Seeking a proper role and balance for components of the PYP approach to learning

The following is an excerpt from a Final Reflections document that I recently submitted to the FAST TRAIN program after having finished all requirements leading toward my receiving elementary and secondary teaching certification (from the state of Virginia). If you can make it past the first two paragraphs where I restate some blatantly obvious and widely agreed-upon ideas, you'll get to the parts that may be a bit controversial.

My two years of summer academic studies at George Mason University’s Fairfax campus, combined with my field experience and teaching internship at the International School of Tianjin, have buttressed my previously developed educational philosophy in unpredicted ways. In my many past years of experience in the business world, I have seen organizations fail or succeed based upon the degree to which they clearly articulated their mission and objectives and on how well they directed their efforts at accomplishing those objectives. This experience no doubt led to one of my earliest stated educational philosophies: that an educational institution needs a clearly articulated curriculum (with clearly stated goals of knowledge content and skills that are to be acquired by students at every stage), and that the actions that the teachers in the institution undertake must be directed at the successful fulfillment of this curriculum.

Since my business experience was largely within the information technology industry, I also came into the educational field with a predisposition that acquisition and utilization of educational technologies should always be done in the direct service of the curriculum. Curriculum should drive technology, not the other way around.

While these ideas are hardly controversial, my field work in a PYP elementary school has led me into a few ideas that might not be so universally accepted. Taken as a rather confusing whole, the ideas put forth in IBO publications such as Making the PYP Happen can be difficult for educators to immediately digest and put into action. To help allay this confusion, it is useful for me to think of all of the PYP concepts promoted by the IBO as constituting a technology, and like any other technology, the PYP should be singularly employed in service of a school’s clearly-articulated curriculum. But if we say that a school’s explicitly-stated curricular goals should drive its implementation of the PYP, how do we effectively bridge one to the other? In other words, how can we “map” curricular goals to PYP goals?

In my opinion, the most tangible aspects of the PYP approach to learning are stated in the various Scope and Sequence documents (IBO, 2008, 2009), and most vitally in the PYP Transdisciplinary Skills (IBO, 2007). In fact, I think that the PYP Transdisciplinary Skills (e.g., comprehension, cooperating, reading, writing, synthesizing information, time management, etc.) together constitute the most universally uncontroversial and immediately accessible part of the entire PYP world. The average forward-thinking corporate CEO can look at that list of skills and say unequivocally to an educator “Yes, these are the skills that our future workforce (i.e., your present students) need to be equipped with in order to effectively navigate the 21st century.”

I have come to believe that the PYP Transdisciplinary Skills and the IBO’s Scope and Sequence documents provide a tangible bridge between a school’s clearly-stated curriculum and some of the more obscure recommendations and imperatives of the PYP. They provide the means by which an institution’s curriculum can effectively and with minimal confusion be tied to its employment of PYP “technology”.

This all leads me to take a potentially controversial stand: The IBO seems to push the Learner Profile to a position of highest prominence in the PYP firmament. In my opinion, this is done to an over-weighted extent which potentially obscures and dilutes a much more vital focus that should be given to the PYP Transdisciplinary Skills. I have seen more than one institution in which the attributes of the Learner Profile adorn many of the walls. I for one would appreciate seeing the various PYP Transdisciplinary Skills just as prominently displayed and focused upon in each school’s daily unit and non-unit activities, with students at every level being assisted in setting and tracking their own goals for skill development. The Learner Profile certainly has its place, but it should be a properly balanced one.


Reference List

• International Baccalaureate Organization (2007). Making the PYP happen: A curriculum framework for international primary education. United Kingdom: IBO.
• International Baccalaureate Organization (2008). Science Scope and Sequence. United Kingdom: IBO.
• International Baccalaureate Organization (2008). Social Studies Scope and Sequence. United Kingdom: IBO.
• International Baccalaureate Organization (2009). Mathematics Scope and Sequence. United Kingdom: IBO.

Gravity and Motion: a six-lesson science unit for Grade 2 students

The link below will take you to a fairly detailed set of lesson plans that I recently created as part of the field work for one of my FAST TRAIN courses at George Mason University.

EDIT 2016-02-24: Note that some of the web-pages for which links are provided in the lesson plans may no longer be active and available on the Internet. Any of these can likely be accessed in archived format via the Internet Archive's "Way Back Machine". Please go to the following page, and enter there any URL that you find to be inaccessible: https://archive.org/web/

All together, the document spells out six lesson plans for an approximately two-week unit on "gravity and motion". This unit serves as a component of a larger PYP unit entitled “The Solar System” in which the central idea includes the concept of how gravity governs the movements of the components of the Solar System.

While the intended level is Grade 2, the lessons could certainly be used for older students, either as-is or with modifications to "beef up" the content.

Click here for the lesson plans.

I will be "field testing" some or all of these lesson plans in the spring of 2010, in coordination with the Grade 2 teachers at the International School of Tianjin. If anyone else has an opportunity to use one or more of these lesson plans in the classroom, I would appreciate feedback on how things went in the "comments" section of this blog posting. Thanks!

Lesson Plan for an Experiential Lesson on Leadership

The following is a detailed lesson plan that I wrote this summer as part of my FAST TRAIN course work (for the course entitled "Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment in International Schools"). I was part of a team of four that designed a six-week PYP unit for grade 5 students entitled "The Leader in the Mirror," and this lesson is intended for incorporation into that unit. With that said, a lesson like this could be taught in a stand-alone fashion or incorporated into any other appropriate unit of study. Note that the lesson does require a certain level of maturity of the students, and might well need to be tailored to cater to the traits of the individuals in a class.

This lesson plan represents my first experiment with the "LEARN" structure for lesson planning. The acronym LEARN spells out the sections of the lesson plan: (1) Link (to past learning), (2) Engage/Explain, (3) Active Learning, (4) Reflect, and (5) Now and Then. The last section, "Now and then," is intended to contain ideas for applying what has been learned in the lesson ("now") to future actions and learning ("then").

Note that this lesson, "Leaders' Walk," is derived from an exercise of the same name found in the book, Leadership Games: Experiential Learning for Organizational Development. See below for complete reference information.

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Lesson Plan for “The Leader in the Mirror” Unit
Lesson Title: LEADERS' WALK

Link: Lesson begins with viewing of a brief humorous but thought-provoking video on some components of leadership: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVTUOUn0y0o
Brief discussion ties aspects of the video with leadership traits already studied, experienced, and reflected upon in the unit. Conversation segues into the topics of trust and communication, and teacher briefly leads discussion regarding students knowledge and opinions of trust and communication between leaders and followers. Key words and phrases are written on whiteboard to be brought up again during the reflection part of the lesson.

Engage/Explain: Teacher states that today's lesson will certainly focus on the concepts of trust and communication, but will also focus on whatever else comes to students' minds during and after the activity to come. Today the students will not be studying leadership, they will be living it. The ultimate goal will be to have tangible experience to reflect on, both in class discussion and in individual student journals. These conversations and writings will show their current understanding of the leadership concepts.

Teacher explains that before the lesson, two or three walking paths have been prepared (either indoors or outdoors) with obstacles placed in the paths. Today's activity will involve two students being appointed as leaders to guide two groups of the others (the followers) through it. The only constraint is that the followers will be wearing blindfolds. Each of the two leaders will have five to ten followers to guide through a course. Lead teacher offers assurance that all teachers involved in overseeing the exercise (at least one other teacher, and preferably three other teachers) will remain sighted and will assure the safety of all. It is important that at least one teacher be overseeing each group throughout the activity.

The students are divided into two predetermined groups. Each group is asked to select a leader in whatever way they choose to make the selection. After leaders for each group have been selected, blindfolds are distributed among the followers who put them on.

Leaders are then given their first task: to decide what the rules of communication will be with their group of followers. The leader may choose that (1) only the leader may talk, with followers remaining silent; (2) the followers may speak, but only to the leader; or (3) all may speak freely throughout the activity. The two leaders may set different rules for each of their groups.

At least one supervising teacher directs each group leader to the beginning point of their set of obstacles, leaving it up to the leader to provide direction for their group.

Active Learning: Leaders guide their groups, in the manner of the leader's choosing, through the walking path and through the obstacles. After no more than 15 minutes of guided walk, participants take off their blindfolds, and everyone returns to classroom for reflection process.

Reflect: A “debriefing” process begins with teacher-led group discussion in a think/pair/share format. The choice of this format anticipates that everyone will have a lot to say about what they just went through, so the pairing immediately gives each student an outlet. Students are constantly encouraged to take notes during all pair and full group conversations, notes which they will put to use when writing their journal entries. Teacher will also make notes on the whiteboard during full group sharing.

Questions focus on:

(1) What just happened?

• What was difficult and easy about being a follower? What was most unexpected?
• What was the reaction of the leaders to the situation? What was hardest, easiest, unexpected?
• What did followers do to overcome constraints? What did leaders do to help overcome constraints?
• What system of communications was developed? Compare/constrast the systems of the two groups?
• Did followers further from the leader have a different experience than those near the leader?

(2) What are the implications?

• What were the strengths and weaknesses of the communication systems chosen and used? What would be ways to improve them?
• What accounted for each group's selection of its leader? What attributes were group members looking for when they made their selection?
• Did any conflicts arise during the exercise; if so, how were they resolved? What were the roots of the conflict? Was it between leader and follower(s), or between two or more followers?
• What does this exercise tell us about special responsibilities of a leader? ... about responsibilities of a follower?

Following the think/pair/share conversations, students are asked to write individual journal entries into their unit journals. Students are free to write or draw freely about their ideas stemming from the experience, but they are asked to write at least one paragraph to discuss the most important one, two, or three concepts regarding leadership and/or followership that they learned about or learned more about in this exercise, and how they might apply it in future leadership/followership situations.

Now and Then: After journal entries have been made, volunteers are sought to briefly share with the class any part of the content of their journal entries they care to share, but particularly focusing on the students' plans for future applications of lessons learned. Teacher states that there will be more experiential leadership exercises as the unit progresses, focusing on other aspects of leadership.
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References:
The Leaders' Walk lesson was adapted from an exercise of the same name on page 127 of the following book, which is a great source for a number of worthwhile experiential leadership exercises:
Kaagan, S. (1999). Leadership Games: Experiential Learning for Organizational Development, Thousand Oaks, CA. SAGE Publications Inc.