Agency- Voice, Choice and Ownership

Recently I saw that The IBO has announced that the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) will  be enhancing their programme by adding the concept of agency. Having taught PYP at an International school in Dubai in the past I was interested in this addition and how they will prepare to develop this.

Currently I am teaching in New Zealand where many schools and teachers have been researching and incorporating agency or student agency through the New Zealand Curriculum Framework for some time.

As it is a long weekend my family have been enjoying gardening and being outside. Mr 4 and I noticed the new koru growing in our garden. The design of the new PYP Graphic reminded me of the koru and so I added the core agency concepts onto a photo we took.

I like the symbolism that comes with the koru. The idea of new growth, perpetual movement, and strength. A koru unfurls to become a new part of a plant that grows and changes over time. Also, the visual link between agency and this special taonga really appeals to me as a teacher and learner. 

I look forward to seeing how adding agency into The PYP will change  the links between The Learner, Learning and Teaching and The Learning Community.  

STEM - Picture Perfect

Encouraging a passion for learning about STEM through the use of picture books has been part of my teacher inquiry this year. In Term 1 I started to investigate into how this supported young writers and ESOL students with both Literacy and STEM concepts.  Additionally offering a platform to share questions, test ideas and record our observations in a range of mediums through Seesaw has been a huge motivator. Especially, for students who have amazing ideas but struggle to share them in a written format. It also means that students became engaged by their ability to independently share their ideas experiencing success and authentic feedback from parents, teachers and their peers.

 Initially I linked their learning in with the Junior STEM focus areas. Overtime I have branched out to look at other areas that might be of interest to students so we can foster passions and specific areas for Literacy.

Also, when possible I used levelled readers as they could support the link between reading, writing and STEM for students who needed extra support in these area.

Many picture books lend themselves to being used to solve open ended problems where there are many right answers. They spark student interest and curiosity through their interaction with characters, settings and problems while giving them a solution. They provide a good platform for students to bounce STEM ideas off and develop creative approaches from. They show a successful and often creative problem solving approach to scaffold their thinking. To be interested in solving a problem there needs to be some sort of vested interest. Picture books provide this engagement. If a character solved the problem like this how could you do it differently?  What could you do to help in this situation? How could you use the same materials in a different way? STEM concepts can be carefully chosen to link with a particular focus or a simple challenge.

Using picture books as the driver helps to support creative problem solving and collaboration. Students can see that characters have to over come problems and often it takes failure or more than one attempt to come to a possible solution. 

I am looking forward to continuing with my STEM journey in Term 4 and adding in coding through Linda Liukas'  amazing picture book 'Hello Ruby, Adventures in Coding.' Watch this space!