where are you at?

[Vicky Gammon]

Hi

I think most people are starting or are about to start the Exhibition around now. How are students going with developing a central idea? Any tips for helping students through the process? Last year our kids did a great job after going through lots of work on the transdisciplinary themes and assessing our school's POI. THis year, we have a very different cohort.

Is anyone planning to visit other schools' Exhibitions? The Beijing/Tianjin job alike sounds like a good idea.

[Tod Baker]

Hi Vicky.

We are approaching the end of week two of our Exhibition. We've spent this time revisiting what it means to be a PYP student. We analyzed the essential elements of a PYP: concept questions, attitudes, and PYP skills. We created a puzzle out of the scope and sequence of all of the transdisciplinary themes, central ideas, lines of inquiry, and unit titles that we study in one year. That led us to where we are now, developing the lines of inquiry from How We Share The Planet. So far the students have analyzed the different strands of this theme, identified issues related to each one (at local, national, and global levels), and shared their ideas for action.

By the end of today, we hope to have developed our three lines of inquiry.

We intend to visit the Exhibitions in Beijing with our students.

How's it going for you this year?

Cheers,

Tod

[Vicky Gammon]

We are starting our fifth unit in a week's time but doing one period a week as Exh prep (Exhibition will be our last unit). We do a similar activity to the one you mentioned, giving the students all the central ideas from PK-G5 and asking them to decide which transdisciplinary theme they fit into. We give them guidelines on what makes a good CI and last year they did an analysis of the school's CIs and gave their feedback to the PYP coordinator for the POI review. They thought some of them were weak :-)

Last year the students had taken an interest in global warming during the unit on weather, and so it was a natural progression for them and they already had a grasp of some of the scientific concepts involved. This year nothing has jumped out and so we are wondering what they will come up with. I am really ready for a change from Sharing the Planet and next year I hope we can choose a different theme.

We really want to get to grips with our 'global' assessment of the Exhibiton this year. Each year we have struggled with a holistic way of assessing a child's overall contribution. We try to assess each of the elements of the PYP plus the lp. We have a rubric for the product, filled in 'double blind' by the PYP and MYP coordinators in the role of visitors who have not followed the process. It accommodates concepts and knowledge, presentation and the central idea. We would like to work on the rubric again this year. Students self-assess attitiudes, lp and transdisciplinary skills. Visitors fill in feedback sheets. I would be interested in sharing assessment tools and strategies with other teachers.

I would also love to visit other schools' Exhibitions and would welcome visits to our Exhibiton from other schools in the region.

[Tod Baker]

Vicky,

We can upload files here. Actually, we are in the process of developing a rubric and would appreciate a look at yours.

You might consider putting a Creative Commons license on your work and sharing here.

Any work we do will be shared here as well.

Cheers,

Tod