Planning process and role of planner

 

The planning process and the role of the planner:

The planner templates provided by IB are extensive and cover all aspects of the framework, thus making it a full-proof planner for inquiry. The ‘Exhibition Planner’ (for Grade 5) caught my attention and it is something I am definitely going to consider using while the PYPX. 

1. What are 3–5 keywords that guide the collaborative planning process?

- Trust: Be open and honest in the process of planning. Observe peer classes to get hands-on experience of class in action. Notice the dynamics of the teacher to students, student-to-student, and teacher-to-teacher.

-Flexibility: The IB framework demands you to try, and be flexible to changes in planning. When working together, encourage all collaborators to generate as many ideas as possible early on. Really push each other to think about different ways that a learning goal can be executed.

-  Keep it simple: No matter what you’re creating together (a game, project, or lesson plan), the more complex the rules or the structure, the more questions students will have, and the less time they will be engaged in the actual learning.

- Students are your target audience: They should be involved in every step of the design process because they have invaluable feedback to give. They should steer the process of inquiry with you facilitating by their side. 

- Best of both worlds: Actively try to discover what all collaborators like and what they’re good at. Be attuned to moments of excitement and disengagement. Use each other’s passions to help sculpt the game or project.

2. How do we develop the planner bearing the student agency in mind?

 

 

 

 

3. Does collaboration with grade-level colleagues mean that all the learning must be the same?

Here is something I found online that helps to understand in detail what collaboration with grade-level colleagues means:

 

Common Planning Time	Professional Learning Communities	Critical Friends Groups
Interdisciplinary teams teachers share the same students Discuss students Meet with parents Plan team activities, thematic or cross-curricular units Examine student work Participate in professional development	Disciplinary teams The ongoing process of collective inquiry and action research Collective analysis of student assessment data in relation to specific learning targets Use of data to inform and assess the effectiveness of instruction	The group gathers voluntarily to improve practice through collaborative learning Uses coaches and specific protocols used to guide sessions Identify school-specific student learning goals, reflect on practices for achieving the goals, collaboratively examine student work

 

4. How does assessment feature in planning?

Assessing a student’s learning is an integral part of teaching. An assessment aims to measure what your students have learned or will be learning in the future. 

Assessments can be formal or informal because every piece of monitoring learning adds to the list of pieces of evidence you can collect to enable reporting on learning:

Exit tickets, backward planning the unit, quick reflections on peer work or self-work, co-creating checklists and marking rubrics designed by kids, and open-ended tasks.