstorming Ideas

First of all, this is not me, alone, on my laptop or with a pad of paper and pen in hand, ready to sketch out ideas. It takes a team to cleave through the data and create mock-ups that will ultimately result in a prototype document. Every one of those template planners on shared on IB’s PYP resource page took a team of dedicated individuals to shape and mold the prototypes that we see today. And I use the word “prototype” very intentionally because no doubt these planners will evolve as those teams reflect on what works and what doesn’t work with its use. Just as our teachers have spent time reflecting and evaluating the “big book” planner that was created at my past school, all schools need to stand back and be critical of their work so that it can be refined and improved upon.

So when brainstorming ideas, it will require a group of diverse and interested educators who will not only ensure it contains “The Basics” of PYP principles but develops our teachers understanding of our student learning and improve collaboration among teachers. That’s a big ask. Needless to say, where we go from here is To Be Continued…….

If any brave and like-minded individuals want to share how their school is approaching this project, I’d be keen to hear more. Please post in the comments below so everyone can benefit from your learning and experimentation.