PYP

Week 1: Cultural Acclimatization

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Nǐ hǎo 你好 and greetings from Qingdao, China! Myself and three other Teacher Candidates from UBC have just completed our first week at an IB candidate school, and what a week it has been! Having just completed my 10 week practicum, with a crazy last day of summative assessments, hosting assembly, and lots of tearful goodbyes, I rushed home to pack before heading to the airport early the following morning. After catching up on some sleep on the plane, before I knew it I had arrived at my homestay family’s apartment in Qingdao. Come 7.30am on Monday morning, it was time to head to school – what a whirlwind! Here are my observations and reflections from Week 1, on life and culture in China:

Food, glorious, food!

People in China love to eat! Meals generally include at least six sharing plates, and you can be mid-bite, with a full plate (and tummy!), and your hosts will still be offering you more food. Chinese people are very generous, and I can honestly I haven’t been hungry once since I arrived. Mealtimes are also very social occasions, and people “cheers” (“gān bēi” 干杯) several times throughout the meal. Food is homemade from scratch, and I have been lucky enough to learn how to make a couple of the traditional dishes, from pork dumplings to the traditional Zongzi (sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves) for the annual Dragon Boat Festival holiday.

Zongzi for breakfast

Zongzi for breakfast

Making dumplings

Making dumplings

Standing out from the crowd

There are very few Westerners in Qingdao. Even walking around the city, we will often have people stop and look or take pictures, which is a very strange experience. There are a couple of international teachers at our school, but even so, the children are very intrigued by our presence and excited to say “hello”, or run by and shout “you are beautiful”. A couple of the other TC’s come from an asian background, and the students are fascinated by the fact that they are from Canada and speak English, as well as a bit of Mandarin. It makes me fortunate to live in such a multicultural city like Vancouver.

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Communication barriers

There is one “international” class at our school, with the rest of the children learning very basic English. This has made conversation and communication very difficult. Apps such as Google Translate, are essential in helping read menus and communicate with my homestay family. I am also learning that pictures, actions & modelling can make the world of difference when it comes to teaching across language barriers. So far, we have been mostly observing and only had to run an afternoon of activities at the beach, but next week we have to teach incoming Grade 1 students, without knowing their level of English beforehand… which will be a great challenge having just come from teaching a Grade 6/7.

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Week 1 has been a steep learning curve, but what I have learned about the culture and from life in China so far has been an amazing experience. The importance of being open-minded, flexible, positive, and a risk-taker has been key to having such a great week. As we integrate into the school and begin to teach more next week, I will share some of my observations surrounding teaching strategies, classroom practice and behaviour management. Until next time… zài jiàn 再见.

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A New Challenge…

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As of beginning of January, I have started at a new practicum school which, excitedly, is in the very first stages of becoming a PYP school. And while I feel like the new kid on the block again – having to learn names, find my way around the school, and work out what the staff room etiquette is – I am particularly grateful for being able to see the IB programme at different stages, and how it works in both a public and an independent setting. What’s more, I get the added bonus of working in a different grade, with 9 more kids than my previous practicum class. In other words, a new (and possibly greater) challenge… which means a more valuable learning experience. Bonus!

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Starting a brand new PYP programme from scratch, in a small but established elementary school, without a full-time PYP coordinator, must be quite the challenge. But with such caring and dedicated staff, I am glad I am able to accompany them on part of this journey. This week in our courses, we have been starting to learn about the IB Planners. In most schools, these are already set up, which teachers continuously review and alter based on the year and the needs of  the classroom. Yet this got me thinking, where does a school start in transitioning to the PYP programme? Where do you go with a blank planner template?

Once accepted as a candidate school by the IBO, schools have a trial implementation of the programme which can take a couple of years to reach authorization. This includes training staff members and implementing the curriculum, which is the stage my practicum school is currently at. The below image summarizes the full process to gain authorization.

IB Authorization Process. Retrieved from http://www.ibo.org/become-an-ib-school/how-to-become-an-ib-school/

IB Authorization Process. Retrieved from http://www.ibo.org/become-an-ib-school/how-to-become-an-ib-school/

Subsequently, not only are they implementing their first Units of Inquiry, they are also combining this with trialing the new BC curriculum…. AND having teacher candidates they have to mentor?? My hope is that we can help with the process. We will likely be collaborating to help develop the planner for the next U of I, which will be great experience to create it from scratch and reflect on how it is progressing in a real educational setting. I am also hopeful that the knowledge we have gained over the last five months will be helpful during the IB planning meetings we will likely get to attend once we are at the school full-time. The next couple of weeks will be crucial, as we learn more about implementing the planner, and chat further with our SA’s in planning for our extended practicum.

IB and the Inquiry Mindset

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During my practicum in Grade Five, I have been fortunate enough to see how students transition through a full Unit of Inquiry. Through the transdisciplinary theme of Who We Are, our class is focusing on the central idea that “Learning about our body systems helps people make informed choices”. As with anyone that is new to IB, the concepts surrounding the Programme of Inquiry and how this can be authentically implemented in conjunction with BC Curriculum, can be a bit daunting at first. How do we genuinely incorporate the Learner Profile into our everyday language? How do we take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the Central Idea? Where do we begin with taking real action? We can cover all the theory we like in our classes, but until we get into the schools and start seeing it in practice, that is when we will really get to see the IB “magic”.

Who We Are Unit of Inquiry

Who We Are Unit of Inquiry

My School Advisor breaks each unit down into six weeks, with each week roughly covering the following themes: Tuning In, Finding Out, Sorting Out, Going Further, Making Connections, and Taking Action. The picture above was taken during the second week of the unit; we are now in week five, and having not been present for week 3 and 4, the advancement in their level of understanding and the depth of the connections they are now making is remarkable. On enquiring, I found that this was the Kath Murdoch model of inquiry, which is extremely similar to the Spiral Model of Inquiry we have been learning about in our ‘bible’, Spirals of Inquiry, by the amazing Jody Halbert and Linda Kaser (who we were very fortunate to attend a keynote speech by this past week).

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Spiral Model of Inquiry (Halbert & Kaser, 2013)

When I think back to my own education as a child, as well as throughout my undergraduate degree, there is definitely a stark difference between then and the direction that education is now heading. I was a student to a lot of transmission-style teaching… and let’s be honest, there’s not much of my learning in elementary and high school that I can recall. But the great thing about this, is that we as educators and administrators are making progress. And with the upcoming transition with the new BC Curriculum focusing more on competencies (the ‘doing’), this is an exciting time for teacher candidates. We are going to be part of the change, and what’s more, with our understanding of inquiry through the international baccalaureate program, we are going to be, hopefully, ahead of the game.

We are all responsible for our own learning. The teacher’s responsibility is to create educational environments that permit students to assume the responsibility that is rightfully and naturally theirs.” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999).

Class inquiry in action

Class inquiry in action

So as a new inquiry teacher, how do we go about inciting student ownership over their learning? This is something that I will be working to uncover over the remainder of my BEd, as well as developing my skill set over the rest of my career. To get started however, on her website (link below) Kath Murdoch provides 10 practices of the effective inquiry teacher:

  1. Challenge more students to think more deeply more of the time
  2. Teach students about thinking: help build their critical, creative and reflective thinking toolkit, as well as asking them to share their thinking processes with others
  3. Provoke curiosity and wonderment: celebrate questions and teach how to ask good questions
  4. Invite student voices into the learning process: have them construct intentions and success criteria
  5. Help students make connections: assist them to see how their thinking grows and changes
  6. Teach the skills and process used by researchers, so they have a variety of methodologies and feel confident as researchers
  7. Ensure that students have the bigger picture: context and purpose for their learning
  8. Let kids in on the secret: share learning intentions
  9. Focus on process as much as the content: invite students reflect and plan how they learns
  10. This is all in the context of having a genuine, trusting relationship with your students.
Mind Maps: brainstorming and making connections on real-world issues

Mind Maps: brainstorming and making connections on real-world issues

So ask questions, investigate the unknown, discuss ideas, interpret information, and reflect regularly… this results in becoming an authentic lifelong learner, and if you can endorse this, your students will do too.

 

 

References

Brooks, J. and Brooks,M (1999) In search of understanding: the case for constructivist classrooms, Sage publications.

Halbert, J. & Kaser, L. (2013). Spirals of Inquiry for equity and quality. Vancouver, BC: BCPVPA

Kath Murdoch website: http://www.kathmurdoch.com.au/new-page-2-1/

 

Week Two… Check!

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How is our two week practicum over with already?! Week Two was just as hectic as the first, except it included the dreaded “formal observation”. I started off the week by getting a sneak peak of the school we will be at for our long practicum, as our school was closed for an additional two days for the Remembrance Day holiday. I am particularly lucky in that I get to spend my practicums in both a public and private school, which i’m hoping will give some diversity in my experience and an understanding of the two systems. Of course, as we are in now in teacher mode, Remembrance Day meant while the school was closed, there was still lesson planning and work to be done. While I had been lucky enough to lead many blocks, formal observation time had arrived…

I presumed that I would be extremely nervous having someone observe me in the classroom. But in fact, I kind of forgot my faculty advisor was even there! Although that might have had something to do with getting to do a fun, hands on lesson. I was teaching an Inquiry block, and the focus was on the Digestive System. What better way to learn about the workings of the Digestive System than to become it?

We started off with accessing our prior knowledge with a class brainstorm and drawing what we already knew, before watching a BrainPop video. I then divided the class into groups that would function together as different parts of the Digestive System, providing them with props so they could properly do their ‘job’… yes, there was a final ‘outcome’ to his activity! It was a bit risky for an observation as I was concerned classroom management could be difficult, but I was curious to see how a lesson like this would turn out. There were laughs, screams, and some looks of disgust, but overall the students made some great connections (why vomit looks the way it does; what happens if you don’t drink enough water), and they were able to develop their understanding of form and function.

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Moving into the ‘Small Intestine’

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Acting out the role of the ‘Rectum’

The next morning when I arrived, the students were excitedly reciting the events of the day to a student who was off – a great sign that they had really internalized what they had learned. We were able to follow up the next day drawing what we know now, practicing our language skills by note-taking from a website on the Digestive System, before finishing with a fun game of Kahoot – which the students loved!

Lesson of the day: What’s the best way to help students learn? Gross them out!

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I finished my week by reading aloud a Scottish fairytale in one of the kindergarten classes. I had never been in a kindergarten class before but heard they were “reading around the world”, so thought I would offer my services (*accent). I brought along some artifacts: a picture of me when I was their age ‘cutting peat’ with my Grandpa on the moors of the Scottish isles, and a scarf with my family tartan, which worked out perfectly as they were looking at patterns in math. They seemed to enjoy it and I had a blast! What a great way to finish off the week…

I can’t believe our practicum is almost at an end! Part of me wishes I could stay at this school and continue to develop the meaningful relationships I have made with the students, my SA, and the rest of the staff, but I know that I will get an equally great experience when I move on. One of the students asked me if I would be returning, and if I could be their Grade 6 teacher next year…how about you go ask your principal?

 

The First Week…

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Wow, what a great first week on practicum! I have been lucky enough to have a supportive SA who was happy to test my abilities, and encouraged me to throw myself right in. And that I did… on my first day I taught a double block of mathematics! Here are some of my reflections on what I have learned from this week and some of the things I will be thinking about moving forward.

It's Pyjama Day!

It’s Pyjama Day!

The importance of reflection

I think I taught a total of seven blocks in four days, on top of taking groups, providing general support etc. We had one day for teacher-parent conferences, and another day allocated for Remembrance Service/Grandparents Day, so it was an action-packed week. I am really lucky that my SA pushed me as he felt that experience is the best way to develop, and for some reason he felt confident enough in me that he would encourage me to lead classes so early on. We had really similar perspectives on this, as even though my nerves were through the roof, I knew I had to just throw myself in there. And each time I taught, I came out with at least five things I would do differently next time. I wrote these down and tried to keep these in mind for next time. There are certain things you can only learn through experience and through knowing your students (e.g. timing, how much time has to be spent on a concept etc.), so reflection for me is one of the most important things I can do to help myself develop. Experience really is the best way to learn!

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Classroom management and the varied needs of learners

After my first week, I think these are probably going to be two of the most significant things I will aim to master over the rest of my BEd. I am lucky enough to be at an independent school where class sizes are low, expectations of the students are high, and the majority work at such an advanced level. But, with moving to a public school for my long practicum, classes will be larger and therefore the needs will be more diverse, so classroom management is something that I want to become effective at early on. During my first lesson, even though I thought I had planned more than enough content which I wasn’t sure we would get through, some students just flew through it, leaving for 15 minutes of extra reading time. Finding a happy medium between adequately challenging the diverse students and not ‘punishing’ them for getting their work done by providing additional worksheets, is something that I would like to creatively get to grips with.

 

My Improper Fraction Game in action

My Improper Fraction Game in action

Building relationships

This is something that is really important to me, both in my personal life and working environment, and I think is one of the key factors in having a successful practicum. You could be one of the most confident, knowledgeable, and proficient teachers, but I believe that connecting with your students, and being able to collaborate and build genuine relationships with your peers is perhaps the most important aspect of being a successful teacher. This is something i’ve been keeping in mind during my practicum, and while this may be difficult to establish over two short weeks, I do feel like I have been able to connect with a couple of hard-to-reach students. Having the class fist-pump when they hear you will be teaching them improper fractions that day (seriously?!) must surely be an occurrence that won’t often be repeated!

Week 2? Bring it on!