Every year we take Grade 10 students to Washington DC. This year we created a range of activities for them to do at the galleries, museums, monuments tour and even at the airport. Each activity had a Global Context and exploration attached. While some of them were very specific to the places we were visiting, a couple were generic (like our classical art memes activity!).

I decided to make more activities that would fit a certain type of place - the first type I am exploring is Art Galleries (I'll do science museums, monuments and more soon).

In this slide you'll see a series of prompts and activities, which can be done at most art galleries. You can either pick out a couple, and present them to the whole class, or print out the whole deck (maybe 6 per page), and hand them out, as mini activity cards. I also tried to make sure that the activities/prompts are short, so that students can still explore the gallery independently, guided by their own interests! Link to the presentation here.

P.S. I have done at least one activity for every Global Context and Exploration...apart from "Scientific & Technical Innovation - The biological revolution". Have any ideas for me? Put them in the comments!

Global Context Overview!

I adapted a Global Context presentation I delivered to my Personal Project students, so that it was about Global Contexts, in relation to the Personal Project, Community Project and also unit planning. This video or presentation could be used for Professional Development sessions, to help teachers who are new to the MYP or for students about to the start their projects. Below is the video and here is the link to the presentation.

Our Middle School Principal has asked me to talk about ATLs in the middle school assembly, and to help his student assembly organizers to continue this weekly. I have decided to share the ideas of teachers in my school, (from my recent ATL training) on the two questions "What is the point of school" and "What does a lifelong learner look like?". I'll use these as a way to describe the Approaches to Learning, including why they are important. After this, I will zoom in and focus on "​Practise strategies to reduce stress and anxiety" (Self-Management - Affective Skills). I'll end by showing them the app Headspace, and telling them how this can help them practice and develop this skill. After this, I'll ask students to reach out to the middle-school assembly organizers (students) if they have ideas they want to share in assembly. 
Here is the presentation:

If you want some more information about how I will run this session, watch the following video:

I recently took over some ESOL classes to do an activity of the Power of Visual Communication.
We started off by celebrating the students language skills and talking about the benefits they have of speaking two languages. I then got the students to think about what they would do if they want to a country that did not speak their mother tongue or English. After this we talked about our reading, writing, speaking and listening skills, and students reflected on what other communication skills we use. I gave them the examples of facial expressions, signs, emojis and more...

We then discussed the prompt “Understanding our differences helps us understand each other,” including thinking about how we could share this information visually!

I gave them some examples of the things that are different about Atlanta (where I live), Fontenay-le-Comte (where my mum lives) and London (where I grew up). After this we looked at a visually example, made by someone who was born and raised in China, but now lived in Germany: East Meets West. As we went through this, students talked about the themes, and the differences in their own countries!

After looking through these images and discussing them, I showed them my own version. My own versions were very rough, done with one color, and done on post-it notes. I used this as an example, so they would focus more on the symbols, instead of worrying about being excellent artists. (Once someone told me "never tell student they are going to draw - tell them they are going to 'doodle', then the pressure is off!")

Students spent the rest of the session working on their own images. I walked around, looking at the work, asking questions and making suggestions. The students were all very engaged and enjoyed this activity. At the end students shared our their art-work (students were told they did not have to do this, but every student opted in!) While they presented I wrote up on the board the differences between America, and their home countries. Here they were able to see patterns emerging, that tied their home countries together (for example, lots of people had similarities with public transport and family life in their own countries). At the end we discussed how these similarities and differences help us understand each other (referring back to the prompt "Understanding our differences helps us understand each other").

Here is some of their artwork (remember that the conversation and explanations were what was important/meaningful):

If you want a little more information about the session - below is a video of me talking through what we did! Feel free to make a copy of my presentation and use it with your students.

Last Tuesday I had all 97 Grade 10 students in the auditorium for an afternoon session focussing on the Personal Project.

• You can read about the plan for the session here.
• You can see the Process Journal checklist they worked through here.

Each table was set up with flip chart paper, with some handy documents (ATLs, Assessment information, CRAAP test, and more). One of our students is doing her project about the benefits of herbal tea, so she had tea and cookies set up in the back of the room. As they arrived we had jazz music playing while they settled themselves.

We started off by watching the music video for "That One Moment" by OKGO, and the making of video.
Students brainstormed all the things they would expect to see in the band's Process Journal. We then looked at Criterion A and B, strand by strand, to see if they had put down Process Journals entries that would support them.

This session gave them more information about how their Process Journal will support their Reports. For the rest of the afternoon students were able to work on their process journals, and could get advice from me and other teachers in the room. I was so impressed with the work they have done already! Lots of thoughtful and detailed process journals!

The next thing I wanted to share was an activity they will be doing when they come back after Thanksgiving. This is an activity that will happen in their advisory rooms, with Grade 11 running it. This is just to remind them of the importance of documenting everything they have been doing.  Feel free to make a copy and use this in your schools.

Enjoy!

I've shared these before...but in case you missed them...here are some Global Context posters my husband and I made (in 2014?). There are in Spanish and English, with German coming soon. One as the description, the other copies have a blank space, so you can write in how you are using the GC in your unit.
Link here.

During the ATL training I delivered the other day, several people asked for posters to put in their classroom, so that the  ATLs could be visible, they could easily remember all of them and to help students be more aware of them. Luckily my husband is a graphic designer, so I was able to put him to work:

Links for the posters:

• ATL Posters in English
• ​ATL Posters in Spanish
• ​ATL Posters in German
• ​ATL Posters in French