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What do I need to know about teaching and learning at QAD?
What do I need to know about teaching and learning at QAD?
Please read through our handbooks and our policies below:
Teaching and Learning Handbook Positive Behavior Handbook
Language Policy Assessment Policy Inclusion Policy Academic Integrity Policy
1) We plan collaboratively in grade-level teams (homeroom teachers, along with coordinators), once every week. We also collaborate with the transdisciplinary team (all subject teachers) at least once each term. We use Google Drive to document our planning, which follows the PYP planning process.
2) We place inquiry at the heart of everything. Rather than telling children what to think, our goal is to teach them how to think critically. We start each unit with a "provocation," which guides children to start thinking about the concepts of the unit, and allows the teachers to understand the level of children's prior knowledge. We ask probing questions to facilitate children's understanding throughout a unit.
3) We teach conceptually, which means we don't just teach content knowledge but also the concepts that are above them. For example: "Journeys" is a concept above "modes of transportation", "Patriotism" is a concept above "my country". Concepts are timeless, transformational, significant and meaningful and are built upon facts and knowledge.
4) We utilize learning goals in our planning, teaching, and assessing. They are taken from the IB PYP Scope and Sequences, the American Education Reaches Out (AERO) Mathematics and English Language Arts, Next Generation Science (NGSS), Qatar Ministry of Education (MOE) Islamic Studies, Qatar History, and Arabic standards, as well as our Social and Emotional Learning curriculum - Second Step)
5) We promote Learner Agency by giving children voice, choice and ownership of their learning whenever possible within the classroom.
6) We assess understanding formatively (ongoing) and summatively through a culminating activity towards the end of the unit. The example below shows part of a 4-point rubric.
7) QAD Primary uses MAP Growth assessments to monitor student progress over time and to help with differentiated instruction. Three times per year, students in Grades KG, 1, and 2 take MAP Growth tests in early literacy and numeracy; grades 3-5 take MAP Growth tests in reading, language, and mathematics. Results are shared with parents during parent teacher conferences.
8) We report on student progress three times a year at the end of each trimester on each of the subject's strands. The reports are a combination of effort, grades (emerging, developing, proficient and exceeds) and supporting narratives.
The PYP Teacher
The PYP Teacher
Uses a range and balance of teaching strategies
Groups students using a variety of different learning strategies, viewing students as thinkers with their own emerging theories and building on what students know
Explicitly teaches literacy and numeracy
Uses a variety of resources representing multiple perspectives including specialist teachers working within the home classroom
Empowers students to feel responsible and to take action
Actively involves students in their own learning
Facilitates and models open-ended inquiry and real-life investigations
Maintains constant awareness of the needs of second language learners
Addresses the needs of students with different levels and types of ability
Integrates curriculum areas into the Unit of Inquiry for children to apply knowledge and skills
Uses diagnostic, formative and summative assessments to inform and guide teaching
Uses equipment/manipulatives to support conceptual understanding
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