I designed this Digital Breakout as a fun activity to do at the end of our PP Bootcamp if we had time left-over. A lot of students self-selected to do this, enjoyed it and most were able to 'break out'.

A digital breakout is based on the 'Escape the Room' Games. Students find hidden information, solve cryptic clues, and enter passwords into 'digital padlocks' (A Google Form) to be successful.

Here is the link to the Digital Breakout.

On Tuesday our Grade 11 mentors will be running a session on Thinking, Communication and Social Skills. Here students will see how the are assessed. They will also look at how to IB breaks down these skills, and will pick three from each to reflect on. They will be reflecting on skills they have shown/practiced/improved, and also those that they need to improve!

Here is a link to the presentation -and our ATL Reflection document. Feel free to make a copy of these ('File' then 'Make a Copy') and adapt them for your school!

I think it is super important for the Grade 11s to run these sessions, as they can talk about the ATLs they developed and struggled with, they can always describe how they are using these skills in the DP (especially as they are just starting the EEs). I also think these sessions work better in classrooms with smaller groups, instead of with the whole grade in the auditorium. Our Grade 11s are excellent and I get a lot of great feedback from the advisors who supervise.

I put together a short activity to do with my advisory about onomatopoeia from around the world.
On each slide they will see a word, along with the country the word is used in then - the students then have to guess what sound the word is representing. This is just a quick, fun activity to get students to think about different ways we communicate and to analyze their own language more.

​Here is a link to the presentation. 

For part of our school's Project Zero learning group, I've been asked to present about Expectations and the Personal Project.  We've been using the book "Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must Master to Truly Transform Our Schools" for the year or two and I get so much out of it every time I open it! With my 'PP Coordinator' hat on, I thought about how we give clear expectations to support our students in producing a high quality product/outcome and report, but more importantly, having them focus on the process. The skills that our student develops during this long project are really the most important part of the PP!  Process > Product!

Here's my three minute video. (I could have easily made this much longer and much more detailed, but wanted to challenge myself to stick with the instructed time limit!)

I recently delivered a training session at my school which focusses on how we can all support our students who have English as a second language.

The most useful information I stumbled upon in my research was the quote:
"Language ability is typically managed in two active parts speaking and writing, and two passive parts, listening and reading.” from the videoThe benefits of a bilingual brain by Mia Nacamulli. I used this to help my create my presentation, as I wanted to provide practical tools for supporting the development of all four language skills. I also know that it is easy to hear someone speak fluently in a language, and to not realize that maybe they struggle with the other skills - so I wanted to flag that up in my training.

Here is the presentation I delivered to my colleagues:

and here is a video of me going through the presentation...in case you want to attend digitally:

Please let me know what tips and tricks you have for supporting your ESL students by filling in this feedback form.

We are almost half way through the Personal Project. In a few weeks time students will reflect on their progress so far, focussing on the process. As students write about all five Approaches to Learning (ATLs) in the report, I have put together a short reflection activity to have them think about the ways they are improving as a learner, and the skills they have been using. 

A reminder that all five ATLs are assessed:

Criterion A : Investigate
iii. demonstrate research skills.

Criterion B: Planning
iii. demonstrate self-management skills.

Criterion C: Taking Action
​ ii. demonstrate thinking skills
iii. demonstrate communication and social skills.

Link to the reflection document here - please feel free to use this in your schools.

Students are moving on nicely with their Personal Project. They have defined their goals and have done a lot of research. They are now using that research to create their Success Criteria. Although students do this in their MYP Design class, some still struggle - this means I do a Grade Level Assembly session about this, followed up by a class activity with their advisors. 

Their criteria comes up three times in the assessment (though actually they could talk about it in other sections of the report too):

• Criterion B strand i. develop criteria for the product / outcome
  
  
• Criterion C strand i. create a product/outcome in response to the goal, global context and criteria
  
• ​Criterion D strand i. evaluate the quality of the product/ outcome against their criteria

​
Here is a link to the Grade Level Assembly presentation. 

In their advisory they do a fun session where they create the success criteria for a birthday party! Students create all sorts of wonderful events (I think one group has the grade flying to Hawaii for a party!). Here is the presentation for this.

Please let me know what activities you do and guidance you give to help students create their criteria for their product or outcome - I'm always looking for new ways to support students with this.