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International Baccalaureate^® | Baccalauréat International^® | Bachillerato Internacional^®

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Who owns the learning?

A journey in student agency

and transdisciplinary teaching and learning at UNIS Hanoi

#PYPTD

@ibpyp

International Baccalaureate^® | Baccalauréat International^® | Bachillerato Internacional^®

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Meet the team...

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Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Melanie has been teaching through the lens of the PYP for 15 years and has taught in Australia, Germany & Vietnam. She has been an active member of IBEN (PYP Workshop Leader, Consultant and Visiting Team Leader) throughout Asia Pacific, Middle East and Europe since 2011.

Mindy is currently a fourth grade teacher and PYP workshop leader. She is passionate about facilitating relevant learning opportunities for her students. She is a founder of the Global Codeathon, advocate of student agency, wife and mother of two.

Angela is a learner first and experienced PYP educator and administrator second. Within the IB Educator Network since 2008, Angela contributes as a lead educator, workshop leader, school site visiting team leader, webinar designer, consultant, field representative and Building Quality Schools curriculum reviewer.

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“...space is given to children to construct their learning alongside the adult...children and adults can then become co-researchers and co-constructors of learning.”

-An Encounter with Reggio Emilia

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9 January 2018

Image: Monita Sen, Exploring Teacher Understanding of Transdisciplinary Learning and Teaching in the PYP

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Trans-cending the Timetable

Deconstructing & reconstructing to support a transdisciplinary approach

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9 January 2018

Prescribed

Prepopulated

Organized by discipline

Open blocks of time

Workshop based

Increased student choice

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Transdisciplinary inquiry wall in the classroom, highlighting individual student focus and tasks.

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9 January 2018

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9 January 2018

An example of a completed weekly goals sheet that highlights not only the goal but also what success will look like and strategies to use to get there.

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Student signing up for teacher led workshops and recording these sessions on his personal schedule.

Students have choice in deciding on which tasks they will undertake for the week ahead.

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creating relevance

for skills and knowledge

Mindy

When this first began the students rarely signed up for the teacher led workshops as the students were less interested in what they needed to learn and therefore less self aware of their needs. The workshops were just another teacher offered activity and filling in goal sheets was just another piece of paperwork that the teacher was assigning. But as they began to work towards tasks that were relevant to them they began to identify what skills they needed to master in order to complete their task. At first we were asking kids if they want to sign up to learn how to measure angles or calculate ratio. They weren’t exactly jumping out of their seats for this. But when those same kids started designing 3D scale model of their favorite Heritage site then they figured out quickly what they needed to know in order to be successful. Suddenly they were not only signing up for workshops they were requesting them. They had an immediate need to know.

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Trans-forming the planning process

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Isolated disciplinary

‘Through the lens of’

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What do students say?

“When we get to choose what we want to learn about we are more interested and motivated. It is more fun knowing we got to decide what to do!” Khue

“When our timetable was more blocked we only got to do unit of inquiry 5 times a week. Now we are doing it all day, every day and we are learning so much more about it!” Harley

“I am seeing more connections between math and the real world because we are learning about through the unit of inquiries. It makes it easier to understand and also we are learning more about our unit at the same time.” Grant

“At first it was hard having to really decide what I wanted to focus on each week. I had to be honest about what I needed help in and what I wanted to do because it was interesting. It is getting easier.” Noi

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9 January 2018

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Voting with our feet: a reflection

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Before transdisciplinary integration workshop approach

After

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Key takeaways

A flexible timetable is critical to success
Increased opportunities for student agency
Ensure planning integrates a transdisciplinary approach
Shared responsibility of learning
Shift from a medical to ecological model

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Learning throughout this process has been extensive, and we have considered what are some key takeaways so far in the journey:

A flexible timetable allows for:

uninterrupted blocks of inquiry
deeper understanding of concepts
exposure to problem-solving situations

Providing more opportunities for student agency increases:

engagement
authentic integration of Approaches to Learning
student self-awareness of themselves as learners
relevant platform for goal-setting

Planning integrates a transdiciplinary approach- shifts it away from a siloh model to a more connected model. It also shifts the learning away from more thematic learning to learning concepts.

Shared responsibility of learning

It is not just that students learn what their weaknesses are they are seeing their strengths and how they can help each other.

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“Learning is not the transmission of a defined body of knowledge…(it) is a process of constructing, testing and reconstructing theories, constantly creating new knowledge. Teachers as well as children are constantly learning. Learning itself is a subject for constant research, and as such, must be made visible.”

C. Rinaldi & P. Moss

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Thank You

@melleytaylor

@mjslaughter

@ang_meikle

International Baccalaureate^® | Baccalauréat International^® | Bachillerato Internacional^®