Personal Development

International Baccalaureate Learner Profile Attributes

The social importance of school should always be taken into consideration in order to provide a holistic education where the whole child is given a chance to develop into open-minded global citizens.  Using the International Baccalaureate Organization Primary Years Program framework, there are attitudes and attributes that students are taught explicitly in order to foster personal development. Some examples of these traits are caring, open-minded, principled, appreciation, commitment, confidence, cooperation, empathy, enthusiasm, independence, respect and tolerance (acceptance of differences) (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2007).  For more information on the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program please click here.

Queen of Cooperation crown

In each lesson with my grade two class, I focused on one or two of these attitudes so that students were able to reflect on what that attitude looks like, feels like and how it can benefit themselves and those around them.  This can be integrated in creative ways, for example, during PE class I would tape a sign of the attitude onto my stomach so that students were aware that this was their goal during the lesson.  At the end of the lesson, students nominated each other for demonstrating the attitude and shared their reasoning.  During math class, we made crowns (measuring perimeter), and on my crown (the exemplar) my royal name was “Queen of Cooperation”.  The students were encouraged to cooperate by helping each other measure the distance around their heads.  They then gave themselves a royal name using an attitude (e.g. King Caring, Queen of Commitment, Prince Principled) that reflected who they were.  By personally experiencing and connecting with these traits, students gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of them.

Math challenge stations

I also used cooperative learning and group work opportunities for students to collaborate, develop relationships, and learn to work with different people.  We had rotating math stations with group challenges, partner work in language arts doing shared reading, and team work in PE when they choreographed a dance to part of a song, and then taught their part to the rest of the class before we put it all together to make a full dance.  We also had whole class critical thinking challenges where the students had to match their pictures of environments with other pictures of similar environments  and then as a group give reasons as to why they grouped themselves together. Students will only be able to learn to work and live around other people if they are given the chance to practice these skills.

Inquiry-Based Education

Working documentation board of student learning

Inquiry-based education keeps students engaged through thought provoking experiences connected to relevant, real life issues (International Baccalaureate, 2007).  In my grade two class, it consisted of activities such as exploding the central idea in order to assess students prior knowledge and interests.  This information was then used to design lessons for them to learn more about the things they were interested in.  We also had class discussions, where students brought up their own specific knowledge and debated with each other.  Provocations such as photographs (unexplained, but presented so that students would interact with them), video clips and objects such as bird nests were starting points of discussion and invited students to write down their wonderings on the wonder wall.  Activities such as building models or simulating a process allowed students to experience hands on learning, which extended their thinking skills even farther.

Hands On Learning

For one project, students made communities out of different materials.  While doing this they needed to figure out the logistics involved in making it and how to work together, but they also had to think about meeting their community’s basic needs.  A video clip on catching fog and turning it into water in the South American desert inspired students to think outside the box, coming up with ideas such as using the sand as a water filtration system and using a solar still to extract the salt from sea water.  The lack of knowledge about how people get water in the arctic provided a challenge for the students.  They had to use their knowledge of the environment and other water systems (gathered from global case studies in the form of videos and books) to devise a snow melting pipe system that lead into an insulated water storage area.

Learning through inquiry gives students the skills to question their understanding of the world by reconstructing their old views with new knowledge.  This process and the skills learned provide a framework to inspire students to never stop asking questions, even once they have left the education system.

Assessment

Visual Rubric

My goal is to do as much ongoing formative assessment as possible so that I always  know where my students are in their learning.  To do this I have used short weekly quizzes (math and spelling), marked student work using rubrics, had one-on-one conferences with the students while they were completing an activity and through informal observations during class or group discussions.  This information is used to plan for future instruction or give extra support where it is needed.  I have provided extra support by creating specific activities for individuals to complete in order to give them more time to work with the material.  In my grade two class, I have seen success with this in Math and Language Arts by providing extra activities for students to show their learning in a different way and at their own pace.  By checking in with the students as they worked through these activities during individual work time, the students were able to get more one-on-one support for the specific area where they needed help.  I have also pulled groups of students during this time to re-teach skills or concepts, give them feedback to implement immediately or check in with them to make sure that they are on the right track.
This way I can ensure that all my students are getting the support that they need and are able to show their learning in a way that works best for them.

Clear Expectations

In order for fair assessment to occur, students must know what they are trying to achieve.  Every lesson should have clear expectations for behaviour and for performance so that students are set up for success to achieve those goals.  Each of my lessons begin with an expectation for behaviour and what good work looks like.  These are written on the board, on the projector or on chart paper, so that students can refer back to these expectations to self-regulate and self-assess.  In Visual Arts, I made a visual rubric so that students could self-assess their work against the criteria by physically comparing their work to the exemplars.  For our summative task, I put together a working rubric consisting of simple, clear criteria.  I then made exemplars using their summative format, which the students looked at in groups to decided where they should be placed on the rubric.  By involving the students in this process, they were able to engage with the criteria and apply it to their own work.  By using criteria to guide students, they are set up for success with clear goals to target technical aspects of the task without taking away their creative license.

Working Rubric with space to place exemplars

Exemplars for each category