Interview transcript

Questions and responses of International Baccalaureate: Primary Years Programme interview-

Approach to learning

1.     What is your general opinion of the IB’s approach to children’s learning?

The holistic, inquiry based approach in all IB programmes ensures children’s engagement and consistent progress.

2.     What do you find that you struggle with?

 Finding sufficient collaborative planning time with my teachers.

3.     What strategies do you utilise in order to deal with the struggles that you have with the IB approach?

I meet with teachers at designated meetings but also at informal lunch meetings.

4.     What aspects of the IB do you find make your life as a teacher easier, to what it would be if you were apart of a school context that adopted a more traditional approach to education and children’s learning?

Differentiation is easier because of the freedom and flexibility we have with assessment design and individual task specific rubrics.

International mindedness

5.     What do you believe international mindedness to be? Does this strengthen your teaching philosophy and practice?

To “teach children to appreciate and participate in the richness and strength of a multicultural society” so all my teaching must take place with this backdrop.

6.     Is international mindedness firmly embedded within the culture of your school, or is it an ideal that is difficult to put into practice?

It is a shared objective but, of course, some teachers embed this in their classroom delivery and others less so.

7.     As a PYP practitioner, how do you develop international-mindedness within your classroom?

Students’ learning is supported by transdisciplinary themes, which have global ramifications. This allows for international-mindedness to develop in a constructivist manner, through each year level of the programme.

8.     When you consider the term, global citizen, with your experience with the IB, what comes to your mind? 

We are global citizens who share a common humanity and guardianship of the planet.

9.     What issues, if any, do you face with covering all elements of your national curriculum (it may be a province or territory curriculum for Canada, I am not sure) as well as meeting all the requirements of the IB? As a novice teacher, it seems like a lot to incorporate.

The Ontario curriculum for literacy and numeracy is delivered in its entirety within each unit of inquiry.

Second language acquisition

10.  In Australia, there seems to be an issue with children learning a second language, it doe not seem to be all that valued. Yet, it is a vital component of the IB. Do face any issues with children learning a second language in Canada? If so, how do you overcome this?

Canada is a bilingual country so additional languages are valued. In my school, Hebrew is taught as the third language so in out community, language learning is celebrated.

           The IB Learner Profile

11.  How do you embed the IB learner profile within your classroom on a daily basis? Can you suggest any strategies? 

The Learner Profile is used to establish essential agreements and for behaviour modification where necessary. LP certificates are awarded for consistently demonstrating a particular attribute.

12.  Do you find that children try to action the qualities of the learner profile because they are able to see the benefits of them, for themselves? Or, do you find them doing it, for positive adult appraisal? 

They may do it for both reasons – when they are young, they often follow the behaviour modelled or requested by teachers but as they grow up, they are able to understand the inherent value of behaving in accordance with the Learner Profile.

13.  Do you find that the values of the IB learner profile are imposed onto children, much like religion, or, is it offered to them as a choice, which affects how much they gain from life and their experiences inside and outside of the classroom? 

They are not imposed as the children learn about the attributes and the benefits are explained to them – they understand by doing.

           Inquiry-based learning

14.  From your experience have you found that inquiry based learning creates a learning environment which is more meaningful for children? Do they take more of an interest in their own learning? Do you find that they are finding information out for their own knowledge and discovery, as opposed to doing it, simply because they know that they have to.

Inquiry allows students to follow their curiosity and this freedom within the inquiry-based environment makes them responsible for the direction of their learning as well as the actual content of their learning.

15.  Do you find that inquiry based learning creates more or less stress for yourself as a teacher? (Planning, implementing, assessing). 

I must be more creative and provide a greater range of stimuli, choice of tasks and diverse materials. For each assessment, task specific rubrics must be created which does make for extra work for each teacher.

16.  What are the attitudes of the parents? Are they opposed to the idea of inquiry based learning when they see it in action?

Parents love it as they can see that their children become more independent and have broader perspectives. I invite parents in to the summative assessment presentations where they see the process of the unit on noticeboards, in folders and through their children’s explanations.

17.  What do you do if an inquiry does not work?

 This can happen so I change one of he lives of inquiry, even two.

18.  The aspect of inquiry learning, which I love the most, is that it has the ability to instil a love of inquiry, discovery and investigation within children. A love of learning. Do you find that this does occur? Or is theory different to practice? 

An IB school promotes a love of learning and aims for the whole community to be life-long learners.  We only start this in the PYP and it then progresses through the other programmes and beyond.  As students are constantly reminded of this goal, they internalise it. Some embrace it more than others but I believe this is a lived reality, not words on a document.

19.  With inquiry based learning, do you find that your classroom environment is stressful? No, it is a busy place with students, even the youngest, engaged and enthusiastic. If not, are their times when it escalates and you have to implement some forms of behaviour management? What strategies do you utilise in this case? 

They can sometimes become over-excited or so engrossed in what they are working on that they become reluctant to stop. IN this case, I use the Learner Profile to explain to them why they need to be principled and do what is asked of them.  This usually works!

20.  How do you make connections between learner’s prior knowledge and their individual learning styles, and connect these in the context of new experiences? Do you assess for prior knowledge first, and then take it from there?  I ask this question, because you need to do this for a class of at least 20 or 25 children.

I assess during Q&A frontloading to see if there is prior knowledge. This is essential and is always well received as most PYP students become increasing eloquent as they go up in the PYP.  In math, a more formal pre-assessment is needed in order to see the levels in the class, even when you know (or think you know) the students. The size of the class is not a factor – you just have to find a way to do this.

  The five essential elements of the written curriculum

21.  How/ what strategies do you utilise to incorporate all of the essential elements of the written curriculum? Is this a challenging aspect of your planning?

In order to do this, I work with the mt curriculum documents and do my best to ensure balance in the planners so that I can include these essential elements, in a natural way.

22.  How do you incorporate the traditional subject areas through the six transdisciplinary themes?

Certain transdisciplinary themes lend themselves to an emphasis on specific disciplines – How the world works may be more science, sharing the planet may be more about geography and sustainability, and so on. I do not try to force all subject areas under the transdisciplinary themes.

23.  Do you find that children gain a better understanding of the content, which each subject area comprises of, when it is used as a tool to inquire into the transdisciplinary themes, as opposed to being passive recipients, and the educator, or yourself being the “keeper” of knowledge?

Of course, but in my opinion they do not inquire into the transdisciplinary themes – they inquire along the lines of inquiry in the context of, making connections to the transdisciplinary themes.

24.  Do you find that the six transdisciplinary themes restrict your options for planning learning experiences/ inquiries? Or, do you find them to be too broad?

They provide immense breadth to the unit ad the only restrictions I encounter are those of time.

25.  I like the quote from Halliday (1980) “…students learn language, learn about language, and learn through language.” What does this mean to you as a PYP teacher?

This is implied in the Scope and Sequence and is part of learning by doing.  AT times, though, I have to stop and do a stand alone on a specific linguistic structure.

26.  Have you found that a concept-driven curriculum supports the inquiries, which you implement? 

Not sure about this question. The PYP is concept driven; each unit focuses on certain concepts and attitudes, which are implicit in the lines of inquiry and/or central idea.  Some theme based curricula share this conceptual basis.

27.  Do you find that the concepts of the written curriculum add depth to inquiries? Why? Why not?

They add depth, e.g. function, but others are harder, such as causation. This means skilfully presenting ideas questions and prompts so that students can identify the causal link.

28.  Do you believe that children acquire a better understanding of content, when they are able to apply their understanding in practice? (Skills as an essential element of the PYP)

I believe his links to your question about language. Application is an important form of learning, especially for students with various learning styles. Application is dependent on skills; to do you must know how to do….

29.  Have you found that in all inquiries you are able to implement all five essential elements of the written curriculum? (Knowledge, concepts, skills, attitudes, action)

We are required to but I find it challenging, especially at the beginning of a school year. The most difficult is the element of action – to ensure that it is student initiated and driven.

30.  Can you suggest any ideas as to how you have been able to implement the essential element of action, at the end of your inquiries? Or is that more of an emergent component, where the children take the lead?

Students should take the lead but action is not only doing something like find raising but can also be something like using a new language form or saying something in the target language. When there is a group goal, like preparing Christmas gifts for an orphanage, the students can take the lead. This is developmental, independence and initiative are to be nurtured over time.

31.  What do you believe/ have found to be the connections between the written curriculum and classroom practice? 

If unit planners are properly designed, they do reflect careful consideration of the scope and sequences used by PYP teachers.  By choosing specific strands and threads from these documents, the written curriculum becomes a core element of classroom delivery. It is always about what learning we want and hope will take place in the classroom.

 Assessment

32.  What forms of assessment do you adopt to ensure that each child has a firm grasp of the content and concepts within the written curriculum? How do you discover what children have learned?

Each task has rubrics created for it and each task is designed in a unique way and is differentiated for each class. The summative is not the only way to uncover learning – each lesson should uncover a layer of learning or of the process towards a learning outcome.

33.  What is your perspective on the IB and assessment?

Assessment informs learning and understanding and conveys information, not numbers. I do not assess for the sake of grades, I assess so that the student, the parents and I will know what progress has been made and where we need to go.

 Role of the educator and the environment

34.  As an educator, what do you believe your role in the classroom is?

To ignite inquiry by allowing students to be curious, to wonder, to think about what if’s… The rest is incidental.

35.  What do you believe the role of the children’s learning environment is? How do you structure this? Why?

I believe in choice via learning centres. I also believe in the need for structure through respect for essential agreements. The classroom may be noisy but not chaotic, each student must know in each lesson what he or she is doing or supposed to be doing