IB Verification Visit

Monday, Sept. 23 marks a big day for College View teachers, students and families. It marks the beginning of our final phase as an International Baccalaureate candidate school. We began our journey with IB in January of 2011 when College View looked like this:

We started by gathering a group of soon-to-be College View parents to form an IB Parent Board. This group of parents, along with College View Principal, Sue Rice, and myself (the newly hired IB coordinator), began studying the elements of the IB Program.

Shortly after the formation of the parent board, Sue and I attended an IB workshop to learn more about the program and how it might fit with the initiatives that were currently in place in Council Bluffs.  

After the workshop, we immediately began writing the official Application for Candidacy, requesting that College View be granted candidate status from the International Baccalaureate Organization.  The application was accepted a few months later and that’s when the real work began.

College View teachers began learning about the program - both through official IB workshops and building-based professional development. Many teachers had the opportunity to see IB Programs in action by visiting authorized IB World Schools.  

They learned about the Learner Profile, a set of 10 attributes that all members of the school community strive to demonstrate. Teachers worked collaboratively to develop in-depth units of inquiry. They reflected on their planning, teaching and student learning, and revised and refined those units.

Special area teachers worked to incorporate the elements of the IB Program into  areas like Spanish, PE, music, special education and art. After all of this hard work, we felt that we were ready to become an authorized IB World School. We submitted our Application for Authorization last spring. It was accepted and a verification visit was scheduled.

That brings us to today. IB has sent a team of two educators to College View to verify that we are ready to become an IB world school. Over the next two days, they will meet with teachers, parents and administrators to discuss how the program has been developed and will continue to grow in our school.

They will visit classrooms, speak to students and view student work looking for evidence of teaching and learning that engages students as thinkers and inquirers. They will review units of inquiry and our Program of Inquiry looking for a written curriculum that builds upon students’ previous learning experiences and that allows for meaningful student action to take place.

The College View Program of Inquiry

After the visit, the verification team will write a report summarizing the findings of the visit. It is our hope that the report will result in a recommendation that College View Elementary become Southwest Iowa’s first authorized IB World School.

Am I nervous? You bet.

But I also know that the teachers at College View have worked tirelessly to incorporate the elements of the IB program into their teaching. I know that the administrators involved believe in the program and have helped us to align the philosophies of the IB Program and of CBCSD. I know that the parents at College View are excited about having the IB program at our school and want to see it grow in our district.

And the students? Wow. As a College View parent, I’ve seen first hand that the students are inquirers within the classroom and beyond. They understand the language of the Learner Profile and strive to live by those attributes.

Reflecting upon all of these things calms my nerves. We’ve worked long and hard to implement the IB Program at College View.

We’ve got this.

Rethinking Action

As we begin to reflect on our last units of inquiry for the year, student action becomes a topic of conversation. We know that, as a part of the action cycle (choose, act, reflect), students are expected to take action as a result of their learning. It can be hard to capture student action because it doesn't always happen within the context of the school day. One of our jobs, as PYP educators, is to make sure that our student's parents have a good understanding of the action cycle and are aware of the concepts we are studying in each unit of inquiry. I have developed a very simple parent letter that could be used for this purpose at the beginning of a new unit. Feel free to edit this document to meet your needs.

It's also important that we have a good understanding of what we are looking for when it comes to student action. In Making the PYP Happen (2009), it states that effective action does not need to be grandiose. It begins with the most immediate and basic level: with the self; within the family; within the classroom, the hallways and the playground. Effective action can be a demonstration of a sense of responsibility and respect for self, others and the environment. 

In Fahey's book, Ways to Learn Through Inquiry (2012), she gives several examples of student action including ideas. Fahey describes a situation where a preschooler was learning about different homes and came to the realization that not all people have a place to live. As he was playing with counters in his classroom, he created a "town" where all people had a home. This child didn't solve the homeless problems in his community, but the inquiry into homes in his classroom, helped him understand homelessness and he made a change in his thinking. This is taking action! It doesn't have to change the world, just the way you think. 

So...in the last few weeks of school, be an observer. Don't let student action pass you by!

Setting the Stage for Inquiry

As teachers begin to launch their fourth units of inquiry for the year, I've been thinking a lot about setting the stage for inquiry. In a unit of inquiry we obviously want the students to be asking questions. This is something we have had lots of discussions about during our PYP meetings. Many of you have expressed concern that it is difficult for students to generate questions or that they often generate low level questions.

If we want students to ask questions, we need to provide them with something that truly sparks curiosity. Something that they can relate to on some level and that they want to learn more about. I think this starts with our provocations.

Before you even introduce the central idea, think about how you want your classroom environment to look during this unit of inquiry. Some things to consider displaying include:

• Related pictures and vocabulary
• Real world items
• Books and magazines
• Posters

The First Graders in Mrs. Hargrave's class are already beginning to wonder about these famous world leaders

Could someone infer what you might be studying by looking around the room? Will the items you have on display spark questions? Could students predict which transdisciplinary theme the unit will fall under? Could they make a guess as to what the central idea might be?

If students are asking questions before the unit begins, you are setting the stage for a great unit of inquiry!