Top tips from IB educators

• Curriculum design must start with teachers. The initial step (and perhaps most difficult) is to develop a common set of values among the educators. Once the shared values are developed and specific learning goals are created based on these values, the design of the curriculum can branch from there.
• Professional development: We start with professional development. We must make sure that teachers understand the common strands of an IB education and what they are already doing in the classroom. I will need to reach out to new teachers and individual departments as needed to educate staff.
• Scope and sequence: I would look for evidence of coherence in the written curriculum. What patterns and trends do I see in the curriculum documentation? Create a scope and sequence document using the MYP Unit plans sections. Each learning area is given a page in google sheet. All teachers are asked to populate with their entire curriculum for each year and the sequence it is taught. I have encouraged learning areas to collaborate on this process and at the same time, review and improve their unit plans as part of this collaboration. It is also a great opportunity to review our coverage of Global contexts and ATL across the school. Mapping ATL skills informs teachers about student engagement and fosters interdisciplinary collaboration. It helps MYPC identify frequently covered ATLs and those needing more attention. Are ATLs actively taught and visible in classrooms or merely nominal?
• Unit planner template: Use of the Unit planner template, From principles into practice (list of the Concepts, Key Concepts, related concepts- subject-specific, Global Context) frames the SOI.
• Apply backward design principles: In Understanding by Design, Wiggins and McTighe argue that backward design is focused primarily on student learning and understanding. Click HERE for a helpful explanation of backward design.
• Choose content: Designing a coherent curriculum that meets the standards of state/county expectations as well as IB can be tricky. I would start by looking at the state standards / national requirements / district requirements then determine which would be guaranteed and viable. You start with what you have got (e.g., a national curriculum) and you see how these fits with the programme. The difficulty lies in the state mandated assessments that are often multiple choice and do not allow students to fully display their learning. Can these be used somehow as formative that then build to the IB summative assessment? They must do the mandated assessments, but they are only formative in nature for IB purposes? After this, I would look at the subject guide followed by the From principles into practice guide. Next, I would ask myself, “what do I want the students to understand and know and be able to do?” This involves clearly drawing developmentally appropriate and well-defined learning expectations, and visions that become the ultimate goal for every learning experience. Next, I would use my content topics to create my inquiry statement and questions. My final steps would be to ask myself, “how do I check they have learned?” Followed by what do I do it they don’t learn it and how do I enhance it if they do.
  • An example from language: I’m a big believer in backwards planning, which works well using the MYP unit plan for project-based learning. I try to assign at least one oral or physical medium based project and one long form essay each quarter. In later quarters, the essay is a culmination of the unit. However, during this first quarter, I like to use the narrative essay as a way to get to know my students’ writing skills, existing knowledge and command of narrative structure, creativity, and personality. For this reason, I introduce many different types of narrative essays and provide many reflection activities, and then take them through the full essay process within the first half of the quarter. Students reflect on their essay at the end of the quarter and create a character analysis presentation based off of Macbeth. Once I have my anchor projects/summative tasks in mind and map out the needed steps through the quarter, I examine the ATL skills and determine which ones will need explicit instructions, which will need formative assessment and likely small group instruction, and which can be the focus of later units. I then turn to my smaller mandated texts to see which lend themselves to practice for our larger summative. Once these are scheduled, I map out our progression through the larger text, allowing myself a few days of flexibility within the calendar for reteaching, expansion, or external calls for flexibility (I know I’ll be asked to do a few extra things for the school throughout the year). At this point, I feel comfortable beginning individual lesson plans.
  • An example from individuals and societies: Taking our last major review in the I&S department as an example, we started by reviewing our units (MYP 1-5) in a holistic manner. We then started to think about where we want our students to be in grade 10 (MYP 5), to be prepared sufficiently for the rigour of the DP programme. Almost using the UbD approach, we then planned backwards to see what we needed to improve in all grade levels to ensure that our students are prepared enough for the DP.
• Statement of inquiry: Start by developing a statement of inquiry (which acts as a guide to what's happening in the Unit). Refer to From principles into practice. Identify (a) concepts = the Big Idea that we want the students to take away; (b) Global Contexts (GC) = the real-world application through which the ideas are explored; (c) check for the subject-specific conceptual idea; meaningful relationship; transferable to other subject-specific; easy to understand; (d) articulate what the students will understand through an inquiry into…. (e) identify the Inquiry questions to support the GI; (f) design learning activities and ATL Skills that will help to guide to the success of the assessment. The curriculum map needs to illustrate how learning is to be demonstrated (for example, products, performances, assessments).
• Design in balance: The best way to balance the concepts, skills, content, and contexts is to review the subject group overviews. There we could address the needs horizontally to ensure students are getting the skills and content needed. It’s also important to vertically align so students can build off prior knowledge. One educator noted: Skills can be taught through content. These students will need to apply those skills to complete the activity. Those skills can then be applied to other contents. This needs to be the message consistently sent to staff. Concepts and contexts should be explicitly introduced and connected to learning.  Ultimately, I want my teachers to be using intentional learning design and instructional agility. So while the related concepts, skills, and global context are all important, the balance is in knowing how students will learn and monitoring their learning.  Of course, the key concept is the ultimate learning goal, and it is the development of the one aspect ideas that leads to a deep understanding of the concept.
• Reflection: My focus is on trying to seamlessly integrate common standards so that teachers do not feel overwhelmed and like they are doing extra work. The good thing is that many of the new curriculums that are being pushed out in our county focus on project-based learning that takes place in the real world. This is great for an IB education. The difficulty lies in the state mandated assessments that are often multiple choice and do not allow students to fully display their learning. Because there is a need to perform well on these assessments some of the IB focused standards are not implemented as well as they could be at certain times of the year.

• Monitor implementation: This involves conducting learning walks and gathering student feedback. This includes assessing their ability to articulate acquired skills for understanding their environment. Additionally, encouraging teachers to utilize the reflection tool at the end of unit plans at various stages of unit planning is beneficial.