tePYP: Planning The Inquiry
Link to PYP Planner template: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t2lNbEaJAJ0TMc6sz-mztNcrkQur8V55Rg51phdo4Ks/edit?usp=sharing
Grade:
Class/grade: 4 Age group: 10-11
School: Tesla School code:
Title:
Teacher(s): Ms. Ngoc, Ms. Minh Anh, Ms. Dien, Mr. Su, Mr. Phuong (ICT), Mr. Dang (Music), Mr. Carlos, Mr. Dan, Mr. Brandon
Date: 28th February 2022
Proposed duration: 5 weeks (3 weeks before term break, 2 weeks after term break)
1. What is our purpose?
To inquire into the following:
Transdisciplinary theme:
An inquiry into the rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things; communities and the relationships within and between them; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.
Central idea :
Human intervention has effects on the environment.
Summative assessment task(s):
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the central idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?
Organize an exhibition to create awareness about the actions we can take to preserve the environment.
2. What do we want to learn?
What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective, responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?
Change
Connection
Responsibility
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?
Interdependence between elements of an ecosystem
How the means of protection of the environment developed over time
Human responsibilities towards the environment
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
Modified: In what ways do your actions affect the environment in which you live?
Core: In what ways are people and the ecosystems connected? Can you outline the ways in which humans and their environments are interdependent?
Extension: What elements make up an ecosystem? What kinds of human activities disrupt the animal and plant life? What kinds of ecosystems exist in Vietnam? In what ways can we protect the environment? What responsibilities do we have towards our planet? Why should be responsible for our actions?
3. How might we know what we have learned?
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and skills?
Guided discussions, brainstorming, mindmapping , class discussion and group discussions, vocab activities
What evidence will we look for?
Guided discussions
ICT: Students know about what recycling is but they have no prior knowledge about how materials are recycled and what types of materials we actually recycled. Their prior knowledge is just limited to what actually recycle means.
ATL & EAL: students were asked to utilize the content they learned in class and through their own research to produce written paragraphs as well as a poster to explain the lines of inquiry of the unit. We are also going to prepare for group presentations where all the students will be required to explain verbally their ideas as well as they ways in which they connect to the UOI, the other subjects, and their learner profiles, and their ATL's.
EAL and HRT also collaborated to prepare the students for their summative assessment which consisted of preparing an exhibition summarizing all that they had learned for the purpose of educating their peers, their teachers, and other members of the community. The students had to discuss such subjects as environmental pollution, its effects on the community, the tentative solutions, as well as the actions that we can take every day to make the environment a safer, more beautiful place.
Small group discussions
Students discussed in groups and discuss all they know about how plants grow.
Visual promts/provocations
Students can share what they have known about the natural environment and the current geographical condition of soil after watching some images/photos of the good/bad environment. Guiding questions and research by asking parents/grandparents before can help students tell stories of the land and the reason/s why it has become bad. Some images of a bad environment remind students of the responsibility of human beings to nature.
Students were shown a landfill of waste and they were asked about what would be the consequences for this for the environment?
Students answered the inquiry questions and thought about the food sources. They found the source of that food and draw a diagram showing a food chain.
See-Think-Wonder strategy
jamboard.google.com/d/1AIOen9AtZGFMY_VBgbXovYCJ-K2o7iFD8rIEOgPRr4s/edit?usp=sharing
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines of inquiry?
The way in which we assessed the student understanding of the UOI was to put them in a the position where they had to explain their research to their peers, teachers and community members through an exhibition. In addition, they had to prepare products such as posters, videos, an environmental board game, and paintings to showcase their understanding of the lines of inquiry.
Products
Examples: Completion of assignments (research, writing, reading, group/individual presentations)
Response to and application of feedback in their classwork and group work.
Completion of reflection activities at the end of the unit.
Demonstrate understanding of key concepts, related concepts, subject specific content, writing mechanics, presentation techniques, and research methods.
Solutions to problem of plastic overused
Reflection on how to use natural materials as a musical instrument in harmony with the natural world.
Students worked on the elaboration of different diagrams that explained thoroughly the recycling process of several materials like: plastic; paper and aluminum.(ICT)
Students also worked on the 3D design of a MURF (Material Recycling Facility) also called single recycling unit. By describing the different technologies and processes involved in the sorting of different materials.
Evidence/Product locker: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1V2OQGn-DMS4S5b0b7fIAhdpwQt5QPupQ?usp=sharing
What evidence will we look for?
4. How best might we learn?
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving questions?
Reading
Writing drafts
Create
Discuss
Design
Research
Viewing and written
Draw
Complete…
(Activities need to link with the Central idea)
3D Design.
Sketch of Diagrams.
ICT: Students audio-visual content (ted talk). A great audiovisual source were used to explain the process of contamination on nature produce by plastic. And how plastic affect the natural resources for extremely long periods of time.
Students watched different audiovisual content that thoroughly explained the recycling process of different materials (Aluminum, steel, plastic, paper, etc). This was the first source of information students had in order to start learning about the recycling industry.
Students really enjoyed last unit the 3D designing of the Hydro dam using Tinkercad. We will use again this software experience to make students focused on the technology and recycling process involved on a single stream Material Recycling Facility.
UOI + EAL: Students brainstormed ideas and conducted research focused on the Key concepts, produced posters, and then worked on writing - it seemed like small group discussions, guided research, and group research helped the students not only learn the material, but to actively think about how it connects to the society in which we live. Project based learning has proven more successful than reading comprehension exercises as it allowed the students to look for information that they found interesting.
Science: Students answered some questions based on their prior knowledge , created a leaf with “IN” and “OUT” envelopes into which they’ll place the respective chemical reactants or products of photosynthesis. They worked in groups to share your answer and present to class
Art: Students research some places affected by salinity drought, read articles, watch some photos/images of people living at that place stirs their minds and ask the teacher how to reduce the bad effect on people's life. they discuss in the class into 2 groups and then one group raises questions, one group answers.
Some guiding question from the teacher can help
PE: Students build a "sports day" event =>Protect the environment =>make games to prepare for sports day.
Change - The positive and negative impact on the environment as a result of human actions
Connection - How humans and the eco-systems are connected
Responsibility - The responsibilities humans have for the environment
HR: Students see a picture about fishing in the river and guess which theme they are going to inquire about. Then, they read the central idea, choose keywords and ask questions. Students work on small group discussions, research mangrove forests in the Mekong delta, and make a mindmap. They also inquire about the beauty of nature, culture, and human activities in the Mekong delta and see the effect of these activities on the environment. Students look back at the questions they had asked and answer these questions. They also do a banner, and leaflet to take action, and raise awareness of other people to protect the environment.
How can we demonstrate transdisciplinary skills development and for the development of the attributes of the learner profile?
UOI and EAL have been working closely with the HRT to create parallel lessons that challenge the students both on a linguistic level, and on a critical thinking level. Much of the assignments that the students have to produce in Vietnamese are then replicated in English to give the students the opportunity to express their ideas translingually.
Attributes: Caring, Principled, Open-Minded
ATL skills: Social, Thinking, Self-management
5. What resources need to be gathered?
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available?
Youtube:
Edpuzzle:
Google Slides:
Student's devices
LRC (Learner Research Centre)
…
In addition to student research in LRC, copies of literature was provided to students. They needed to find and highlight evidence of the key concepts. - Change / Connection / Responsibility
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry?
Display Inquiry Cycle and Prompts board to offer structure to the inquiry process and display student work.
Space to organise and store portfolios/student work
Provide the children with a system that encourages them to show their work to their parents
Utilize library, bulletin boards
Exhibition art work to show message across the school
Students made use of the LRC to conduct research.
Students answered the inquiry questions and thought about the food sources. They found the source of that food and draw a diagram showing a food chain.
We used the school assembly as a platform for the Grade 4's to lead the assembly while using the opportunity as a mini exhibition.
6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose? (Collaborative and Individual Reflections)
Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students’ understanding of the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the planning and teaching of the inquiry should be included.
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more accurate picture of each student’s understanding of the central idea.
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the transdisciplinary theme?
All the students understood the central idea and were able to provide evidence that they could apply the concepts they learned from the lines of inquiry and key concepts. All teachers were able to collaborate (EAL ATL HRT ART SCIENCE) and assign tasks that connected to UOI.
The students were able to produce posters, paragraphs, presentations, and artwork all pertaining to the UOI, the central idea, the lines of inquiry, and the key concepts; they successfully presented all of their work to their peers, their teachers, their parents, and the community at large in their Earth Day exhibition.
In the next unit we will be no longer give the students the option to choose their own groups so as to expose each of them to different people and personality types.
We also want to encourage all of the students to take turns in taking on the leadership role.
The students' communication skills have clearly improved across the board; the next unit we will be more deliberate in assigning individual presentations to help them step outside their comfort zones.
Group activities….
Greater integration with
7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to learn?”
demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?
develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
In each case, explain your selection.
(Connect your subjects activities with ATL Skills, related to Question No.4)
8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?
(Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that were incorporated into the teaching and learning.)
At this point, teachers should go back to box 2 “What do we want to learn” and highlight the teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries.
The EAL and HR teachers collaborated in creating student led activities aimed at eliciting their knowledge of the central ideas.
We made use of the following activities:
(Example: We showed the students videos and asked them to come up with questions they wanted to know more about: the videos were paused to give the students to listen, read subtitles, and take notes.
We gave the students time to work in groups to exchange their ideas and then allowed them to elect a group representative to write their questions on the board
Put initiated questions from students)
What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?
Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to reflect, to choose, and to act.
9. Teacher notes