Collaborative Planning In The PYP (Module 4) - Putting it all together

Activity 1 - Reflection on inquiry (Part 2)

Peer assess each others’ planners in regards to the reflection stages, using these guiding questions:

- How can this reflection lead to strengthening student inquiry?

- How can this reflection lead to strengthening of the essential elements?

Activity 2: The role of the single-subject areas

Collaborative activity - Review the annex of Making the PYP happen - Also refer to the subject-specific scope and sequence documents on the OCC - Share how this integration is/could be documented in your planner. 

1. Review the annex of Making the PYP happen - The role of the subject areas is explored in depth. 

Look at the PSPE or PYP Arts scope and sequence.

- How is the content of this scope and sequence document integrated into your Programme of Inquiry (POI) units - and where could it be integrated?

How is it integrated?

Well-being 
 - Seen in the development of the 5 Essential Elements through the UOI's
- Learning experiences (planning, teaching & assessment) @ BNMS support students personal & social development - students are able to make connections, apply learning, and transfer conceptual understanding to new situations
- Single-subject specialists teach physical education - more than just sports and games - students generate understandings that contribute to their well-being and their success as lifelong learners.
- Single-subject PE specialists (PE Peer Learning Community) from each team collaborate and feedback to classroom teachers

Identity (PSPE Strand) - Not specifically identified in the POI but evident in learning experiences planned within each TD theme:
Who We Are = Sexuality Road = Exploring our beliefs, values, attitudes, experiences and feelings and how they shape us - sense of self and feelings of self-worth
Sharing The Planet = Conflict and it's management = The ability to successfully cope with situations of change and adversity, strengths, limitations and challenges
Where We Are In Place & Time = Treaty of Waitangi (New Zealand's founding document) - The impact of cultural influences.

Active living (PSPE Strand) - Not specifically identified in the POI but evident in learning experiences planned within each TD theme:
- How The World Works = Food energy = maintaining a balanced and healthy lifestyle, the importance of regular physical activity, the body's response to exercise, the importance of nutrition,
- How We Organise Ourselves = Rights and responsibilities we have to ourselves and others
- Sharing The Planet = making informed choices and evaluating consequences

Interactions (PSPE Strand) - Not specifically identified in the POI but evident in learning experiences planned within each TD theme:
- Sharing The Planet / Who We Are = How an individual interacts with other people, other living things and the wider world.
- Who We Are = Sexuality Road = rights and responsibilities of individuals in their relationships with others, communities, society and the world around them
- Sharing The Planet = The understanding of similarities and differences

Where could it be integrated?
- PSPE links / Supplementary Planner could be listed within a bubble planner (Teacher Notes)
- Single subject teachers could further develop or support a unit within the POI
- Independent inquiry

2. Then refer to subject-specific scope and sequence documents on the OCC. Choose one subject area that is not normally taught by classroom teachers (such as art, music or PE - but not PSPE, since that is the domain of all teachers).

Describe how this subject area (Science) is integrated into your POI (2015) units - and where it could be integrated. Also share how this integration is/could be documented in your planner.

How is it integrated?
- Single-subject science specialist is responsible for the science programme - classroom teachers accompany their children to these lessons.
- Breadth and balance of science content is covered through the UOI's - CI's, LOI's are tailored with a science focus i.e.

UOI 2 = How The World Works
CI - Understanding the effects of energy can inform our choices
LOI's = The different forms of energy and transformation; How people harness and use energy; Our personal responsibility when making energy choices

UOI 6 = Who We Are
CI - All living things change and adapt to meet their needs.
LOI's = The characteristics that humans share with other living organisms; How and why people change; What makes me who I am

Where could it be integrated?

Mathematics (Statistics & Probability) - Increased emphasis on utilising the skills of science in order to: gather data; use a variety of instruments and tools to measure data accurately; use scientific vocabulary to explain observations and experiences.

How could this integration be documented in the planner?
- Science links / Supplementary Planner could be listed / hyperlinked within a bubble planner (Teacher Notes)

4. As a group write a job description for a single-subject PYP teacher in a PYP school. Describe the role of that teacher in your school and the qualities you would look for.

A single-subject teacher would:

-Be responsible for creating a classroom environment that develops in each student an awareness of the role of their subject within the Primary Years Program.

- Work to enrich and support teaching and learning while strengthening the skills of students within and through their subject.

- Be responsible for planning and teaching lessons collaboratively with classroom teachers

- Be responsible for developing the curriculum and adapting the curriculum to the needs of each student

- Be responsible for creating a classroom environment that is conducive to student learning and fosters individual choice, creativity and innovation.

- Be responsible for evaluating each student’s growth in knowledge and skills in the course being taught and prepare report cards

- Be responsible for communicating with parents on student progress.

- Be responsible for recommending new resources suitable for the school

Activity 3: Action plan 

1. Post the draft of my action plan in the specific forum and give constructive feedback to at least two other participants.

How is this a reflection of my learning thus far? 

2. Create a post that is:

A star - something positive that I will take away from this training.
= The affirmation that good things are already underway whilst acknowledging that with this start we can also work together to plan more effectively. 

A window - something that shows insights gained or further questions that have arisen
= We each play a role in a team - knowing how each of these interact will help us to become more effective

A wish - something that I would have liked to pursue further
= How can we use technology to encourage collaboration?

Blog Workshop - Thursday 29th October 2015

Teacher Wellbeing - Stop For Lunch

Stop for Lunch! - One thing that I must try and do!

How would you respond to this?

I asked a question of my children yesterday.... What do you think when you are experiencing a negative feeling? This was one of the responses!

 

How would you respond?

Collaborative Planning In The PYP (Online) - Module 2

Module 2 - Essential elements, systems and structures

Activity 1 - Essential Elements in the PYP

Goal = Discuss how best to plan for the essential elements collaboratively with a UOI - What makes this element essential to student learning?

Focus 1 - Transdisciplinary Skills

1. Examples of how planning for TD Skills occurs at BNMS

2. How and why are the TD skills contributing to student learning?

3. How is the PYP planner used to facilitate and document planning for TD Skills?

Focus 2 - Attitudes

1. Examples of how planning for the Attitudes occurs at BNMS

2. How and why are the Attitudes contributing to student learning?

3. How is the PYP planner used to facilitate and document planning for the Attitudes?

Focus 3 - Action

1. Examples of how planning for Action occurs at BNMS

2. How and why is Action contributing to student learning?

3. How is the PYP planner used to facilitate and document planning for Action?

Activity 2 - Synthesising the Essential Elements

Task: Create something that represents the Essential Elements and how they work together.

This could be:
- a photo
- a model
- a poem
- a picture
- or something that is a tangible demonstration of my understanding

Comment on at least one other groups posting

Activity 3 - Personal action plan

Goal = Start developing my individual action plan based on the needs in my school identified in Module 1 according to Standard C2.

Review the article UbD and PYP complimentary planning frameworks, by Jay McTighe, Marcella Emberger and Steven Carber, to learn about the backward design process.

At the end of this course I will need to present an action plan as evidence of my thinking.

To help with this, read Standard C1 in the IB Programme standards and practices.

1. Start thinking about my action plan in relation to collaborative planning in my school.

Action Plan Example

Action Plan Template

2. Post my initial thoughts and questions about the action plan in the module forum assignments thread Activity 3: Personal action plan.

Activity 4 - SWOT Study

I will look at structures in place in my school that involve specialists and support teachers as equal partners in the planning and reflection of PYP units.

I will complete a SWOT analysis of the planning/reflection process.

Key Question - What structures are in place in your school to involve specialists and support teachers as equal partners in the planning and reflection of PYP units?

2. Complete a SWOT (definition below) analysis of the planning/ reflection process.

- Strengths

- Weaknesses

- Opportunities

- Threats

Post my analysis in the module forum assignments thread Activity 4: SWOT Study.

Comment on at least two other postings

Activity 5 - Tools For Collaboration

Read both of DuFour’s articles (on the following page) and choose one of the Module 2 forums to contribute to a discussion on maximizing team effectiveness or time management.

Share successful strategies and challenges from your own school and experience.

Read the article 'Making Time for Collaboration'  This article is from Rick DuFour’s AllThingsPLC website. On this website there are plenty of other resources to be found to support building professional learning communities.

2. After reading the article, consider - How does my school make time for collaboration?

3. Post my thoughts in the Module 2 'Activity 5 discussion forum: Tools for collaboration'.

4. Give feedback on at least one other participant's posting."

Making time for collaboration

Task - Listen to or read part of Rick DuFour’s article “Making Time for Collaboration”.

It is also imperative that teachers be provided with time to meet during their contractual day. We believe it is insincere and disingenuous for any school district or any school principal to stress the importance of collaboration, and then fail to provide time for collaboration. One of the ways in which organizations demonstrate their priorities is allocation of resources, and in schools, one of the most precious resource is time. The following list is not meant to be comprehensive but is merely intended to illustrate some of the steps schools and districts have taken to create the prerequisite time for collaboration.

- Common preparation

- Parallel scheduling

- Adjusted start and end time of contractual day

- Shared classes

- Group activities, events and testing

- Banking time

- In-service and faculty meeting time

Please read the rest of this article to find out more about making time for collaboration.

Checklist for Module 2

To complete this module, make sure I have completed the following:

1. Discussed how best to plan for essential elements collaboratively with a unit of inquiry.

2. Created a presentation that represents all of the essential elements.

3. Developed my individual action plan.

4. Completed a SWOT analysis of the planning/reflection process.

5. Discussed maximizing team effectiveness or time management.

Feedback From Peers

Collaborative Planning (PYP Online) - Module 1

Module 1 - Activity 3 - Definition of Collaboration

Based upon the readings:

Question 1 - How are characteristics of effective teams described?

The people problem (Harvey Robins and Michael Finley)

- The perfect team versus “Real teams--your teams are made up of living, breathing and imperfect people”

- Identify your communication style / adapt your style depending on whoever you are communicating with - to change your style completely is difficult! - It is possible to “soften the extremeness of your style, and learn how to communicate with people in other styles” - don’t be a chameleon - much rather “try to see things through their eyes, and understand their needs and preferences”

- ‘The will to team’ - “Learning about one another and by caring” - you may not like one another, “but you do have to get to know one another, and to value one another’s abilities and individuality” - It is when we “meet team mates halfway” and work together, that objectives can be met.

Competitive Hazards (Harvey Robins and Michael Finley)

- ‘Transcompetition’ = “grafting of fruit from the two trees of competition and collaboration” - taking both the good and bad - combine the best of both areas! 

Improving Relationships Within the Schoolhouse (Roland S. Barth)

- Congenial relationships - Relationships that are interactive and positive = personal and friendly

- Talking about practice - Creating an atmosphere where teachers talk about their work = student evaluation, parent involvement, curriculum development and team teaching

- Sharing Craft knowledge - Staff meetings - Having the opportunity to share “a front-burner issue about which they have learned something important or useful” - this works against the challenge of “withholding”

- Observing one another - Holding a staff meeting in the classroom of a different teacher - the host is then responsible for ‘show and tell’ - this allows for follow up discussions - this reduces any anxiety a teacher may have about being observed.

- Rooting for one another - Offering to help!

Question 2 - What are challenges when collaborating with others?

The people problem (Harvey Robins and Michael Finley)

- When we form a team “nearly all team members are taken aback by the personalities of the other team members” - this is a big challenge and one “major reason teams fail”

- Misunderstandings are created because we are all different - these need to be overcome - “but they require self-knowledge, generous attention to the person who’s bugging us, and the will to keep working together, and not give up on one another” - or… we give up on one another

- Diversity = “different minds, different slants, different hot buttons… different cultures… different histories… different brains” - this can lead to “the message transmitted is not the message received” - How we communicate with others is “influenced… by what kind of person you are - - by your behavioural style”

- Home plates - Right to left = assertiveness - from passive (asking) to activity (telling), Top to bottom = Responsiveness - controlled reaction (top) to emotional reaction (bottom) - Analyticals (perfectionists, critical, stuffy…) Amiables (people people, dependent, awkward...) Drivers (Let-me-do-it people, tough, harsh…) Expressives (Big-picture people, excitable, friendly…) - On a team you might find all of these!

Competitive Hazards (Harvey Robins and Michael Finley)

- Unabated competition = treachery, deceit and corruption

- Unabated collaboration = nemesis of individuality, progress, diversity and change

- Sameness = lack creative deviation from what they already do

- Groupthink = doesn’t account for the viewpoints of outsiders

- Blurriness = Too much input = lack of focus

- Slowness = Teams lose momentum

- Leaderlessness = “When everyone is encouraged to lead, the end result is that no one does”

- Defenselessness = Everything is available to everyone = no confidentiality, no firewalls

- Interiority = Working alongside each other too long / becoming cross-eyed

- Mercilessness = “The many are stronger than the one”

- Finding the balance = greatness versus the will to commonality, focus versus empathy, persistence versus insistence, process versus results, play versus work, loose versus tight (structures)

Improving Relationships Within the Schoolhouse (Roland S. Barth)

- Parallel play - Working “in close proximity for a long period of time, each is so self-absorbed, so totally engrossed in what he or she is doing, that the two of them will go on for hours working in isolation” - “Here, we all live in our separate caves” - the consequence of this being that you will find “the self-contained classroom, with the door shut and a piece of artwork covering that little pane of glass” - the significance of this is that by shutting ourselves away we end up working in “isolation from colleagues who might cause us to examine and improve our practices”

- Adversarial relationships - as with parallel play many teachers find themselves “barricaded behind their classroom doors” - I was interested in the concept of ‘withholding’ - As educators we all have insights into practice and a vast amount of knowledge, referred to here as “craft knowledge” - the benefits here being that “if one day we educators could only disclose our rich craft knowledge to one another, we could transform our schools overnight”. Teachers who consider the “craft knowledge” they have is important and are willing to share it with others are often met with criticism. Competition = for resources and recognition = “the better you look, the worse I look”

- Developing Collegial Relationships - “Getting good players is easy, getting em’ to play together is the hard part” - The consequence here is how do you get ‘good teachers’ to work together in a professional learning community.

Our collaborative design of these wiki pages:

- Definition of effective collaboration



- Characteristics of effective teams