This question was recently posed to me and I believe it plagues many curriculum leaders so I am going to address it in this post.

In my opinion, the Written Curriculum is the driving force behind dynamic teaching and learning. So, a successful Programme Of Inquiry has to be viewed through the big picture of the school’s context and the more microscopic lens of the grade level. [bctt tweet=”Teachers engaging and challenging central ideas are vital and we need more single-subject teachers voices to be heard in order to have a more transdisciplinary programme of inquiry.” username=”judyimamudeen”]

However, it’s a process and it’s ongoing. Yet, I’ve tried to summarize some essential practices when determining how close a school is to achieve a “perfect” POI: Coherence and Learning Power. 

Macroscopic: How Do We Develop a Coherent Programme of Inquiry?

Most of the “big stuff” is answered in the PYP document, Developing a transdisciplinary programme of inquiry such as examining the vertical and horizontal alignment of concepts and subject-areas, as well as closely looking at the language of the central ideas so that they are not value-laden and provide for multiple perspectives.   This is the go-to document!

Just a few more thoughts on some minutia for curriculum leaders to consider…

• The “coverage” of the transdisciplinary theme indicators. For example, looking the Sharing the Planet theme, at what year level are they inquiring into ‘rights and responsibilities”, “the struggle to share finite resources with other people”, “access to equal opportunity”, and “peace and conflict resolution”? By the way, these indicators are NOT in any sequential order so the central ideas that are created around these would reflect the developmental appropriateness of the students.
• The “coverage” of Key Concepts within a theme. For example, as you look vertically at whole school POI, does your school’s  How the World Works units only examine this theme through the Key Concepts of Form, Function, Causation, Connection, and Change–are you lacking Responsibility or Perspective or Reflection? Cross-check for this. This same examination could also be applied to the Learner Profile and Attitudes.
• The “coverage” of the subject level strands. For example, what science strands are you missing?–do you have biological sciences, chemical sciences, earth and space sciences, forces and motion and scientific thinking and skills? What about your arts?- what is the balance between creating and responding units? How about “coverage” of social studies?-do you have organizational systems and economics, geography, development and movement of cultures, personal identity, and civic responsibility, and technology and innovation?
• How does mathematics fit into you POI? Are there opportunities to apply mathematical thinking and skills into the UOI so that it can be naturally embedded and transdisciplinary? What needs to become “stand alone”?–explore data such as standardized testing may help to articulate the needs of your programme.
• How can we connect dots? What units in the early grades support inquiries in the upper grades. For example, you can’t have an entrepreneurship unit in Grade 3 if they haven’t been exposed to the basic concepts of money and economics in Grade 2 or Grade 1. Or an ecosystem unit in Grade 4 if they haven’t learned about habits and cycles.  What are the prerequisite concepts that students need to explore before doing more active or abstract concepts?
• Do you need to map the TD Skills/ATLs? You don’t want kids to come to Grade 5 and be in shock when they do their Exhibition. We should be thinking about how to develop research, self-management and communication skills, in particular so that students can become life-long learners.

Microscopic: 6 Questions to determine the Learning Power with Grade Level UOIs

1. By Whom?-Teacher have excitement and interest: Has teacher friendly central ideas that are broad enough but not too ambiguous so that teachers know how to launch the inquiry and plan provocations.  I personally find that using related concepts in central ideas really help to create focus and address this challenge and is recommended in the Developing a transdisciplinary programme of inquiry guide.
2. For Whom?-Students need to “Get It”: UOIs should be some “mystery”–students should understand what they are learning about. So it has to have student-friendly language in a Unit Of Inquiry to decrease the “unpacking” of the language of a central idea. The language used in a central idea should develop a deeper understanding of a concept but not be full of so much adult-speak and gobbly-gook that kids can’t access the intention of the learning. The “big words” should be the related concepts that you are exploring.
3. What?-Go Deep Over Wide: Too much knowledge to develop in a unit of inquiry? Going deep rather than wide is an important feature of a unit. If you have to spend a lot of time “teaching” the unit’s content knowledge, then you either have to disperse the knowledge into weaker units which you can strengthen with building knowledge and skill, or you have to prioritize and streamline.
4. When?-The Sequence Matters: There are lots of approaches to this, so looking at your school calenadar will help you reflect on when certain units work best. But, my general rule would be to place the easiest conceptual units in the first term and the very hardest unit in the 2nd to the last unit is an important consideration.  (The last unit always gets side-swiped with school-wide benchmarking and celebrations, etc.., so it usually gets cut short hence the suggestion here.)
5. How?-The Process of Learning Matters: Units that dovetail into one another really help build upon the conceptual understandings of one another and there is a seamless segue of learning. Perhaps units could even be combined because the importance of ideas overlaps and compliment each other. I usually pick a general concept that acts as the uniting theme for a year level. For example, in our current POI revision, Grade 1 units are linked together through the conceptual lens of Relationships:
6. • Who We Are:  Our choices and actions as individuals define who we become as a community.
   • How We Express Ourselves: The language we use can communicate messages and develop relationships.
   • How the World Works: Understanding sound and light can transform experience.
   • Sharing the Planet: The cycle of the earth impacts living things.
   • Where We are In Place and Time: Homes reflect cultural influences and local conditions.
   • How We Organize Ourselves: The needs and wants of a community determines how it’s organized                                                             *Hopefully, you can see that there is an intention that the central ideas show a congruence to the year group’s conceptual thread of RELATIONSHIPs in the inquiry.   In this case, I am asking What is the relationship that we are exploring in this theme? 
7. Why? Student Engagement Matters: The units must be meaningful and create “sparks” of curiosity and student action. If the teacher has to drive the inquiry in order to pull it off, then it has to be scrapped and rewritten. Period. End of discussion.

These are just broad strokes of ideas, but it would wonderful if others could chime in with their suggestions and considerations.

One more thing that I’d like to add is that in schools that have the MYP and DP, I believe we need to extend these conversations beyond our PYP staff and try to develop improved articulation of our school’s programs. Backwards planning from the DP is one way to approach this but I have yet to have this experience.

I’m curious what ideas am I missing here? Can you think of other examples of evaluating the POI that has made it more impactful?