IB Key Concepts

One of the key elements of IB are the Concepts - that which we want students to understand.
One of the resources I made to fit into the Art Space is this set of simplified posters for the students and me to refer to. The display is beside my whiteboard and easily accessed. When we want to focus on a particular one, I pull it off the wall and put it onto the board.

Another way to use them is to print them mini-sized, laminate and thread onto a ring. You can make one set for each group to use during various learning discussions.
You can grab yourself a set here.

Enjoy :)




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Writing Genres - and IB concept keys

Hello friends,

As the end of Year 6 approaches for my students (and with it the end of their PYP), we reflected on the many genre of writing they they have read / written over these years. After they brainstormed all these, I asked each group to select a genre that they felt they knew the most about.

For this lesson I used the following resource (which our school supplied us with) but I traced back to this website where you too can download a set.
http://engagethereader.wordpress.com/

I laminated them in full size and half size for displays and group-work, as well as quarter size and grouped on a ring for individual use.

The students 'blind-drew' a concept key for their group. Using the concept that they had drawn, they discussed their genre of writing. First they came up with questions and discussed/solved these as a group
e.g. of questions for Narrative genre with the Connected key:

How are narratives connected to other writing genre (compare and contrast)?
What connections can I make between narratives I read and narratives I write?
How are the different parts of a narrative connected to each other?
How can you connect the orientation to the conclusion?
....and so on....

We had great fun sharing our ideas back to the class and it gave me great insight into the students' thinking / knowledge around writing genre / conceptual understanding.

We followed this up by allowing students freedom of choice for their final writing assessment piece, helping them to play to their writing strengths. Students could choose between Persuasive, Narrative, Explanation and Recount (personal) as these have scope to show a development of ideas. I really enjoyed marking the variety of writing that we got out of this model. One student wrote a particularly engaging piece about our calendar art lesson from the point of view of her art pencil.

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Maths - Wondering and Noticing

Hello friends,

Annie Fetter at NCTM Ignite

For all you fellow maths teachers, here is a  little video full of great ideas. Well worth a watch. These concepts are  transdisciplinary so apply to all areas of engaging learners. Take a look.

Have a great weekend :)

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IB Exhibition #1

Hello Friends,

This is our IB exhibition term. Very exciting time for both the students and the teachers involved. This is my first year guiding students through the exhibition and there has been a lot of discourse among us about the learning pedagogy behind the purpose of exhibition. Today I read an interesting article by Bruce Hammonds on his blog about what 21st C schools should be delivering as opposed to what they are delivering with standardised testing and narrowing / compartmentalising the curriculum. These are the times when I am glad to teach in an IB school :)

Here is a link to Bruce's blog article

One of the biggest areas of discussion was how far to pull back and how much freedom to give the students around selecting their own learning pathways. Personally I have come to believe that it really depends on the student. Some need more guidance to structure their learning while others are quite capable to do this for themselves.

However, as this is the first for us as a teaching team, we have set:
The Transdisciplinary Theme - Where we are in Place an Time
The Central Idea - Past, present and future shape the technologies of today.

 
We began by meeting as a year group (all 3 classes together) and the students were taken through a recap about the over-arching ideas of IB Inquiry.

To start with we watched this video:

It generated some great discussions among the students around who is in fact taking charge of your learning.

much love

Body Systems #7 - Student Inquiry and freebie

Hello friends,

With the Digestive system inquiry model done, students could start to reflect on what other systems our bodies have, how they function and connect.

For home learning they were asked to find as many systems as they could. This proved interesting because depending on the source (and the number of cross-checking sources they used) they came up with varying amounts. A good lesson to follow on from Body System #6.

From the main ones, we made a chart with a brief description of each.

Then I created a sister chart where students could indicate their choice of the system they wished to inquire into. First we completed a quick prior knowledge activity (Kwl) using this foldable. Quite revealing really!

Next, students wrote and shared their questions (based around Form, Function and Connection), and they were off (kWl).

I posted a whole list of internet links to articles, 3D animations, videos and diagrams for the Y6 group on our team Wiki so that they could access from home if they wished. There was also a pile of non-fiction books to refer to in  class. And thank you Brainpop :) for the videos.

Graphic organisers are a great way to guide this independent part of the journey for your students, so I gave the kiddies this explanation tracker with all the markers we had learned about previously. They can highlight off each bit as they complete it.

I also created this research sheet for them to use and have posted it for FREE on my stores. The links are at the end of this post so hop on over for your copy :)

 http://www.classroomfreebies.com/2013/04/welcome-to-manic-monday-at-classroom_29.html

Students that felt they needed 1-1 with me listed their names on the board and were called down in order for a conference. After working with a couple of students, I added the key concepts to the key words section of their research sheet to remind them what they were looking for and to help them 'sift' out the relevant information.

As they got going, they began to notice some trends with body systems. When looking at the forms (parts) of the systems, they realised that some systems are a circuit, and some are made up of distinct, but in some way, connected parts. (and so kwL begins :)
 We came up with this list on the board.

By having this list on the board to refer to, they could quickly check where to next. Once they had completed and orally shared their introductions, they could add these to our Google Drive for collaboration and moderation. I'll post about how this went, next time.

The links to my shops are here. Hope you find this useful too :)

How do you use organisers to support your inquiries? Would love to read your ideas below.
'Til next time :)

Body Systems #6 - resources for research

Hello friends,

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the first time to share 5 items from my week :)
This will take the form of 5 varied resources students can use for research.



Inquiry Learning - open ended by its nature because students follow their own interests. While this is a concern for many teachers who feel that they have a better handle on the quality of learning in their rooms when they prepare and teach their own lessons, Inquiry Learning  offers true engagement as students really want to find answers to their own questions to satisfy their curiosity.

We teachers are now the facilitators of the learning, there to support, encourage and (dare I say) push students to reach their potential.

One of the ways we do this is by creating 'wanting' in our students. I 'wanted' them to 'want' to persist with research through a variety of resources in order to clarify their understanding as well as to confirm the accuracy of the facts that they were gathering. Simply due to their lack of life experience, they don't see the point of continuing their research if they believe to have found the answer in the first place they look. And teachers telling them they need to do so ...well why?... when they have the answer.

To initiate the research for the teacher guided inquiry, I provided my kiddies with (no.1) an explanation of the digestive system. I made it purposefully challenging (similar to the non-fiction topic books they would encounter on the subject) so that they felt that they got some information out of it but were still unclear about many areas.

After reading through it, I asked them to read it a second time and this time to highlight any words or key ideas that they would like to use in an oral retell.

Next I had them explain their understanding to a buddy, in their own words with reference only to their highlighted words.

By a show of hands I asked them to vote whether they were totally clear on the topic and could confidently explain it to anyone. No-one was willing to commit. So asked them what they felt would help them at this stage. One of the things they asked for was a diagram (no.2), so I gave them one. Their task was to go through the text again and to sequence the events with the labels on the diagram.

Many felt they gained some clarity. What they really wanted next was something to explain the Topic Words - so I provided the glossary (no.3) I had prepared. Now they felt they understood the text a lot better but still found it difficult to visualise the process because this was not part of their prior knowledge or experience. All they really knew was that food went in and 'poop' came out, so something went on in between. Sounds like a hypothesis to me!

Bring on the experiment (no.4):

This was such fun! The toughest kiddies were turning green at the gills, by the end.
Finally (no.5) we watched a few animations and videos on youtube (wonderful resource).

Exposing students to such a wide variety of resources allows access for varied learning styles, to the information that needs to be processed.

In their shared writing groups, they were able to access the necessary information from the aforementioned resources and collaborate on a paragraph for the class exemplar explanation.

Next time I'll post about kicking off the Student Initiated part of this Inquiry.

Be sure to head over to Doodle Bugs Teaching to share your five for the week :)
Have a great day everyone :)