We have 25 wonderful new PYP staff. They have been working SO hard to make sense of a completely new education framework. They have spent 9 weeks after school reading IB documents, browsing blogs, teaching one another and sharing ideas. Now comes the time for consolidation and sharing… aka a “summative”.
To provoke their thinking about summatives, we first gave them a 4 page “PYP Test” as a provocation to experience what it is like to be on the receiving end of a test and to hopefully challenge the thinking that summative means tests. Their reactions and reflections about being “tested” were fascinating:
- I was instantly fearful
- I went blank
- I knew everything, but I just couldn’t explain it in words
- I remember learning it but I didn’t have it all memorized
- I was worried about failing
This lead into a great conversation about shifting the notion of “summatives” away from tests and more towards authentic opportunities to share one’s learning with others. We used the RAFT format to structure our real PYP summative.
So here they are! 25 PYP summatives where our new-to-PYP staff share their current understanding of the PYP with all of you! We’ve got songs, videos, raps, drawings, models, Prezis, journals, blog posts and more! Enjoy…
Blog post: IB in Kindergarten? Yes, IB in Kindergarten.
How creative, confident, reflective and knowledgable are our new-to-PYP teachers!?!? We feel very thankful to have 25 teachers who are truly living the IB learner profile.
After they finished their summative task, they assessed their own understanding of each line of inquiry and the central idea. Our hope is that at the end of the year we can pull the new staff back together and have them self-assess their understanding of the PYP again and see evidence of the growth and progress they have made over the year.
Do you know one of the most interesting discoveries throughout this process? I, as the ‘teacher’, couldn’t pull myself away from reading, watching and exploring their summatives! So often teachers dread marking. Maybe that is a clue that a summative is not actually an authentic sharing of learning, because apparently when it is… you actually look forward to exploring their summative and providing feedback!
Please help us continue to learn and grow!
Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.
Making Good Humans 
What a Super amazing way to reflect on becoming more knowledgeable! Tweeted this out with super satisfaction!
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Reblogged this on The Next Stepping Stone and commented:
Have look at what our new staff did…
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I love this! I think we should use it with our induction group, probably not until our December meeting.
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If you do decide to do this, please share! We would love to explore and celebrate the learning of other new-to-PYP teachers! 🙂
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I love this! Thank you 🙂
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Thank you for posting this! I was curious what kind of test did you give them?
With regard to your 9 week session for new teachers, how often was it? once a week? twice a week?
I would really appreciate if you could share what you have—-like a breakdown of these sessions? Even just an overview?
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I just simply loved the article. It expresses in words what has been to me facing PYP for the first time. It’s true that when we are on the other side we fear and despite having the knowledge we sometimes are afraid to make mistakes. So, it’s us this time in the line of fire and I love it.
Thanks
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