I am ten weeks in to being the PYP Coordinator at my new school.
And although I have previously done the role at two other schools, being an incoming coordinator can be tricky. You are coming into an organization that has history, context and a memory; filled with amazing people who are the keepers of the story of the school – where it is coming from, how it got to where it is now and how hard everyone worked to be the school they are today. And at the same time, you are also coming with another group of amazing people from other schools who have been on their own journey – building, developing and strengthening their own programs and practices, moving at all different speeds of growth and progress.
And then you find yourself responsible for supporting both groups at the same time in this same place. Navigating the delicate balance of honouring and acknowledging the history, story and growth of the returning faculty and honouring and acknowledging the experience and ideas that the new faculty bring with them.
There can be the pull of two extremes…. on one side of the spectrum looms the, “that’s they was it is done here”, and on the other side of the spectrum looms the, “at my previous school we …”.
And usually no one is at the extreme end of either side of the spectrum.
But usually everyone is somewhere along that spectrum, to differing degrees. (Myself included, I’m sure!)
So this year, I am committed to trying. Trying to understand each individual. Trying to understand the school’s history. Trying to understand the local context. Trying to understand the culture and climate that underpin everything. Trying to understand how it all comes together as one very complex, very interconnected ecosystem.
To support me in this pursuit I came up with some goals and shared them with the full faculty at the beginning of the year to help them understand the approach I would be taking as an incoming PYP Coordinator. I keep these goals as the first page of my notebook so I can refer to them and reflect on them each day.
I also developed my own Unit of Inquiry to guide my learning journey.
Function – How does the PYP work here? What are the systems, structures, processes, tools, procedures, practices, norms, and expectations currently in place?
Causation – Why is it the way it is? What has been tried in the past? What has been recently changed? Why? What are the reasons behind the decisions that put the current systems, structures, processes, tools, procedures, practices, norms, and expectations in place?
Perspective – What are the different points of view and opinions about how the PYP works here? What do long standing faculty think and feel? What do the new faculty think and feel? What do the students think and feel? What do the parents think and feel? What do long standing leaders think and feel? What do new leaders think and feel? What does the IB evaluation team think and feel?
And last but not least… but also certainly not first…
Change – What changes can we make together that will be sustainable and enduring? How can we harness change management, organizational coherence, getting everyone on board, building consensus and shared decision making to get where we want to be?
And my central idea? Well, I don’t have one yet. I want to spend my first year here exploring these Lines of Inquiry and then, after a lot of learning, and reflection (and likely making mistakes along the way!), I hope to build a conceptual understanding that captures the big idea of how to navigate a first year as an incoming PYP Coordinator.
Wish me luck!
… and also share your story and your strategies!
How have you found your footing as an incoming PYPC at a new school?
How have you found ways to honour and understand the history and growth of the new school you are joining?
How have you found ways to support incoming faculty to share their experiences from previous schools with new colleagues?
How have you found ways to support new faculty to understand the history and growth of the new school they have joined?
How have you found ways to support returning faculty to welcome and consider incoming faculty’s experiences from previous schools?
What would your central idea for that experience be?
I’ve recently joined my 4th PYP school, and each and every one so far has had some sort of “weekly PYP meeting”; a regularly scheduled opportunity for teams to come together, collaborate with one another and the PYP Coordinator.
These types of meetings have looked and felt a little different depending on the school. So I wanted to make sure that coming in as the new PYP Coordinator I wasn’t transplanting my own understanding or expectations of these meetings, but instead taking a stance of “appreciative inquiry” to learn and embrace the form and function of these meetings at my new school.
I decided that every first PYP meeting I had with each team I would frame it as a collaborative inquiry and together we would explore three over arching questions:
Why do we have these weekly PYP meetings?
How do we want these weekly PYP meetings to work?
What specifically do we want to focus on during our time together?
For each team that I met with I was transparent about why we were doing this and hopefully what it would help us achieve – meetings that felt productive, effective and enjoyable to everyone in the room. I prepared individual posters with each guiding question and invited each team member to share and document their thinking and perspective on a sticky note. I also prepared some probing questions for each over arching question to help support and scaffold their thinking.
It was fantastic! Not only did I learn more about each individual as they shared their thinking, but I could also begin to understand the team as a whole as trends and patterns emerged in their collective thinking.
As an incoming PYPC… this was treasure! Not only would it help me differentiate and personalize the support I offered each team, but it helped me model the approach of co-construction. Now these weekly PYP meetings would hopefully be something I do “with” the teams, not “to” them.
After I had facilitated this protocol with each team I synthesized the individual thinking into a collective document we could use and refer to.
From here, I will present each draft back to each team ask for feedback before it is finalized. Once it is finalized I will post it in our meeting space so we can make it visible and refer to it.
Then I will make sure to use the ideas to personalize the structure of the agenda, what goes on the agenda as well as what my support looks like during the meeting.
I envision this to be an iterative process, where we continually refer back to these documents, reflect on how they are working in practice and make ongoing tweaks and adjustments to the Why, How and What of our weekly PYP meetings.
With the ultimate goal being that everyone in the rooms feels that our weekly time together is productive, effective, and enjoyable. And, most importantly, making a positive impact on our students and their learning.
What do weekly PYP meetings look like at your school? Who decides?
How do you co-construct the learning environment and community for your weekly PYP meetings?
It’s the first week of orientation. It’s a cohort of 30 new faculty in the Junior School. Some are brand new to the PYP. Others have vast PYP experience. And I – as the brand new PYP Coordinator (a fellow newbie!) – am gifted a three-hour session to support them.
I decide to set up a Google Classroom for us to make it easy to share resources, but also to take advantage of interactive elements that will let me engage and support my new colleagues in a more personal way.
I start the session with 3 main goals. I have always loved the idea of, “no secret teacher business” and have found a similar concept of, “no secret leader business”, to be quite powerful. I want them to know what I am doing, how I am hoping to do it, and most importantly why I am doing it in that specific way.
Then we do a little activity called “Stand Up If…” where anyone in the room to whom the statement applies stands up, looks around, and then sits back down. This helps people find connections with others in the room, but also differences. It also super helpful to me as the facilitator to quickly and easily get to know my learners at the start of the session.
I quickly discovered about 40% of people in the room had PYP experience and about 60% were brand new to the program. Which I think is great! It gives both groups a community who are in a similar place in their PYP journey, but it also provides opportunities to cross-connect and learn from and support one another.
Then we moved on to “Tuning In” to what they may already know and understand about the PYP. I broke down the program into some of the central principles; so that people new to the PYP might be able to notice and name principles and practices they are familiar with from other systems of education, their national approach to education, or their teacher training.
I used a four-phased continuum where they could self-assess where they think they are.
And it was great to see that everyone in the room – whether new to the PYP or not – was able to find components of the Primary Years Program they had some familiarly with.
From there we were able to set up an “I can help with…” wall where everyone signed up for areas of the PYP they felt they could help their peers with.
It was amazing to so many names!
Next we talked a lot about picking one area of the PYP they would like to learn more about and the notion that inquiring into the PYP would be a year-long (life-long?) journey and today was merely about taking a step down that path. We settled on the mantra, “You don’t need to learn everything today, but you need to learn something”; and what that something was, was entirely in their hands.
So everyone selected an area of PYP that they would like to focus on for the remainder of the session and they found their “inquiry buddies” – people who had chosen the same area to learn about.
To support their personalized inquiry into the PYP I prepared a curated PYP library that was organized by principles, but also differentiated in terms of content. For people just starting out I linked the Principles into Practice documents and pointed them to the pages that would help them build a strong foundation. For people looking to dive a little deeper, I collected some additional resources from MyIB, Nano PD and other well-known and trusted blogs and podcasts. I also created a section for people who really wanted to explore beyond and engage with some of the research, philosophy, or elaboration on the central principles of the PYP.
From there… they were off! They had 40 minutes to decide how they wanted to collaborate with their “inquiry buddies”, what resources they wanted to focus and how they were going to document their learning.
Some choose to read IB documents.
Some chose to take a jigsaw approach and divvy up the resources and then feed back to each other.
Some chose to move to learning environments they found more conducive to their learning preferences.
After the 40 minutes were up, I brought everyone back together to facilitate a group synthesis. We used the 4 Cs Visible Thinking Routine, which helped everyone dive a little bit deeper into the thinking behind what they had read, watched, discussed or listened to.
After that, we moved on to a Design Sprint. Participants had ten minutes to put together a 2-3 minute presentation to teach their peers what they had learned about the area of the PYP the explored.
And it was amazing!
The inquiry group modeled an inquiry approach using a hand-fan as a provocation and then supporting everyone to come up with questions and a plan to explore their questions.
The concepts group shared sample Lines of Inquiry and had everyone guess which PYP Key Concepts were the lens for those Lines of Inquiry.
The transdisciplinary group made a mock-UOI and everyone had to identify where there was opportunity within the unit to integrate science, social studies, math, literacy, PSPE and the arts.
The ATL group had everyone reflect on which of the 5 ATL Skill categories they had used within this session.
It was PYP magic at its best!
Then it was time to reflect. Originally I had planned a Chalk Talk to support everyone to notice and name how they experienced the principles of the PYP in their own learning… but we ran out of time! So we briefly did a individual reflection.
I also wanted to provide an opportunity for everyone to reflect on how they are feeling as a PYP educator. So I used the Blob Tree as the reflection tool, and collected their private, individual responses via a Google Form
Finally I made transparent the plan for their ongoing support; so that they knew this was not a “one and done” PD session, but rather an ongoing journey of lots of support along they way.
Then it was time for lunch! And we were all hungry…. there is nothing like walking in a learner’s shoes for three hours to build empathy for what our students do each and every day!
The Aftermath
For me it has always been important to make the time after a personalized session like this to engage with, analyze and respond to their evidence of learning. For this particular session I did that in four ways.
I went through each and every person’s self-assessment and coded it. This allows me to see both individual data of where each person is on their PYP journey, but it also allows me to see trends across areas of the PYP. This is helpful to allow me to responsively plan support for small groups, teams, and the cohort as a whole that targets areas that they have identified wanting more support.
2. I went through all the Blob Tree reflections and read them thoroughly. This helps me keep my finger on the pulse of who feeling like they are flying high and who I may want to check in with to offer some additional TLC. I also wanted to ensure they each knew that I took the time to read their reflection – and I am a HUGE believer in the power of writing notes – so I decided to write a short message to each person responding to what they shared in their reflection
3. I also wanted to follow up with a few individuals to further personalize my support for them. This could have been because they mentioned a specific area they wanted to focus on, or appeared to need a little bit more challenge, or could benefit from a specific resource. So I sent a few follow-up Google Classroom posts with some optional suggestions and resources to these individuals.
4. I took the information from the “I can help with…” wall and transcribed it onto a digital document that I can share with everyone. That way the peer helper structure we established isn’t just for that session, but can become an ongoing part of everyone’s learning.
Overall, I was happy with how the session went. I am so blessed to have a group of 30 educators who see themselves as learners and dug right into inquiring, exploring, debating, sharing and reflecting. I’m looking forward to continuing this journey with each and every one of them throughout this year and beyond!
How do you support your PYP newbies?
What strategies, tools and advice would you share?
How do you personalize learning for the adult-learners you support?
Last week I was in a virtual PD session with educators from around the world and in one of the breakout rooms the conversation turned to student voice. Many of the educators were sharing some of the issues and challenges their school was experiencing shifting the educational paradigm to one in which adults see and value the power, purpose and place of student voice within a school context. Listening to where they were in their journey, had me reflect where we are in our journey. And I was really proud to think of all the amazing ways student voice is honored, respected, encouraged and invited at the school I currently work at.
I thought perhaps sharing some of our examples could help schools early on in their journey get some inspiration. And, perhaps other schools farther along in their journey could provide us some feedback to help us continue to grow and improve.
So here it is… some examples of where I can notice and name student voice having space and playing a role within and beyond the classroom.
INPUT INTO PLANNING
These past few years we have been on journey to find ways to invite learners in as co-designers and co-planners of the learning.
Teachers have made the curriculum transparent to students and invited their thoughts, opinions and preferences about which outcomes to explore in upcoming units.
Teachers have invited learners in on identifying Learner Profile Attributes and ATL skills within Units of Inquiry.
Teachers have invited learners in on selecting key concepts and planning lines of inqiury
Teachers have invited learners in on coming up with the central idea.
Teachers have invited learners in on finding resources for the unit and planning next steps.
Teachers have invited learners in on deciding how, when and where to share their learning and ‘take it public’.
Teachers have invited learners into the planning of Exhibition; including the pre-planning as well as the planning of the gala event
INPUT INTO ASSESSMENT
This co-designing and co-planning has also included an intentional focus on how to invite and involve learners into documenting, monitoring, measuring and reporting on their learning in order to build their assessment-capability.
Teachers have partnered with learners to co-construct rubrics and other assessment tools.
Teachers have partnered with learners to monitor their progress throughout a unit.
Teachers have partnered with learners to have input into measuring learning upon completion of a unit.
Teachers have partnered with learners to report on their learning.
REFLECTIONS
Co-designing and co-planning units also means that learners are invited in on the final reflections about the units.
Teachers have noticed opportunities for reflections about initiatives or innovations, such as P.I.E.
FEEDBACK
Another important way we strive to respect and support student voice is by always looking ways for to collect and act upon their feedback.
As a school we have collected learners’ experiences, perspectives and suggestions on school wide-innovations like P.I.E.
This has included gathering data from learners…
Analyzing the data in macro and micro senses…
Sharing the findings with the community…
Currently, this also includes holding focus groups for learners who would like to sit down and talk about our PIE initiative. (Which has been AMAZING… blog post on this coming soon!)
Sample soundbite from the Grade 3 focus group:
This focus on feedback also extends to our school PYP Exhibition experience, where our Grade 5 teams collects data each week to understand how learners are feeling and what they need. This data allows the team to responsively plan next steps based on the data they collect.
EXPRESSION
Another important layer of creating space for student voice is to intentionally find avenues for student expression.
We are using RULER tools to help us make space for students to express their feelings.
Opportunities within and beyond the classroom for students to express themselves via the arts.
And opportunities for students to express themselves via play.
STUDENT LEADERSHIP
Another way student voice has a place at our school is with our Primary Student leadership team. Each year representatives from each grade are elected by their peers, and these representatives form what we call our “Learner Voice Board”.
The Learner Voice Boards gets together each week to deal with student concerns that have been brought to them from their peers.
They also collaborate with other groups, such as the PTA (Parent Teacher Association) and the Secondary School Student Leaders to co-plan and organize school events.
They are also given space to update the community on what they are working on. A great example of this is when our school director invited them to speak at the parent association meeting.
The Learner Voice Board will also play a big role in getting student feedback, and participating in decisions about next year planning; including the schedule, break times and structures, logistics of eating and planning, and refinement of PIE structures.
We are also very proud that our Learner Voice Board has been able to inspire and support other schools and students wanting to create more opportunities for student voice at their school.
INVITATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES
These habits and practices of seeing and treating children as partners in decision making and problem solving extend beyond certain grade-levels and the Primary division, and are seeped into the culture of our school. Which means that opportunities are created and communicated to learners about how they can get involved in things that the adults are currently tackling.
A great example of this is the Sustainability Committee at our school, which has reached out for student representation to participate in the committee. And has invited them into the current problem them are tackling of setting up a school-wide recycling program.
Another example would be inviting learners to solve problems as they arise. One example of that is getting learners to help us solve the logistical puzzle of sharing play spaces this year.
STUDENT-INITIATED ACTION
One of the amazing bi-products of being at a school that intentionally tries to cultivate and grow students’ voices, is that we start to see more and more student-initiated action because learners come to understand that their voice, their ideas and their perspectives matter and have a place at school.
An example of this is six Grade 3 students coming to me to request a meeting to go through their business proposal for cactus-related products and their needs for space and supervision to have their business meetings, product production and storage.
Another example would be when a group of Grade 2 learners approached our school principal to sit down and talk about what could be done at school to support those impacted by the war in Europe.
Another example would be the group of learners who initiated and pitches a grade wide book club.
I am proud to be a PYP Coordinator who works at a school where student voice is respected and supported. Like all PYP schools, we are on a journey and we know we still of lots of room to grow and improve in this area. However, I also feel we have lots to celebrate and share in this area!
How do you invite and involve student voice into planning, decision-making and problem solving at your school?
What feedback do you have for us about how we are trying to invite and involve student voice at our school?
On Friday, our amazing Primary School faculty supported learners from Grade 1 through Grade 5 to plan their own full, rich and balanced day of learning as part of something we have come to call “PIE”.
“PIE” is a home-grown innovation that stands for “Personalization, Intervention and Extension” and has been implemented school-wide, from Grade 1 through Grade 12. The implementation looks and feels different in the PYP, MYP and DP to allow for consideration such as of age of learners, divisional structures and programmatic differences. However we all share a common goal: empowering learners to understand themselves in order to make choices and take action within a supportive community as a way to continuously to grow and improve.
PIE is an initiative that grows out of our unique context. It is unlike other eduction innovations I have been part of at the other PYP schools at which I have worked – which is a good thing. One of the messages I try to give when I am consulting with PYP schools around the world is that innovations should be grown and not transplanted. And that is exactly what has happened with PIE.
PIE has grown out of:
our understanding of the new IB Standards and Practices
our school’s unique Mission and Core Values
our community’s philosophy and understanding of curriculum
our commitment to being a Professional Learning Community
our working towards using the Response to Intervention approach
Considering these different ingredients – the different dimensions to our identity as a school – has led to an initiative that allows us to bring all of these elements together in divisionally-appropriate ways.
The Middle School and High School have been implementing this structure for a few years, and the Primary School was excited to roll it out to our younger learners as well. In the past, the Primary learners and faculty have engaged with the concepts of voice, choice, ownership, needs and wants as a learners as well as personalization in different ways, but we were excited this year to approach those concepts through a shared, school-wide structure.
We had a little bit of a curve-ball thrown at us when we found out school was starting online, but the teachers quickly pivoted the face-to-face implementation plan to allow for a soft-start while learners were still at home. As educators, we know there are specific skills, approaches and pedagogical moves needed to support learners to make choices for themselves that can be difficult to expect from parents or caregivers supporting their child with online learning. However, we still wanted to build the momentum of learners making choices for themselves, but in a way that we felt was more manageable while they were at home.
But once we had learners back on campus with us – we were ready to launch the full implementation plan!
Here is how it went:
PREPARING
Working with Faculty
Starting the year, we were ready with a fully developed implementation guide that was built the year prior and collaboratively fine tuned with the input of teachers across different grades and subject areas. Once we heard that campuses were closed, we adapted the implementation guide to a fully online context and from the start of the year were supporting teachers with this modified, online implementation plan.
Once we heard the government decree that campuses were allowed to be re-opened, we were ready to switch over to the face-to-face implementation guide and continue to take the next steps with the faculty of how this would work on campus. We prepared all the background documents into one Google Classroom post, and allocated a faculty meeting to go through all the systems, structures, tools and routines specific to being face-to-face.
We also made sure to create additional support opportunities for the teams and teachers who needed it.
Many teachers and teams took us up on these additional support offerings. During my weekly collaborative planning times with teams I was able to support them in small groups to figure out what made the most sense for the age and specific needs of their learners. Together we worked on developing ideas, tools, references materials and procedures to help our first “on campus PIE” be a success.
Keeping Parents in the Loop
Another ‘piece of the PIE’ was to ensure we were keeping our parent community in the loop. Up until this point we had shared a video overview of PIE with them close to the start of the year to help them understand the purpose of PIE.
But now that we were coming back to campus it was a perfect opportunity to offer a live session to go into more detail. So myself, the Secondary School VP and our Director of Learning collaborated to put together an optional evening session for the parents.
We started all together with our Director of Learning sharing the “why” behind PIE – explicitly showing the connection to the IB Standards and Practices, our Mission statement and Core Values as a school, and the links with being a PLC and RTI school. He also offered some broad strokes to help illustrate for parents how PIE works.
Then we split up into breakout rooms to dive a little deeper into how it works in each division. I was able to work with a small group of Primary School parents and share more details about how PIE works and what it might look like for their child.
It was a small group, but an engaged and passionate one, who asked lots of great questions to deepen their understanding of PIE.
When it comes to supporting parents, we also worked with the faculty to help them understand how their communication with parents is essential in order to bring them onboard. We shared some professional resources to give them some ideas how to do this, and will continue to work with them to help them see the power of not only keeping parents in the loop, but also empowering them to understand the role they can play at home.
Then it was time to launch with the kids! 🎉
THE LAUNCH
The structural backbone of our PIE initiative is the PYP action cycle – CHOOSE, ACT, REFLECT. We not only wanted to harness this model, but also explore it with learners. We want to be very intentional to not tell learners to choose, act and reflect, but instead to teach them how to choose, act and reflect.
Choosing
Teams worked collaboratively to plan systems, structures, tools and supports that were age appropriate for their learners. Many teams explored the concepts of ‘needs’, ‘wants, ‘balance’ and ‘prioritization’ as teaching-points in preparation for the choices their students were going to make.
We had an all-hands-on-deck approach, which allowed us to present the learners with lots of adult-led learning experiences throughout the day, that were supported by:
homeroom teachers and TAs
single-subject teachers and TAs
integrationists for ICT, library and PSPE
Support services team – EAL and Learning Support teachers
This flexible and creative use of time, space and faculty allowed us to harness 33 educators to support 138 learners!!!
Teachers also created different tools, based on the ages and skills of their learners to help them document the choices they made.
We saw lots of drawing and labeling in the younger grades.
And the integration of digital tools in the older grades.
When it came to support for learners during the ‘choose’ block there was whole-group instruction, guided groups and one-on-one support to help them understand how to make the best choices for themselves.
And, of course, lots and lots and LOTS of conferencing! Both peer-to-peer, and teacher-to-learner.
Questions I heard during these conferences:
What did you choose? Why did you choose it?
How did you know those choices were right for you?
Do you feel your day is balanced? How do you know?
Which of your choices are ‘needs’ and which are ‘wants’?
Are you sure your choices address your priorities? How do you know?
The conferences really provided an opportunity for partnership. A chance for the teachers to understand the perspectives of the learners, but also a chance to share their professional expertise with the learners about needs and priorities. This shared decision-making is an essential part of ensuring learners are making informed choices about their learning.
After learners made their initial choices, conferenced with peers and teachers, refined and improved their choices, they were ready to sign-up for any of the adult-led learning opportunities.
Many of the grade-levels also displayed the sign-ups within their learning environments.
Once the plans were finalized… it was time to act!
Acting
As soon as the clock struck nine there was buzz across the Primary campus! Learners were literally running to their first block! As learners were acting on their choices it was amazing to see all the different learning opportunities made available for learners, from all the different educators within the Primary Faculty.
There was support for learners with their Units of Inquiry for catching up, going further and taking action connected to all three Lines of Inquiry:
Inquiry into our learning environments
Inquiry into our learning communities
Inquiry into myself as a learner
As well as support for ATL skills, like research and self-management
There was support for math, in the forms of:
Additional instruction
Guided groups
One on one support
Opportunities for extension and challenge
There were opportunities to grow language and literacy skills, in the forms of:
First language and additional language support
Support with phonics, spelling, letter formation, rhyming, fine motor skills and vocabulary
Read alouds
Author Studies
Storytelling
Independent Reading and Writing
Reading and Writing Conferences
There were also opportunities for interventions and extensions with our specialist subjects like Visual Arts, Performing Arts and PE
There were opportunities for personalization:
Support with starting a personal inquiry
Time to pursue personal interests like coding or building
Throughout the day, there was lots of support with how to act on your choices. Teachers helped learners build the skills of referencing schedules, referring to plans, and keeping track of what they’d done so far
Reflecting
Teams also worked collaboratively to plan how best to teach learners to reflect on their day. Similar to the ‘choose’ block, teachers made informed choices based on the age and skills of learners to create tools and routines for the reflection block as well.
Learners expressed themselves through writing, drawing and speaking to reflect on prompts provided by teachers. These prompts helped them to think deeply about the choices they made and the impact those choices had on their learning.
The educators supported learners with mini-lessons about the skill of reflecting as well as lots and lots and LOTS of conferences!
Questions I heard during these conferences:
How did your choices go? Which ones made the biggest impact on your learning?
How did you do following your choices? What makes you say that?
What did you learn about yourself as a learner?
What might you do differently next PIE?
There were also some cool opportunities for learners to participate in reflecting on PIE as a whole, beyond their own individual learning. One team used a ‘plus/delta’ protocol to invite the learners to offer feedback about what worked and what needs to be changed and improved for next time.
Another team also took this opportunity to create a “PIE Learning Story” to share with families. They documented and explained how the day worked to help parents better understand how their child experienced ‘personalization, interventions and extensions’. They posted it on their bulletin board and shared it with their families via Seesaw.
NEXT STEPS
Teachers Next Steps
As we are learners first and foremost ourselves, it is essential that we build the habits on ongoing reflection. Teachers were given some reflective questions to help them analyze what was revealed throughout the day, and how they can use those observations and evidence next week to respond to learners.
My Next Steps
Just as the teachers analyze and respond to evidence from their learners… I also must analyze and respond to the evidence from my learners, aka the faculty! I will take some time to sift through my observations and reflections from the day and strategically support individuals and teams with suggestions, scaffolds, tools and coaching to help them continue to grow in their implementation of PIE.
I was also provoked by our Grade 1 team creating a ‘Learning Story’ about PIE for their grade-level parents community and I would love to do the same for our Primary-wide parent community. I think the ‘show and tell’ aspect of a learning story can contribute to parents’ ongoing understanding and of our PIE initiative.
Our Collective Next Steps
Together, we will reflect and work towards identifying and ‘de-bugging’ any logistical or structural glitches that impeded student learning.
At the moment we have collectively identified a handful of issues and are already working collaboratively to address them before next week.
Overall, it was an AMAZING day of learning. There was a buzz in the air. Learners were energized, engaged and empowered. The conversations with learners about their choices were rich, reflective and grounded in a strong sense of who they are as learners – aware of what they need and want and are interested in. At the end of the day there was a palpable sense of pride, confidence, accomplishment and celebration – from the learners and the faculty!
I look forward to continuing to partner with this amazing faculty over the course of the year, through multiple cycles of action research, as we continually choose-act-reflect towards our shared goal of: empowering learners to understand themselves in order to make choices and take action within a supportive community as a way to continuously to grow and improve. .
It’s the start of a new academic year, and we are ready to pilot a new, home-grown PYP Transdisciplinary Unit Planner. I tweeted about it, and a few people were curious to see the full planner and also hear more about the process we went through.
So here it is!
The Backstory
Last year our faculty spent a lot of time doing individual reflections driven by the new IB Standards and Practices. We then took all the individual reflections and mapped it out to try and identify collective areas of growth. One of our biggest areas where teachers self-identified that they were “developing” or “approaching” was using a planner based on the PYP planning process in all subject areas. So we saw this is an opportunity…
The Process
Our first step was to pull together a “task force”. Myself and the principal I work with strongly believe in teacher voice and shared decision making. This was a little tricky last year – as we were smack-dab in the middle of a global pandemic – but we still wanted to at least put it out there for those teachers who were interested and felt they could donate some time towards this project.
So in February of last school year, we advertised the “task forces” in our Morning Message.
We were lucky to have some people step forward; we were small, but mighty!
From there got together initially and got on the same page. We laid out our purpose and the process we would follow.
First, we clarified that the PYP Enhancements require that we follow the PYP planning process, but don’t require that we use a specific planner.
We were clear about our mission.
And we laid out our predicted timeline for the work and the related steps.
Week 1
We started by ensuring we had a shared understanding of both the IB Standard & Practice driving our work, as well as the PYP Planning Process that came from the PYP Enhancements.
Week 2&3
Next we started to explore different options. Everything from what we had been previously using or had used in the past at our school, the PYP Sample Planner, and some that other PYP educators around the world had share. We started out with and individual analysis of each and then synthesized our pros and cons.
Week 4
Finally it was time to work towards a decision. So we individually reviewed the collective pros and cons from previous weeks for each planner we analyzed and each put forth some recommendations.
Then it was time for me to take those recommendations and build a mock-up. Which I did…
Next it was time to take it back to the task force to “tune” it. I used an adapted version of the SRI Tuning Protocol to facilitate that process with them.
Then I went back and made the changes that came from the warm and cool feedback.
That brings us to where we are today. We have “finished” the unit planner and are ready to try it out! My original plan was to slowly roll it in to the collaborative work I do with each team, but I with work so many amazing risk-takers, a few teams are piloting it right out of the gate of the new school year!
The “Final” Product
Here is it, accompanied by a few words about how we plan to use it!
The planner is broken up into 7 sections:
prologue
initial reflections and pre-planning
single-subject integration
ongoing reflection, design and implementation
final reflections
“other slides” (as needed by the team)
appendices
Section 1:Prologue
The title side allows teams to document: the Transdiscplinary Theme, the timeline and the collaborative team contributing to this specific Unit of Inquiry. It also has linked tabs at the top to allow for shortcuts to the different sections of the planner. You also may notice a teeny, tiny little PYP document along the right side. Throughout the planner we have embedded qucklinks to certain sections of the PYP documents that pertain to that specific element or guidance for that part of the process. In this instance, it takes team to the guidance about the different approaches to unit timelines in the PYP Enhancements.
Next there is a slide that reinforces the approach to planning at our school. All planning is driven the by PYP planning process and we do that by delicately balancing 4 things: thinking of our learners, acknowledging what is going on in the world at the time, keeping our finger on the pulse of past learning and consulting our learning outcomes.
When teachers are “considering past learning” they are taken to another risk we are launching this year called Learner-Centered POIs.
This allows them to see their learners’ POI across the years they have been at the school. It has a screen shot of each year’s POI for that cohort as well as a summary of articulation points, such as the TD theme, key concepts, Learner Profile Attributes, Related Concepts and ATL skills to date. This allows them to always keep vertical articulation in mind, but in a living, breathing, emergent and responsive way.
Section 2: Initial Reflections and Pre-Planning
Initial Reflections and Pre-Planning is broken into 3 steps. The first one is focused on the 4 balancing factors I mentioned above that inform our planning. This culminates in a decision about the TD theme as well as the descriptor that will be the primary focus within that theme. Again you will notice in the top-right corner, a shortcut to sections in Teaching and Learning that support this process.
One of the things from the IB sample planner that the whole task force loved, were the guiding prompts. However, they felt embedding the guiding prompts into the planner itself can make it too long and often feel daunting. So we decided to embed guiding prompts as pop-outs when and where needed.
Step 2 of this sections is focused on getting the learners involved in the co-construction of the units and also the finalization of what we have come to call the “big bones” of the unit.
Again there are some guiding prompts for this step that are hyperlinked.
Step 3 of this section is beginning to think about approaches to teaching and assessment.
You may notice this section has many hyper links throughout that support teachers to reference other helpful documents for this stage of the thinking, such as a guide for inviting students into the planning.
Section 3: Single-Subject Integration
Single-subject integration at any PYP school can be tricky. When multiple teachers from different disciplines are all working from the same planner, those planners can get massive and can become less workable. It also means that single-subject teachers may have up to 7 different planners on the go at one time! So we decided to try something out. We have the specialist subject planning linked, but in a different set of Google Slides. We also were inspired by Andy Vasily’s approach to different levels of integration, so we included a section where that can be very clear.
The links then go to that subjects’ planner where they can see any glance to what level they are integrated at the different grade levels and also space for planning that acknowledge’s their discipline specific needs. (This is also a new planner that was the product of a task force… but more about that later!)
Section 4: Ongoing Design and Implementation
One of the things we love about the PYP Enhancements is the big push to move away from planning a whole unit before you launch, and move towards more responsive and adaptive planning. This fits perfectly with our schools’ PLC and RTI processes. For every week that the unit lasts, teams can reflect on and document what the learners’ have revealed and how best they can respond.
Again, there are some additional guiding prompts for teams who need or want further guidance.
Section 5: Final Reflections
Finally, there is space to house the reflections that arise upon the completion of the unit with space not only for the teachers, but also for the learners to think about how the unit went.
And of course… some guiding prompts!
Section 6: Team Needs
One of the things that came strongly from the teacher voices in the task force was the benefit of having a place to add and embed other things beyond the systemitized part of the planner. This supports teams to have “everything in one place” and allows them to make it work for them.
Step 7: Appendices
The last few slides are some supplementary tools our teachers use such as conceptual rubric templates and provocation design templates so they are there and easy to find when they need them.
Next Steps
As I mentioned above, now that we have it built this year is all about piloting it. Those teams that are ready and willing have already jumped in. Those teams who aren’t ready quite yet, can begin to explore and experiment with it with my support when the time is right. Ideally by the end of the year all teams will have had some solid experience with it, to then be able to provide some feedback about how we can further refine and improve it for next year!
We also followed a similar process for our single-subject planner, stand-alone math and stand-alone literacy planner too!
I know many school around the world have gone through similar processes and designed their own unit planners. We would love to see and hear all about your process and planner, so please leave a comment so we can continue to learn and grow together as a global community.
This year as we gear up for PYPx 2021, we have been dedicating a lot of time to reimagining the role of “mentors”. We have been thinking about “mentor” as a noun – traditionally a person statically assigned to an individual or group for the entire Exhibition process. And we have been thinking of “mentoring” as a verb – connecting with that just-right person, at that just-right time to help with that just-right thing!
We are not alone in these conversations, many PYP practitioners and schools around the world have also been reimagining what support looks like for learners throughout exhibition. Some posts that provoked our thinking on the matter include:
We got to a stage in our planning where we decided this was going to be the year we said goodbye to a static, pre-assigned mentors and instead, be risk-takers, to figure out how we can embrace a more organic, responsive, personalized approach to “mentoring” learners through their Exhibition journey. We felt that the shift from “forced help” to “found help” was a more life-worthy learning experience and that learning how to “gather” support, intentionally and purposefully, as opposed to being simple “given” support would help them grow the most.
So, we decided to build a PYP Exhibition Human Library… and because of the unique context of not knowing whether we will be on campus or learning from home – or a mixture of both – we decided to set it up as a digital database. We also decided to open it up not only to faculty and staff at our school, but also parents and older students. Anyone who might have something to offer to the learners along the way.
First we collected the data: We used a simple Google Form, which allowed us to…
collect information about who they are in the community
… languages and areas of expertise
…specific Approaches to Learning Skills they would feel comfortable helping the Grade 5 learners with
… any of the PYP-ish stuff that supports the Exhibition journey
… and details about the extent to which they are able to support and how best for learners to contact them.
Next we collated the data: We decided to use Google Slides to harness the capability of internal links to allow for smooth and independent self-navigation for the learners.
The first slide acts as a table of contents to allow learners to self-identify in what area they require support
From there they are taken to a sub menu, that either breaks down the skills…
or the languages…
Or the specific topics…
Any of those sections then lead to a list of people to help and contact details for arranging the desired support.
Now that the library is built we are at the stage of thinking through the systems and processes to support the use of this tool:
ensuring balance of who learners contact
coaching learners to look for a mentor when they struggling, facing a challenging, or wanting some feedback
contact expectations (CCing their homeroom teachers on email communication)
zoom protocols (ie going through the homeroom teacher’s account) to ensure child safeguarding
Once these things are fine tuned, we will be ready to put this Human Library in the hands of the learners in hopes that they are able to use it to find the right people, at the right time, to help in just the right way!
Wish us luck! We will report back about how it goes!
At our school we are really trying to amplify the role of the new IB Standards and Practices across our whole school community – with leadership, with parents, with the Board of Directors and with faculty. We are trying to have the S&Ps be our lighthouse, our beacon, our goal post to create a shared direction and have that beautiful ‘sunflower effect’ where everyone in an organization is pulling in the same direction.
So one of the actions we have taken to try and work toward this vision, is to use the new IB Standards and Practices as the reference point for goal setting.
This year especially, we know that everyone is stretched so thin and working harder then they have ever likely worked before! So we wanted something simple and straightforward, but still impactful in helping our faculty along their ongoing journey as PYP practitioners.
Here is what we did and how it went:
First we explained the why, how and what to our faculty
Then we explained each of the three parts: self-assessment, reflection, and goal setting
Self-Assessment
For the self-assessment part, we used the proficiency indicators we use to measure student learning and applied them to ourselves as learners
We pulled as many Standards & Practices as we could that are relevant to the role of a faculty member at an IB school
Reflection
We used a simple framework to synthesize trends from their self-assessment
Goal Setting
We used a simple framework to commit to one goal, advocate for the support they desire as a learner and articulate what success will look like for them
And, as always, we emphasized that we are looking for progress, never perfection!
And the result was some beautifully honest, vulnerable and genuine reflections…
Which led to personalized goals that link their own individual improvement as a PYP practioner with our school’s collective improvement as an IB school.
From there, I was able to collate all their individual self-assessment data to see trends across the school. This was helpful in my role as PYP Coordinator because it not only allowed me a deeper understanding of where each individual PYP educators thinks they are in their journey; but I could also see commonalities in strengths and areas for growth within teams, subject areas, and across the whole staff. This provides me with great guidance in terms of how to individually support each faculty member with their goal, but also the bigger projects and initiatives I can work on with the whole staff in specific areas.
I was also able to collate goal areas and types of support, which again, not only allowed me to get a good handle on what each individual faculty member is striving towards and what they need from me, but also where there are common goal areas to help those individuals connect with one another over the course of the year to learn together and support one another in their shared purpose.
*Note – This is hot off the press! We just started it two days ago… so there is still some data rolling in!
So what are my next steps?
share this data with my partner – the PYP Principal – so we can have a shared understanding of where our staff is and how best we can help them grow
begin to reach out to individuals for calibration conversations, offers of support, and follow-up probing questions
look for individuals who have common goals and work on helping them make connections with one another
We are just at the early stages of this journey, but it feels like we are off to a good start! As always, I welcome your thoughts, feedback, suggestions, ideas and stories from your own practice and experience with using the IB Standards and Practices as the common reference point for professional growth and development.
At the time I wrote that post, I was teaching grade 5 so although I could reimagine our approach to our grade-level POI, thinking bigger – whole school – wasn’t really in my purview at the time.
But now that I am in the role of PYP Coordinator, these wonderings have begun to swirl around in my mind once more.
There are two potential ideas I have been chewing on lately that I am considering taking a risk and giving a try for next year. They are by no means fully cooked ideas yet; merely seedlings that I’ve been incubating for a while. Not only does getting them down in writing help me clarify and develop my own thinking, but getting potential feedback from my fellow PYP peeps around the world could be just what I need to get a few steps closer to being ready to launch!
So here’s what I’m thinking…
Living POI
One of the issues we have been bumping up against is trying to balance a more emergent, organic, learner-centered approach to unit planning with having some sort of central POI that is transparent, visible and accessible to the whole community. The traditional approach to POI planning – more or less – is to do it in advance, ‘lock it in’ or ‘freeze it’, throw it on the website, print it out, frame it, hang it on the wall… and then more or less follow it for the course of the year.
That approach is difficult for us, because our first two questions we ask ourselves anytime we are planning a new unit are:
What are we noticing about our learners? (interests, strengths, curiosities, needs, misconceptions etc)
What is going on in the world? (locally, globally, virally, seasonally etc.)
Then we consult our learning outcomes… and well, you know the rest!
Starting the unit planning process with these two questions have helped us get a little closer to building significant, relevant, engaging and challenging units that reflect that specific group of learners at that specific point in time. But has made it tricky to document the POI in the same neat and tidy way!
So I’ve been thinking about how we might adopt an approach for a “living POI”. One that can be organically, emergently, responsively built – unit by unit.
With the magic of Google Slides, I think I might have a way to do that!
I’d build a central Google Slide as the comprehensive, whole-school, PYP POI.
This would display the “big bones” of each unit for each grade-level – as it is built – whether transdisciplinary or stand alone.
Even though this will be the centralized place where everything is displayed, it wouldn’t be the place where everything is updated. To make it easier for teams, I would build each grade-level and subject team their own Google Slide deck for the units they are responsible for.
Each of these individual slides from every grade and subject team would be linked back to the master document.
That way, as they responsively, organically and emergently build units, they can simply document the “big bones” here. Then, thanks to the magic of Google, all I will need to do is hit the “update” button and it will appear in the central, whole-school “living POI”
This would allow each team to be the keeper of their grade-level or subject POI, while I can be the keeper of the whole-school “living POI”. Every time a unit is built, it can be easily updated and therefore accessible and visible to the whole school community.
This would also allow each team to have a smaller, more manageable set of slides to take ownership over and add to as they build units, throughout the year. While at the same time having easy access to the central POI to see all units happening through all grades throughout the whole school.
By the end of the year, we would have our POI documented, but we wouldn’t need to sacrifice our responsive, emergent, learner-centered approach to unit planning in order to make that happen.
Learner-Centered POI
One of the potential criticisms of a more emergent and organic approach to unit planning in the PYP is the loss of articulation over time.
However, I’m not sure the current traditional approach to POI articulation actually accomplishes what it is trying to accomplished anyway…
Most schools, at the end of every year, or on a pre-set cycle every few years, step back and analyze horizontal and vertical articulation of their POI to ensure balance across things like concepts, ATL skills, Learner Profile attributes etc.
But this ‘point in time’ articulation approach seems flawed to me. Sure, if a school builds a balanced POI and freezes it for 7-8 years then it accomplishes it’s goal of balance for the learners who go through those 7 or 8 years of the Primary Years Program at that school. But currently, I would bet that most schools are venturing more towards refining, updating and improving units on a more regular basis – many each and every year. So what good is a perfectly balanced POI at ‘one point in time’ if by the time those learners in Early Years make it to Grade 5 the units have grown and shifted and changed (as they should in an agency-supportive, learner-centered approach!) So if I am a Grade 5 teacher interested in balance and articulation and I look at a the current POI … it is very unlikely that my current Grade 5 learners explored the units documented in that POI when they were in younger grades. Meaning I am judging articulation by looking at units my group of learners may have never encountered!
What I think we need to be articulating is POI balance ‘across time’. Enter my idea for a “learner-centered” POI.
What if, instead of articulating the POI at a given time, we spent our time and effort articulating the POI each learner experiences across their years in the Primary Years Program?
My thinking is that we could set-up learner-centered POIs for each grade-level and then year after year capture the units they have explored and continuously update the elements of articulation we want to track to therefore inform future planning for that cohort.
Here is an example of what I’m envisioning:
If I think of the learners who will complete the PYP at our school next year at the “PYP Class of 2021/2022” I can create that cohort’s POI.
I can then go back through the archives and capture the different units they have explored so far in their PYP journey.
At the end of this academic year, we can update the units they explored in Grade 4
Then next year’s Grade 5 teachers can easily see what units their incoming learners have explored over time, to help inform the planning and decisions they make for their written curriculum throughout the year.
I am also considering an “over time” articulation slide, where the Grade 5 teachers – for example – can easily tally things like key concepts, ATL skills, attributes of the Learner Profile for that specific cohort, which again can inform their planning for this group of learners.
Perhaps even a colour-coded running record of parts of each TD theme descriptor…
As a I mentioned, these ideas are half-baked at best! But I’m definitely itching to take some risks and reimagine our school’s approach to building, capturing and balancing our PYP Program of Inquiry.
I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback to help me further reflect upon, refine and fertilize these idea seedlings.
Now that we are 5 weeks into the school year – thanks to the very special group of educators I get to spend my days with – I am able to share some examples of what we think agency in the time of CoVid has looked like.
… at least at our school anyway!
We’ve had a whole school Unit of Inquiry where learners have had time, space and support to get to know their learning environments (physical and virtual), their learning communities and to get to know themselves as learners.
We’ve had teachers and TAs spend weeks inquiring into their learners to begin to get to know them as human beings
and bit by bit put together the complex puzzle of each individual child by purposefully collecting evidence, analyzing and responding to it
We’ve launched “Flex Fridays” where learners plan their own day
We’ve had teachers and TAs invest time in coaching learners about how to plan their own day
We’ve had teachers and TAs invest time in helping learners understand learning, so they can plan their own personal inquires to pursue
We’ve had teachers and TAs offer choice-based workshops
We’ve had teachers and TAs support learners to run their own workshops for their peers
We’ve had teachers and TAs create time and space for learners to share their talents – within their grade-leves
and across the whole Primary School
We’ve had teachers and TAs encourage their learners to choose to share and celebrate learning they are proud of with the whole community at our Learning Showcases
We’ve had teachers ask for feedback from their learners about what is working and what isn’t and work with them to improve things
We’ve had teachers invite and involve their learners in deciding and planning of their second Unit of Inquiry
We’ve had teachers and TAs listen to, honor and quickly respond to the voices of the learners in their pleas for more time for social connections – in the forms of playdates, picnics, hang outs, dress-up days and birthday parties
We’ve had teachers and TAs plan responsively based on the needs and interests of their learners – from day to day, week to week, and unit to unit
We’ve had teachers continue to advocate for play and think about ways to support planning for play at home
We’ve had teachers continue to bring Studio habits of mind and TAB to life
We’ve had elections for a Learner Voice Board, so learners can represent their peers in the decisions being made in the Primary School
And did I mention… all of this happened 100% virtually.
In 5 short weeks, there are so many examples of how learners are being respected as human beings, being included in decisions about their own learning, having their voices heard, learning how to make choices for themselves and experiencing ownership over their learning. And I KNOW I am forgetting many, many other examples.
Our educators are rock-stars.
Absolute rock-stars.
And I am thankful everyday, that I get to be part of a community of PYP educators that doesn’t let anything – not even a global pandemic! – stand in the way of what they believe children deserve. ❤️
Making Good Humans 