Announcing the Jeff Thompson Research Award Winners
In December 2009, the International Baccalaureate granted five IB World School researchers worldwide with the Jeff Thompson Award.
The award was created to honour the contributions of Professor Jeff Thompson to the IB. It provides practitioners within IB World Schools with incentive grants in recognition of research conducted on IB programmes. Individual awards are granted up to a maximum of US$5,000 each.
The five winning researchers were:
Brendan Kean, Canadian International School of Hong Kong (China)
I was incredibly surprised and excited knowing [myself] to be formally acknowledged by the IB and that my research could benefit IB schools across the world. The award gives me a chance to observe other IB schools and build upon this knowledge to improve our own practice.
For an investigation into the development and implementation of effective formative assessment strategies for students in the Primary Years Programme.
Dr. Echo Yue Zhang, Guangdong Country Garden School (China)
Without the award, my research project was just a day dream. It has made the dream come true by offering professional, prompt and patient support, academically, financially and spiritually.
For her research project: A tale of two cities : Chinese teachers vs. Western teachers on pedagogic behaviours in an IB World School in China.
Annette Rome, Wesley College (Australia)
Research has always been a passion of mine. The Jeff Thompson award is concrete support that promotes a research culture in a school.
For research on the impact on students of programs such as the PYP Indigenous Bunuba/Walmajarri unit of inquiry within the trans disciplinary theme ‘How do we express ourselves’ and with the central idea of ‘we discover more when we reflect upon other ways of knowing’.
Mary van der Heijden, United World College (Singapore)
Winning this award has given us the focus and resources to improve on our curriculum design and teaching practices . . . I am very honoured and grateful for this opportunity and support.
For a research project on current best practices for teaching Chinese as an additional language including an investigation of how contemporary brain research into language learning might inform pedagogy and how inquiry based learning might promote long term Chinese language acquisition.
Natascha Thomson, Kongsberg International School (Norway)
Receiving this award will provide my school and myself the benefit of observing the ways that others approach language teaching in their school and will help to develop our EAL policy and programme. It might also motivate other teachers in the school to apply for the award and [to] research areas of interest.
For research into the language teaching strategies and techniques used to implement the programme of inquiry in PYP schools with learners who do not speak the language of instruction.
Apply
More information about applying for the award is available on the Jeff Thompson Award web pages
The next application deadline is 31 March 2010.
For more information about the award, please contact us via email at research.award@ibo.org
