Tag: Unit of inquiry

The PYP Planner: The Challenges in Designing an “Enhanced” Collaboration Tool

The PYP Planner: The Challenges in Designing an “Enhanced” Collaboration Tool

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Ever since we decided to give one of the “enhanced” planners from the Programme Resource Centre a try, we have been reflecting on our planning process. Do these planning templates actually “enhance” our planning process? Moreover, how might our planner be a reflection of Who We Are? Between our frustration with the “enhanced” template and our school’s own initiatives, we thought it would benefit our planning if we co-constructed our own PYP planner.

The Process

In order to approach these questions, we used design thinking to navigate our discussions and our guide us on this journey. As you can see from the graphic below, it is not really a linear process but one that involves constant dialogue and reflection along the way.

Empathize and Define

We launched our discussions during teacher in-service days when we had a fair amount of time to explore and worked in mixed grade-level groups. As you might know already, schools can either use one of the planners provided by the PYP or develop their own planner based on the collaborative planning process. We started by examining the current “enhanced” planner that we had adopted earlier that year and had groups discuss its Pros and Cons, carefully considering…

  • The different elements of the PYP framework in the planner
  • The amount of “boxes”
  • The layout
  • Visual elements like colors and icons
  • The leading questions
    • Do they help your planning conversations? Why or Why not?

These conversations lead us to think about what is the purpose of the PYP planner and its role in collaboration. We took some time re-reading and reflecting on the IB’s document about the collaborative planning process before we researched different templates that other schools had created. Groups analyzed the templates and took notes on what they liked about each planner. Based on these conversations, we came up with some criteria that we wanted to in our own planner:

  • The essential elements of the PYP UOI planner.
  • Color coding for collaborative phases to help them know when they needed to be dipping back into the planner.
  • Some links to helpful documents or terms in case people had doubts about what to put in boxes.
  • Sections that clearly defined what the specialists were doing in their classes.

Ideate

Groups began to sketch out ideas and started to create their own versions in their teams. They could use either Google Docs or Google Slides to create their template. Their creations lead to many interesting conversations and lively debates. Eventually, we came back together and teams analyzed each other’s potential prototypes and we voted on one.

Prototype and Testing

The purpose of a prototype is to provide a representation of what a “final” design could be like. It gives the opportunity to analyze potential flaws and where there might be improvements. With this in mind, we gave the agreed-upon prototype a spin during our upcoming UOI planning. After the teams had a chance to use it, I met with them to discuss what they liked and didn’t like about it. I took notes and then made adjustments to create a final draft planner. I shared the draft planner and got feedback on its elements again. I created an exemplar and through that process, I continued to make revisions that supported our school’s goals.

Implement

During the course of this year, we have been using this final version. There are things that have worked and didn’t work with it. So even though we went through many iterative cycles, it’s not easy to create a planning document.

Do Betters

If I had to do this all over again, these are the areas that I think deserve more “air time” in the overall design of the planning document.

Collaborative Practices: To think that a one-size-fits-all planner is going to improve collaboration is naive and, in hindsight, I think an examination of our collaborative practices would have been a better place to start. Not only would it address the EMPATHIZE component better, but would have helped us DEFINE what we really needed in order to truly personalize our planner.

Connecting the head with the heart: Although our template definitely supports more understanding of the content in different subjects, supporting transfer is really tricky. Thinking through how we can get students to acquire knowledge and skills throughout the inquiry and make transdisciplinary connections is really a big goal of our learning framework. Moreover, how might their learning transfer into action? This is definitely something that we have to put front and center in our re-design.

Cultivating and Curating Curiosity: Evidencing the learning on the planner has been the hardest part of the planner to fill out. During the inquiry, teachers rarely remember specific questions that students asked unless they are captured on sticky notes or posters. Using digital platforms to upload pictures or learning artifacts is often a better source of documentation than our planners. This is an area that we must unpack more and consider how we can support assessment practices that develop learner-centered approaches and inform teachers.

I’m sure more ideas and reflections will emerge as we work to co-construct a meaningful PYP planner that supports our goals. I’m wondering what other considerations might be out there, but am hopeful that they will emerge as we move forward during the re-design of the planner.

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”.

 

 

#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?

#PYP: Are We More than Data? Units of Inquiry that Develop the Digital Lives of Students

#PYP: Are We More than Data? Units of Inquiry that Develop the Digital Lives of Students

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Have you stopped to consider what this might mean for ourselves and students?

“Cambridge Analytica is just the tip of the iceberg, and this problem doesn’t begin and end with Facebook,” Evan Greer, the campaign director for the Internet activism group Fight for the Future, told me when I asked about last week’s media circus. “It’s not even just big tech companies; retail chains, hospitals, and government agencies are vacuuming up massive amounts of sensitive personal information about all of us. We’re seeing now how that data can be used not just to invade our privacy, but to manipulate how we think.”

Vanity Fair: Why the Privacy Crisis is Bigger Than Facebook

I’ve been thinking about how people and governments are responding to the Facebook privacy scandal, wondering how I, as a digital citizen should respond and how schools, as citizen developers, are considering what might need to shift or change in curriculum.  Of course, this seems obtuse of me to think that schools are holding staff meetings and having conversations about this. Probably most of us haven’t even changed our privacy settings on our personal accounts, either due to ignorance or indifference–what’s the point?–they got our data anyhow! That may or may not be true. But what I do know if that we have a chance to change the trajectory of our student’s digital’s lives, as educators, we should be reflecting and responding to this opportunity.

In the past, I promoted the launch of a BYOiPad initiative starting at Grade 3. I wanted to further expand this initiative to Grade 2 because of its success. When first discussing this idea, we consciously decided to do a BYOD initiative instead of investing in a 1:1 program because of the unique opportunities that this would create in shifting attitudes; students and families would come to see that technology is not a toy, instead it is a tool because these were personal devices, and so they had to consider their responsible use of it. Needless to say, this created real and purposeful contexts for developing digital citizenship.

In the beginning, however, we went for tech and digital citizenship lessons that weren’t embedded into our units of inquiry. These were one-off lessons and usually in response to concerns we had in the learning. But into our second year, there were so many challenges and misconceptions that cropped up, we decided that we would have to write a digital citizenship unit into our Programme Of Inquiry (POI)  in the year group that launched the BYOD (3rd grade) so that they could create a deeper understanding of the tool (iPad) that they were using. This was the Where We Are In Place and Time unit.

The use of mobile devices has changed the way we work and play.

  • How digital technology works (function)
  • Changes in society and culture (change)
  • Our responsibility as digital citizens (responsibility)

And what ensued? Self-initiated and authentic student action.  Why? Because it ticked all the boxes for a well-written unit of inquiry:

Engaging:  Of interest to the students, and involving them actively in their own learning.

Relevant:  Linked to the students’ prior knowledge and experience, and current circumstances, and therefore placing learning in a context connected to the lives of the students.

Challenging: Extending the prior knowledge and experience of the students to increase their competencies and understanding.

Significant: Contributing to an understanding of the transdisciplinary nature of the theme, and therefore to an understanding of commonality of human experiences.

Making the PYP Happen

In that unit, students not only developed knowledge of how the internet works and what a “digital footprint” is but more importantly a critical understanding of questions that mattered to them like “What is cyberbullying” and “Do I have technology addiction?”  So this is where the conversation began within our curriculum but now I have to wonder where it has gone next. hmm…..

Naturally, this experience has shaped me and my attitudes toward technology. And I feel strongly that schools shouldn’t squander the chance to include it into their curriculum.

So as I think about the learning opportunities that can arise in our upcoming How We Express Ourselves unit, I get excited about how we can incorporate more robust digital experiences as a meaningful context for students. Here’s the unit:

The language we use can communicate messages and develop relationships.

  • Different forms of media (form)
  • The way we choose to communicate will affect relationships. (reflection)
  • How we can interpret and respond  (causation)

scopesequencedigital citizenI’ve been examining standards and curriculum sources like Common Sense Media that address the concepts and skills that need to either be embedded or explicitly taught.  Obviously, those lines of inquiry are perfect for developing our digital behavior and we have access to a wonderful resource called NearPod to help support the learning. Also, using our SeeSaw classroom account creates a safe haven to test out concepts around social media and Flip-Grid provides another layer of online interaction for our 1st graders. I think these sorts of platforms give us a “digital playground” for our students to experience the ups and downs of life online.  They also get to develop their awareness and maturity around its use, while applying the critical thinking skills and skepticism of information that we get online.

As we begin to launch this unit, I am wondering about what other educators’ experience has been–I’d love to learn from the observations and struggles that you have encountered.  Please share! Because our humanity far exceeds the borders of our data, and we need to be thinking about how we can educate, not only ourselves but most importantly the Mark Zuckerbergs of tomorrow.

 

 

 

#PYP: 3 Things to Consider when Evaluating a Programme of Inquiry

#PYP: 3 Things to Consider when Evaluating a Programme of Inquiry

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The Programme of Inquiry is a living document.

So it’s not a surprise that around this time of year, many PYP coordinators are getting staff to hover around the Programme of Inquiry, taking a critical stance into the what and how we do teaching and learning in the classroom. Often times we thumb through the guide on developing a programme of transdisciplinary learning and wonder if our central ideas meet the criteria, and see if we have horizontal and vertical alignment of the key concepts, learner profile attributes and ATLs.  If a school is really thorough, they will make sure that there aren’t any conceptual gaps, particularly in science and math, and ensure that units of the same flavor aren’t repeating themselves. I find this simple task of deeply examining our POI a vital component of what makes a PYP school unique because, in so many ways, it is an inquiry into Who We Are, as a school, digging into the written curriculum, discussing the breadth and depth of our curriculum. This sort of professional conversation and debate are what creates a dedication to quality learning and ownership into the school culture.

But I think, not many schools really poke or probe their units of inquiry to see if the ideas are even worth inquiring into. They spend more time wordsmithing them instead of challenging the value of them. Investigating the Programme Of Inquiry (POI) with a good measure of curiosity and openness to change can really enable schools to rewrite units so that they are engaging, relevant, challenging and significant (Making the PYP Happen)  to the learners and the context that you find your school in and be innovative with your curriculum.

Here are 3 things that you could consider when looking at units of inquiry:

Why over the What

I’ve seen plenty of Units Of Inquiry (UOI) that read like it is a learning objective or standard from a national curriculum.  quote-it-is-better-to-teach-a-few-things-perfectly-than-many-things-indifferently-and-an-overloaded-andre-maurois-251482Yes, developing content knowledge and skills are really important, but what’s more important is the WHY that knowledge and skill are important. I think we can all agree that if you can google it, it shouldn’t be in a line of inquiry, let alone a central idea.

Schools should be seeking to bring more innovation and inspiration into the learning environment so that students can become more empowered. So the WHY should always be about the kids.

Why would students want to learn this?

Why is learning this important for their future?

Start with Why and the What takes care of itself anyhow.

When

Not all Central Ideas should be taught to all grade levels. Yes, I understand that the rule of thumb is that they should be written in such a way that you could theoretically teach them to any grade level, however, that doesn’t mean that it’s really appropriate for ALL grade levels.

Let me give you an example. I had an early year’s Central Idea from Where We Are In Place and Time that was about personal histories. Let’s be honest, 3-4-year-olds just don’t have a lot of personal history that they can reflect on, plus time is a very abstract concept that doesn’t really develop until they are 7 years old. So, we moved it to 1st grade and it became one of the favorites of that year group since the students had ownership and pride in that inquiry.

Here’s a hint: if a unit is not suitable for an age group, then the teacher has to micro-manage and direct the inquiry in order to “get through the unit”; it’s probably out of their developmental experience and aptitude…or interest! You can choose to rewrite it so it’s more appropriate or transfer it to another year level.

How might we …….

Now every school has their unique context and challenges, but overall we should be having conversations about improving our curriculum about issues that might naturally invoke agency.

For example, last year, our school developed a special Who We Are unit in which every grade did the same Central Idea (Our choices and actions as individuals define who we become as a community.) which included specific lines of inquiry that developed our understanding and appreciation about the local culture and traditions. These lines of inquiry also gave our local staff an opportunity to be more involved in the learning, thus providing more voice for our instructional assistants.

However, thinking ahead for next year, we’ve been inspired by Teaspoons of Change and our conversations may shift into examining and reflecting on how we can promote the UN Global Goals. Personally, I’d love to see that!

Global-Goals

So perhaps you could be wondering how might we incorporate more……..

  • Computer Science and System’s Thinking
  • Financial Literacy
  • Sustainability
  • Design Thinking
  • Entrapreunual skills
  • Equity Issues
  • Nutrition and Fitness
  • Digital Citizenship
  • Artistic behaviors
  • Well-being and social-emotional learning

into the Programme of Inquiry. These ideas are just a smattering of things that could be brought into your written curriculum so that it is challenging, engaging and relevant for your learners.

At the end of the day, we want units of inquiry that inspire our learners and develop student agency-right?! Spending time as a staff having dialogue and debate is not silly nor a waste of time. It’s a wonderful opportunity to have deep professional conversations, and come to an understanding of how we live out, not just the mission and vision of our schools, but also IB’s aim to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

Hopefully when you consider the important questions of Why?, When? and How Might We..., your school’s Programme of Inquiry will come into greater focus.

#PYP “Pre-packing” vs. “Unpacking” the Central Idea: Design Thinking Based Approach to Writing Units of Inquiry.

#PYP “Pre-packing” vs. “Unpacking” the Central Idea: Design Thinking Based Approach to Writing Units of Inquiry.

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Anyone who teaches the Primary Years Program knows preciously what I mean by the word unpack. But just for clarity sake, let me explain:

Unpack (verb): to explain and define the key conceptual understandings and “big words” used in a central idea and lines of inquiry, usually as a part of “tuning into” a new unit of inquiry.

Depending on the unit of inquiry, teachers can choose to go a more traditional path to explain the big words or they can create provocations that awaken the meanings. I suppose it depends on how much weight you want to give to these keywords or how long you want to dwell on them. Each unit is sort of unique in that way.

In an earlier post (#PYP The Sound and Light of Using Design Thinking To Write a Unit of Inquiry), I explained the experiment and struggle of using design thinking to construct a unit of inquiry. This past week, we presented two different “prototypes” of a central idea for a How The World Works unit that we are creating for our Grade 1 students. Here are the prototypes:

Version 1.1: Understanding energy can lead to discoveries and help us predict its behavior.

Version 1.2 Exploring light and sound can lead to discoveries and open up new possibilities.

When we presented these central ideas, we discussed them one by one and asked them what words they connected to and what did it make them think about. This was a very revealing exercise! The first reaction to the central ideas:

“Wow, that is long and hard sounding”

Second of all, only a handful of our 34 kids had much to say about the scientific concepts in either central idea, showing a deep need to develop real content knowledge.  Third of all, our English language learners preferred “light and sound” over “energy”, which was something that we needed to put a high emphasis on since we have a large group of them. Last insight was that they made the connection with the words exploring and discoveries to “finding out”, which then evolved into the idea of a “science experiment lab”–these words got an uproar of excitement in the group. They began seeing themselves as scientists, creating all sorts of investigations.

At that point, we voted on whether we would explore “energy” in general or if they wanted to just focus on “light and sound”.  The latter was the most popular with both our ELLs and our girls (which made me go, “hmmm….”) in high numbers for the vote.

So then I tried to capture the ideas that the students resonated with, while still honoring the nature of this transdisciplinary theme, and wordsmithed some new ones. Our grade level team discussed and debated them, which is an important aspect of using design thinking.

Central Idea, Version 1.3: Experimenting with light and sound can lead to discoveries and innovation.  

Team comment summary:

” I think it’s 1 dimensional, with the word experiment in it because there are many ways to explore light and sound that isn’t through experiments. “; 

“This sounds like an upper-grade unit because they can do more research into the innovation part”;

“Yeah, we’d have to unpack the word innovation and they don’t have much context for that concept yet”. 

Central Idea, Version 1.4: How living things hear sounds and see light impacts their experience of their world.

Team comments summary:

“Kids this age love animals, so I think they would really enjoy the learning.”; 

“Yeah, this is very Grade 1 friendly and we need to develop the concept of living vs. non-living”;

“Oh, and we could discuss sonar with underwater animals and how bats use echolocation. They’d love that!”;

“Would this have any scientific thinking and process skills though? They really wanted to do experiments and I think we’d lose the ‘science lab’ aspect if we made this the central idea. I mean, we could do experiments showing how living things experience light and sound differently but then it would just be proving scientific facts vs. exploring with our own original ones. In our original UOI, it was all about scientific thinking so maybe it covers a different TD indicator and this one definitely feels like an inquiry into the natural laws. But maybe we could write this into a line of inquiry”.

Central Idea, Version 1.4: Human understanding of sound and light can transform their experience.

Team comments summary: 

” This invites more inquiry-how many ways do humans experience light and sight?” 

“Yeah, when I think about this, I think about how humans first harnessed fire and this sort of discovery led to so many more advancements, as people tried to turn night into day.”

“Oh, totally– this has more of a transdisciplinary approach because we not only have the science bit with natural vs. artificial light but then you have social impact of candlelight to electricity.” 

“But if we only focus on humans, then this unit might not be as interesting as the one with animals. The concepts within electrical energy would be better for older kids. Our 1st graders would appreciate more the context of how animals and plants have senses that detect light and sound in different ways.”

” Good point-How about we just drop the word ‘human’ so we can keep it open for other living things and see where this unit takes us?”

Nods in agreement……..

So here is the new prototype that we are going with for our UOI:

Central Idea (v. 1.5): Understanding sound and light can transform experience.   

Lines of inquiry        

  • How living things hear sound and see light (perspective)      
  • Transformation of energy (change)
  • Ways we use the scientific process (reflection)

       Related Concepts:  Energy, Impact, and Transformation

Attitude: Enthusiasm, Creativity, Curiosity                              LP: Reflective, Thinker, Inquirer

Although this process may have taken longer than we would have liked, it was important to reflect on the needs of our students as well as appreciating what fascinates them and promotes curiosity. When I think about how the PYP has been reviewed, I think this exercise in Design Thinking honors the new emphasis on Learner Agency. In the new IB documentation, it states:

Your understanding of the learner is the foundation of all learning and teaching and will influence how you support student agency, and how the learning community considers children’s rights, responsibilities and identities.

Agency is present when students partner with teachers and members of the learning community to take charge of what, where, why, with whom and when they learn. This provides opportunities to demonstrate and reflect on knowledge, approaches to learning and attributes of the learner profile.

–The Learner in the Enhanced PYP–

Even though I think this is our first iteration at developing learner agency through “pre-packing” the Central Idea with student thoughts and viewpoints, I still believe that we have honored the core of the PYP programme and moreover have really carefully considered our learners over pulling units of inquiry out of the archives to see which one might “fit”. For our team, we have a higher level of excitement going into this unit (and maybe a little trepidation), knowing that we can’t wait to surprise and inspire them with the provocations and challenges that this Central Idea will bring.

How does your team approach honoring student voice and choice? Have you ever “pre-packed” a unit of inquiry (other than Exhibition or PYPX)?

Central Ideas: The Good, The Bad and The Messy. How the Primary Years Program Can Rethink and Define Them

Central Ideas: The Good, The Bad and The Messy. How the Primary Years Program Can Rethink and Define Them

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The Primary Years Program is a challenging curriculum. As you work in this framework, it forces you to put all of your educational values under the microscope and really analyze what you truly believe about how children learn best.  Often the ideas sound good on paper but can really be a struggle in practice, especially depending upon the constraints their school puts upon them with math and literacy programs. As a coordinator who works with new-to-IB staff, getting them to “drink the Kool-Aid” isn’t always an easy sell, especially at first because all the jargon overwhelms them. But I think that the first step to convincing new PYP teachers that this is the best approach to learning out there is the central idea. Well written central capture students interest and make for powerful inquiries.

So how do you know if your central ideas are “bad”?  Here’s the main clue: Your teachers say “huh, what does this mean?” when they look at it. I’ll share an example to clarify:

Natural materials are used to inspire and express ideas. (How We Express Ourselves)

This is bad for all sorts of reasons–it’s ambiguous yet narrow focus on “natural materials” and the words “inspire” and “express” seem to be subjective in this context. These are two things that jump out at you. But what did you say after reading this? Let me guess:  “huh, what does this mean?”    Yep, that’s the hallmark of a failed attempt at a central idea.

What about messy? Well, I love this handy-dandy guide to developing a central idea that I’m pretty sure ever PYP school references at some point in their review of their Programme of Inquiry (POI). It’s well-intentioned and tries to be thorough, but when you put pen to paper, you can really get some gobbly-gook.  This part, below, is what causes some major mumbo-jumbo in our fabrication of central ideas:

How do I know if I have written a good Central Idea?

 Did you include two or more concepts in your statement?

 Have you used an active, present-tense verb?

 Did you avoid using proper and personal nouns?

 Did you avoid the use of to be (is, are) and have verbs?

 Did you write a complete sentence

You couple this with the advice in the Developing a Transdisciplanary Programme of Inquiry, and you can really have some creative wordsmithing. I say this all respectfully, especially since the PYP is undergoing a big review at the moment, but put yourself in the shoes of a new IB educator.

developing a transdisciplanr
From the publication: Developing a Transdisciplanary Programme of Inquiry

It takes a sharp eye to see the delineation between the 2 versions and you got to remember that this is a central idea for a 1st grader/Primary 1 student–words like organization, endeavor, and enterprise take a week (at least) to unpack before you get to those 4 lines of inquiry. You can totally appreciate why new IB teachers are absolutely overwhelmed with the notion of writing or revising a central idea. Furthermore, you can understand why a candidate school would just copy a sample POI that is either posted on the Online Curriculum Centre or on another IB school’s website.  Just the other day I was having a coffee with a candidate’s school appointed PYP coordinator. At first, I didn’t quite understand her intention- her school’s POI looked fine, decent central ideas- but after an hour I came to understand that what she actually wanted me to help her with writing lesson plans for her teachers. Her teachers needed help with lesson planning because they personally hadn’t gone through the process, they had no skin in the game and definitely no understanding of what it means to do an “inquiry into…..”

But this goes back to the point I was making–a good central idea should generate more possibilities. If a teacher can’t look at a central idea and come up with a place to start, then the inquiry is going to get messy.  Just look at that central idea above: People create organizations that solve problems and support human endeavor. They will probably just fumble around for at least a week instead of hitting the ground running doing a bonafide inquiry because they can’t get past those words. The words–the ones that the summative task is supposed to be built around–is a major stumbling block, especially for a 1st-grade teacher. Let’s be honest, right?If the central idea is messy than it typically demands that we put a stake in the ground at some point and say, “ok kids, this is where you need to go with your inquiry–it’s nearly summative time!” I know IB understands these challenges, which is why it is painfully taking a knife to the PYP and rethinking how we can approach central ideas.

Let me give you another example from a 2nd-grade unit at our school:

The population of a community can determine the structure of its organizations within it.

When we wrote that central idea under How We Organize Ourselves theme, we followed the handy-dandy aforementioned guide. I’ve highlighted the concepts that we pulled out the IB Social Studies Scope and Sequence. The purpose of this unit was to help students start gaining an understanding of government and economics that was lacking in some of the future P4 and P5 units. The summative task is to have the students form a “city council” and create a community with a given population, using a budget to provide for its goods and services. So that was the intention of this wordy central idea. This year, when a new 2nd-grade teacher came in and looked and looked at this unit, her response to the central idea indicated that it was messy. In our last meeting, we discussed how well the kids, who LOVED this unit, understood the central idea. She said that she spent more time focusing on the lines of inquiry because of the wording of the central idea, but that ultimately yes they understood the relationship between population and community design. The fact that she circumvented the Central Idea is definitely a symptom of a messy central idea. So we thought about ditching all those big words and simplifying the central idea to reflect a more kid-accessible central idea:

People design communities to fit the needs of its population.  

(I think we have transformed it into a “good” central idea–or at least a better iteration.)

So, a perfect central idea isn’t so wordy and nebulous that you can’t find a place to start, nor creates an exhausting level of teacher content delivery or misguided student research. What do I mean about this? Look at this:

Signs and Symbols can be used to communicate messages through different media.

Screams transdisciplinary right?–Instantly specialists want to jump in and connect with the ideas of signs and symbols, and it’s an easy link with literacy, social studies, technology, and math. Not to mention that it’s got friendlier language so we can dive right into the inquiry. And assessment organically emerges, with the kids being able to contribute to what a summative task might look like. It’s interesting, it’s engaging and student action is prominent.

So let me summarize my definition of a “good” central idea:

  • Transdisciplinarity ( I don’t know if that’s a word, but it is now!) can happen organically.
  • It is easily understood by the teacher so they know how to start the inquiry.
  • The students can access its language.
  • A clear summative task naturally arises and students can provide input into how it can be assessed.
  • It connects students to concepts that will be needed in future units of inquiry.

Now, perhaps you share my opinion about central ideas or you may want to lambaste me. This is a hotly contested area between educators. Fair enough. But as a coordinator, I make a good stab at being knowledgeable and reflective, however, the only thing that I am certain of is my experience as an educator with this framework.  Perhaps your experience matches mine or maybe you think I’m speaking blasphemy–fantastic! Let’s debate! I’d love to hear your definitions–what are the attributes of a “good” central idea?

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9 Reasons Why You Need to Teach Digital Citizenship

9 Reasons Why You Need to Teach Digital Citizenship

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Nowadays everyone is on a mobile device of some sort–kids included. Thanks to technology, we are more connected than ever. Oh bless, isn’t it wonderful?! But as keen as schools are to use technology, the concept of digital citizenship is often left untouched. It’s almost as if by virtue of using technology that acquiring the habits of digital citizenship just happens like osmosis or something. Well, I’d like to challenge that because I don’t think social habits can be learned by proxy; I think they have to be ingrained in us so that we are acculturated to act appropriately, in our physical world or in the online world. Here is some food for thought, the 9 reasons why you should explicitly teach digital citizenship:

  1. Students spend an enormous amount of their waking hours on their devices. Shouldn’t that time be well spent?
  2. Digital technology is progressing at an exponential rate, therefore the norms of its use are always expanding. We need to evolve with it.
  3. Digital citizenship is more relevant and meaningful than learning the dates of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Lewis and Clark, yes that’s interesting but not as germane to the future that our students will live in.
  4. Speaking of the future, your students now have to concern themselves with leaving a digital footprint-don’t you think they should know what that is?
  5. If you don’t address their digital activities, then it will waste precious learning time on dealing with behavior that happened online (and not necessarily DURING class time). Moreover, we now have to worry about cyber-bullying. As adults, we have a responsibility to cut that off at the pass by addressing it early on in their digital lives and not as an afterthought when a student attempts suicide.
  6. Because sharing without citing is NOT caring, it’s stealing. Kids need to understand and develop empathy for the content creator that they might otherwise plagiarize.
  7. Safety is more than not talking to strangers at the park, but also online. Kids need to learn how to develop boundaries and stay safe in the virtual world as well.
  8. Moreover, about boundaries, the impact of screen time is yet to really be known. What is a healthy balance? Kids need to appreciate putting limits on this and cultivating a life offline as well.
  9. Young people need to understand what is internet security and how do they keep their passcodes and identity safe from hackers. Kids are even more vulnerable than adults, so it’s our duty to protect them through educating them.

As a BYOiPad school, sometimes it’s easy to assume that just because we use this technology daily means that the students always use it in the highest ways for their learning.  Even though we are an International Baccalaureate school, we fall into the same trap as many other schools do and take teaching digital citizenship for granted. As educators, I think we are still evolving in our understanding, not just in how we can use it as a tool but how we can personalize the learning and make it more dynamic. But thinking of awesome ways to use technology is only one dimension of learning, we need to broaden the scope of its impact, not just on the learning but the learner.

What is Digital Citizenship? Here it is, in a nutshell.

I have weekly collaborative meetings with my intermediate teachers, however mostly in 1:1 situations and I’ve been considering how these isolated conversations are helpful but that we need to have a larger scale meeting in which we discuss our use of the iPads and how we develop digital citizenship with our students. In particular, is developing the key skills that they need in their digital life enough in the context of occasional class meetings or embedded in some of the technology or literacy lessons really enough?  And are we failing to address their needs due to our own shortcomings as digital citizens because it’s hard to teach what we ourselves don’t know?  As Sarah Brown Wessling says, “The change begins in a culture happens when everyone is elevated to the status of a learner.” I think recognizing that we are all learners here, having the capacity to admit that we don’t know everything about everything, especially when it comes to technology and digital citizenship is the first step.

As a result of these conversations, my 3rd-grade teacher admitted that it’s necessary to have a unit of inquiry that addresses some of these issues. 3rd grade is when we begin the BYOiPad policy. We have created a unit under the transdisciplanary theme of Where We Are in Place in Time that he will teach this year so that we have time to reflect and revise for next year. Here is the Central Idea and the lines of inquiry:

The use of mobile technology has changed the way we work and play.

Lines of Inquiry:

  • How digital technology works (function)
  • Changes in society and culture (change)
  • Digital citizenship (responsibility)

I’m excited that he was open to taking a risk and willing to explore the topic of digital citizenship. I know that this inquiry will only be the beginning and not the end of the students’ learning and I am looking forward to seeing what emerges from the perspective of the students.

If other schools and teachers have attempted to delve into this topic in their classrooms, I’d love to learn more about how you approached it. Please share ideas in the comments below. We are all learners here and your experience teaches me as well as other readers of this post.

Thank you for your contribution to education!

 

 

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