teaching and learning: the heart of international education

Teaching and learning: the heart of international education

Judith Fabian, Chief Academic OfficerIB Americas regional conference, July 2012

© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007

The heart of international education?

“Teachers and teaching are the most significant factors in improving educational outcomes”

Teaching and Learning Research Programme (Institute of Education, University of London www.tlrp.org)


How do we teach for the IB learner profile?

How do we teach so thatour students become‘Inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young peoplewho help to create a betterand more peaceful world?”



Contents

Historical perspectiveWhat is an IB education?Approaches to learningApproaches to teachingTeaching through conceptsFeedback: opportunities and challenges?


Historical perspective


Historical perspective: the founding of the IB

“ ...the development of the general powers of the mind to operate in avariety of ways of thinking...” (Alec Peterson)

Students should ‘learn to learn’ (Edgar Faure, a French Minister of Education inthe late1960s)

Schools Across Frontiers, 1987


Historical perspective: the founding of the IB

“..what matters is not the absorption and regurgitation either of facts or of predigested interpretations of facts, but the development of powers of the mind or ways of thinking which can be applied to new situations and new presentations of facts as they arise.”

From an early statement of IB aims, A.D.C. Peterson, International Baccalaureate, 1972


Historical perspective: MYP

Approaches to learning (ATL):

Stimulated by Theory of Knowledge ATL quickly moved beyond just study skills and was expressed as ways students....

•Organize their personal work•Distinguish the essential from the accessory•Know how to take advantage sensibly of the many media which flood our modern society

The first thorough definition of ATL emerged in Quebec in 1988

‘Learning to learn’ was always crucial to the programme

It became one of the 5 areas of interaction, apparently, by accident!


Historical perspective: PYPn,mnlk

Transdisciplinary skills: support the search for understanding and the construction of meaning

What do we want to learn? The written curriculumThe identification of a framework of what’s worth knowing

How best will we learn? The taught curriculumThe theory and application of good classroom practice

How will we know what we have learned? The assessed curriculumThe theory and application of effective assessment


What is an IB education?


1. IB learners

The IB encourages students to become active, compassionate, lifelong learners IB programmes are

holistic in nature –concerned with the whole person.

The attributes of the IB learner profile represent a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that go beyond intellectual development and academic success.


2. Teaching and learning in the IB

Enabling students to construct meaning and make sense of the world.

..Asking, doing, thinking...

Preparing students for a lifetime of learning, independently and in collaboration with others.


3. Global contexts for education

-Developing learning environments that value the world as the broadest context for learning.

In school, students learn about the world from the curriculum and from their interactions with other people.

An IB education creates teaching and learning opportunities that help students increase their understanding of language and culture and become more globally engaged.


4. Significant content

...both disciplinary and interdisciplinary.

Broad and balanced....meeting university standards for rigour in depth and breadth.

Conceptual and connected: focusing on broadly powerful ideas that have relevance within and across subject areas....broad ideas that reach beyond national and international boundaries.


Approaches to teaching and learning


Aproaches to learning across the continuum

A progression of approaches to teaching and learning2012

PYP transdisciplinary

skills

MYPATL

One of 5 areasof

interaction

IBCCATL

courseDP?


Aproaches to learning across the continuum

Common approaches to teaching and learning2014/15

* Will evolve to be cross-programme

PYP ATL

MYPATL

IBCCATL

Course*

DPATL


Approaches to teaching and learning in the DP

Approaches to learning

How do students approachtheir learning in the DP

presently?

How should studentsapproach their learning forgreater success in the DP?

How could the DP encouragelearning for lifelong

success in students?

Approaches to teaching

How do teachers approach theirteaching in the DP?

What ‘learning to learn’ skills and attitudes should teachersteach/facilitate for greater

success?

What could the DP expect of teachers in how to teach

effectively for life beyond school?


The DP curriculum

The planned and written

curriculumC1 & 2

The taughtcurriculum

C3

The assessedcurriculum

C4

Guides, TSMs,and specimen papers:

school decisions

Focus of currentwork

Comprehensive, rigorousassessment

The right sort?


Build on the success of the Learner Profile

Not a separate course – integrated and fundamental

‘ATL’ as much a part of DP discourse as ‘TOK’

Integral to subject specific workshops

Supports the academic rigour of the DP

DP coordinators develop as pedagogical leaders

Will support and encourage collaborative planning

Inspiring, encouraging and supporting – not mandating

Approaches to learning in the DP: principles


Approaches to learning across the continuum

Categories:

Research skills

Communications skills

Social skills

Thinking skills

Self-management skills


Approaches to teaching

The relationship between teacher and student

the teacher as learner

empowering students to be lifelong learners

democratizing the classroom


Approaches to teachingPedagogical principles for international education?

Start with the studentTeach through conceptsTeach through inquiry and critical thinkingPut learning into contextDifferentiate the learning experiencesCreate a community of learnersDevelop independent, lifelong learners

Is there anything missing?


Teaching through concepts


Teaching through concepts

Disciplinary and interdisciplinary

Deeper understanding through meaningful connectionsand transfer

Teaching beyond the local, national or cultural context


Teaching through concepts in the PYPA set of 8 concepts that contribute to the structure of thetransdisciplinary curriculum:

formfunctioncausationchangeconnectionperspectiveresponsibilityreflection


Teaching through concepts in the MYP (2014)

Conceptual framework:

Prescribed key concepts

Prescribed subject specific, related concepts


Teaching through concepts in the MYP (2014)

Key and related concepts prescribed for all years of the MYP

Examples of key concepts:

change communication identity patterns relationships

MYP science draft related concepts:

evidence energy transformation models interaction consequences form function balance


Teaching through concepts in the DP

DP has always required conceptual thinking – high level, big ideas, abstractionseg what is the nature of mathematical knowledge?

DP assessment is focused on broad understandingseg World Literature assignments

No prescription of concepts; conceptual nature of DP will be made more explicit


Teaching and learning in IB programmes

“.. to develop to their fullest potential the powers of each individual to understand, to modify and to enjoy his or her environment, both inner and outer, in its physical, social, moral, aesthetic and spiritual aspects.”

Alec PetersonFirst Director General and co-founder of the IB



What do you welcome most about what you haveheard?

What will be challenging for you in your owncontext?

What can the IB do to support you?

teaching and learning: the heart of international education

Documents

ib education

ib learnersthe ib

teaching teaching

learning approaches

early statement of ib

ib learner profile

historical perspectivepage

ways students