Professional Development - Brushing Up
For IB teachers, professional development isn’t a box to be ticked – it’s a dynamic learning experience that could see you tweeting to the world or spending a Night at the Museum. Laura Bridgestock finds out more.
The three IB programmes are designed to transform young people into lifelong learners – but why should students be the only ones to benefit from such lofty ideals? Since its inception, the IB has been consistently dedicated to developing teachers’ abilities and keeping them up to speed with the latest pedagogy, recognizing both the benefits this brings to students and the way it adds to the IB’s prestige in educators’ eyes.
Through workshops, seminars and programmes, teachers across the world (47,000 in 2008 alone) have already learned new skills and shared best practice – and as Anthony Tait, global professional development director, explains on page 12, from 2010 such efforts will be enhanced under a new global programme for professional development (PD).
Like any IB programme, it is based on collaboration and communication between people of different cultures and experiences. Workshops will be delivered both online and face-to-face in three tiers, designed for educators at different points in their careers.
- Category 1 workshops, for schools and teachers new to the IB, will focus on developing understanding of IB philosophy, standards and curriculum models.
- Category 2 will build on this to improve delivery, including assessment, teaching and learning methodologies and best practice in the classroom.
- Category 3, for experienced IB educators, will provide opportunities for further exploration of specific topics, as well as administrative leadership, educational theory and other scholarly interests.
And for the first time, IB teachers of all experience levels can also undertake a formal IB-specific qualification – the IB teacher award. Launched last year, the awards course is offered through approved universities worldwide to help teachers build on their knowledge of a specific IB programme.
Underpinning all PD activity is a quality assurance framework, which global head of research Michael Dean says will mean workshop participants “experience the same high-quality professional development regardless of time, location or provider. Implementing a common monitoring and evaluation system will allow IB PD to address concerns before they become problems and improve upon areas of weakness, as well as develop innovative offerings in professional development that meet the needs of educators in the field. In turn, this should keep IB PD at the forefront of the education community.”
Just why professional development matters can be gauged from the stories of teachers and other education professionals from across the globe who’ve already benefited, from online learners to workshop leaders, via the odd tweeter… IB World asked seven of them for their own perspectives:
“We’re using the internet to transcend time and space…it’s a 24/7 experience”
The American Museum of Natural History in New York, USA, was the inspiration for the hit movie Night at the Museum. It has been running professional development courses since 1998 and has partnered with the IB since 2007. It offers 11 online courses in life, earth and physical sciences, based on museum exhibits and research and hosted by scientists alongside trained course leaders. The museum’s director of online education programmes, Robert Steiner, explains the science behind it.
“We’re one of the world’s largest natural history museums and we don’t just show off scientific artefacts – we’re actually ‘doing’ science. We have more than 200 research scientists working across the major areas.
We’re keen to use the museum’s resources to address the crisis in science education by providing effective and innovative courses for teachers. Online materials include essays from leading scientists, videos and animations, images and diagrams, links to other online resources, and interactive activities and tests. So as well as using the internet to transcend time and space, we’re really making use of new teaching possibilities. There are also set textbooks to read, weekly assignments to complete and discussion forums. It’s pretty intense – very rigorous.
Courses last for six weeks, with up to 30 teachers from around the world. They complete field assignments, such as spider collecting or exploring local geology. There are customized assessments for PYP, MYP and the IB Diploma Programme, as well as IB-moderated discussions, and the final project is to develop a lesson plan that adapts the course material for the teacher’s specific classroom. Participants can also gain credits towards graduate qualifications.
It’s also a more democratic kind of course – less likely to be dominated by a few people – and it gives time to reflect, consult resources, upload images and so on. It becomes a 24/7 experience. Teachers say they gain not just new knowledge, but a deeper understanding of the process of scientific inquiry, which they’re able to pass on to students.”
“You have to be flexible and have fun on these courses… and steal good ideas from your colleagues”
Professional development shouldn’t only be subject-specific, says James Albright, IB coordinator at Alice Deal Middle School, Washington DC, USA. For the past five years, he has been running regional workshops in special education. His two-day courses are attended by heads of school, teachers, coordinators and moderators. He’s also working with the IB to develop a PD model for the Americas region.
“I’m a big believer in the IB being great for all students. When I was a special education teacher, I felt there was a need for more cross-subject training courses, so I started developing some and they’ve been very heavily subscribed.
When I’m making lesson plans for my workshops I steal good ideas from my colleagues and draw on my own practice. Once the workshop starts you have to be flexible and just have fun with it. It’s very time - and energy- consuming, so I don’t do too many each year. I end up keeping in touch with a lot of the people I meet.
I split the courses into 1½-hour sessions, with at least three activities per session, to promote movement and engagement with as little lecturing as possible. I used to do more direct instruction, but now I focus on getting people to work together in groups to bring out the experience they already have.
Unlike a subject-specific course, I get people from a wide range of subjects and roles, so I have to address all their needs. I emphasize what a strong resource special education teachers and assistants are for the whole school to draw on.
Based on the workshops, I developed a 10-week graduate course for teachers at my school, taught at the Catholic University, Washington DC, which about half the teachers took. This past summer I ran a course with a colleague, covering areas that fall outside specific subject areas, such as communicating with parents and the wider school community. The longer courses meant teachers weren’t just getting a one-hit session. They also demanded a more rigorous format and assessment, which raises the level of engagement.”
“I realized the qualification would open doors, particularly as I’m interested in exploring the world”
The IB teacher award is open to both new and experienced teachers who want to develop their understanding and practice of one of the three IB programmes. Two levels of award are available by completing an 18-month part-time course at an approved university. Tanya Priest-Willimott, a teacher at a PYP candidate school in Canberra, Australia, was the first teacher to complete an award, gaining a Level 1 PYP award from the University of Melbourne in 2008. More information is available at www.ibo.org/programmes/pd/award.
I’ve been teaching since 1995 at schools in Australia and the UK. In 2002, I stopped to spend time raising my two children, but I’ve now returned to work as a relief teacher at Radford College Junior School, Canberra. While taking time out, I wanted to further myself professionally and personally, which led me to the IB teacher award. The PYP appealed as I feel passionately about assisting children in becoming lifelong learners. I also realized that the qualification would open doors, particularly as my husband and I are interested in travel and exploring the world.
The university is around 500 miles from where I live, so I had to commit to flying down for 12 weekends, to attend three full-day workshops for each of the four modules. These were scheduled on Saturdays so working teachers could attend. The workshops were very interactive, and had a good mix of presentation and discussion.
Our lecturer, a highly experienced IB practitioner, was inspirational. She encouraged and acknowledged our individual strengths. The major time commitment was completing the assessed tasks, which tested our understanding of key concepts and turned our work into things we could use in the classroom.
We thoroughly examined the taught, written and assessed components of the PYP. I had barely any experience of the programme, so it was a huge learning curve. As challenging as it was, I’ve really appreciated the huge range of resources I’ve developed to draw on for future reference. I still have so much to learn (and always will) but the changes that have already taken place excite and challenge me so much.”
“Being a mentor has given me the confidence to recognize the knowledge I have accumulated”
Mentoring others can be one of the best ways to keep learning, according to Eugenio Fasano, Theory of Knowledge teacher and general academic director at the New Model International School, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Eugenio has been teaching philosophy and TOK for 15 years and examining for 10 years. He is now a mentor for an online TOK course.
“I took on the role as a professional challenge and because I wanted to share my experience and views with colleagues from all over the world. As a mentor, I prepare online teaching materials, take part in intense exchanges in online forums, evaluate participation and give advice and support to both new and experienced teachers from different schools and regions.
Each course lasts several weeks. Basically, all you need is a computer with an internet connection. There are no specific times you need to be online, but to get the most out of the course we recommend spending three or four hours on the course per week.
It gives participants an orientation for preparing their own teaching materials, sharing opinions and experiences and building a learning community. After completing the course, and an evaluation questionnaire to help us keep improving it, each participant receives an electronic certificate. The workshops are fully recognized as part of school authorization and evaluation processes.
Being a mentor has given me the confidence to recognize the knowledge I’ve accumulated in the last decade as an IB teacher and examiner. I’ve created new teaching units for my own classes, inspired by the perspectives and teaching strategies I’ve collected from colleagues, and I’ve been stimulated to use new technologies more frequently with my students. It’s reinforced my sense of belonging to an international community.”
“I tweet to share links to resources, or something that’s worked well in my classroom that day”
Want to develop your peer support network? It’s time to tweet, says Richard Allaway, a humanities teacher at the International School of Geneva, Switzerland. Richard has been teaching geography for eight years and since 2008 he’s been keeping in touch with geographers around the world using online messaging service Twitter.
“Working in a small department in an international school, opportunities for face-to-face professional development can be difficult to access due to the distances involved, the time commitment and the cost.
I was first introduced to Twitter (www.twitter.com) through mentions in blogs I read produced by fellow geographers and people involved in education technology. Everyone’s talking about it at the moment. It’s got around six million registered users, so it’s hard to miss. Users send and read ‘tweets’ – text-based updates that are limited to 140 characters and therefore very focused.
Once you’ve joined, you can build up a network by ‘following’ other users. My Personal Learning Network (PLN) is global, including clusters in Europe, North America and South-East Asia. It includes other geography teachers and educators, people who tweet about topics that interest me and that I am involved in through my teaching.
I tweet to share links to good-quality resources, or something that’s worked well in my classroom that day. I often let people know of any updates I’ve made to my website. Sometimes I tweet for help – a plea for a fresh idea or a link to something I know is out there but just can’t find. I will start teaching the new Diploma Programme geography syllabus this year and I know Twitter will be a definite help.
To find other IB teachers and let them find you, there’s a wiki site where you can enter your details at ib-teachers-using-twitter.wikispaces.com. Any questions, just send me a tweet – my username is @richardallaway.”
“We’re at our best as a team… we have the type of relationship that allows us to laugh away stress”
At KIS International School in Bangkok, Thailand, professional development is part of every lesson. Teachers work in pairs, acting as peer mentors for each other during planning, teaching and assessing. Classrooms are designed for collaborative teaching, so the class can be split if several activities are taking place. Some teams delegate roles and responsibilities according to individual strengths, subject area or student groups, while others take turns to lead parts of the programme. Teachers regularly meet with other teams and coordinators, to plan across year groups. Janice Dorion and Chris Vezier are in their third year teaching the PYP together.
Janice: “Having two people makes it easier to provide differentiated programming that meets the different needs of all our students. Although we make sure we have a specific planning time, we are constantly making adaptations to things that aren’t working, or extending what we are doing when it is successful. We talk all the time, about planning, problems, any things we need to change. We communicate well, so it’s easy to keep our plans quite flexible. And we have the type of working relationship that allows us to laugh away our stress and enjoy ourselves and our students in class.
Chris: “We play to our individual strengths when we teach, and that’s reflected in the way we plan lessons. We’re pretty flexible – we support each other when we have extra commitments so we’re always functioning at our best as a team. We’re always very aware of our classroom practice and having someone else there means we can experiment and try new things, then review each other’s ideas.”
“I was surprised how easy and enjoyable it was talking with course-mates across the world”
David Freeman, head of upper school at Xiamen International School, Fujian China, has been teaching English for 13 years. In the past year he’s taken three different online courses in MYP Assessment, Principles into Practice, and Areas of Interaction.
“After an evaluation visit while I was MYP coordinator, I realized I needed to improve my fundamental understanding of the programme. I’d had success with online courses in the past, so I felt it would be a fast way to increase my knowledge. It worked, and we had a follow-up visit that went very well.
The impact was programme-wide. I was able to pass on my understanding
to colleagues using concrete examples, and as a team we developed assessment criteria, scope and sequences for our areas of interaction and also more
subject-specific approaches.
It was the first time I’d done real-time voice chat sessions. I was surprised how easy and enjoyable it was talking with course-mates around the world.
As I move into my new role, I feel confident in my knowledge of the programme. Because of my experience, we will now enrol more staff members in courses. New staff will take the introduction to the MYP course and experienced teachers will take unit development courses.”
To find out more about professional development, visit www.ibo.org/programmes/pd.