The Principal's Training Center

This summer I had one of my most epic learning experiences to date! I know that is quite a statement, but it was hands down the best professional development I have ever had. What was it I hear you say? The Principal’s Training Center. The courses are filled with the cream of the crop of educators from top international schools; the kind of people who want to give up a week or more of their summer holidays to learn. Oh, it was something else!

The Principal’s Training Center is an organisation that provides professional development geared at international school teachers, counsellors or leaders. In this blog post, I will be focusing on their principal’s training. In order to obtain their certificate in international school leadership, you need to complete a total of four courses. The courses should be selected from the following categories:

Category 1 - Take one of:

• Creating an Effective School PTC 101
• Leadership and Team Dynamics PTC 102

Category 2 - Take one of:

• Instructional Supervision and Evaluation: The Teaching Process PTC 201
• Instructional Supervision and Evaluation: Planning, Assessment and Student Results PTC 202

Category 3 - Take one of:

• Assessment Leadership in the International School (formerly Assessing Student Learning) PTC 301
• Curriculum Leadership in the Int'l School PTC 302

Category 4 - Take one of:

• The Effective Principal: From Theory to Practice PTC 401
• Law in the International School PTC 402
• Finance in the International School PTC 403
• Technology Leadership PTC 404
• Leading Beyond Conflict BTC 105 (1/2 PTC credit)*
• Managing Risk and Security in the International School BTC 106 (1/2 PTC credit)*
• Or any PTC course from category 1, 2 or 3

Taken from: http://www.theptc.org/ptc-certificate/

The course I took was Leadership and Team Dynamics. This year, as I was moving into my new role of primary principal, our incoming secondary principal, Daun Yorke, suggested we take the course together. This was an excellent idea and something I would advise any international school leadership team to do. It was an opportunity for Daun and I to get on the same page, get to know each other, plan our upcoming teacher orientation and learn about team dynamics together.

Photo courtesy of Twitter @tricia_mowat

The course was led by Chris Bowman. Chris was a principal at the age of 26 and has some incredible stories to tell. The techniques and experiences he shared have really helped me in my first year as principal. Just today, as a parent threatened me, I reached back into Chris’ bag of tools and got through the experience in a professional manner. I really cannot recommend this course enough.

Each day, there was a small group time as well! During this time, each participant got the opportunity to share a real life leadership problem. They would explain the problem to their group and then turn their chair around. The rest of the group then discussed the problem as though the person was not there. It was an incredibly valuable learning experience! And, what is said in the PTC, stays in the PTC!

The word on the course is that the lady who created and runs the organisation, Bamby Betts, only teaches the PTC 101 course in Miami. I hear this is very good. The others that I have heard highly recommended are PTC 301 and PTC 302. The courses take place over 7 days in London or Miami. They cost a small fortune of about 3000 USD, but are worth it.

How to #pypchat

I love learning! About 3 years ago I was introduced to Twitter and its power as a professional development tool. I wrote this post about that time. It will get you started on Twitter if you are not on there yet. It also highlights the power of Twitter in education. If you are living in China you will need a VPN to access Twitter unless your school has an internet line to Hong Kong like this one.

Two years ago I started working in an IB World School. I immediately started connecting with IB educators around the world via Twitter. This supportive community accelerated my learning exponentially. About one year ago I stumbled upon #pypchat.

Twitter from a mobile device @brianlalor

#pypchat is a one hour discussion that is hosted every two weeks in different regions around the world. The Asia Pacific chat currently meets on Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 7:30pm Hong Kong time. Each week, has a different topic and educators in the region come together to collaborate and share best practices.

In order to follow the conversation you will need to search for the hash tag #pypchat. Having a hash tag is simply a means of grouping all of the tweets together so they may be easily followed. This tool TweetDeck is very helpful to use for Twitter chats because it can be set up to show the #pypchat tweets in one column. 

TweetDeck from @brianlalor

How it works:

At 6:30pm a moderator will start the event and ask everybody ''out there'' in cyberspace to introduce themselves. You must be following the #pypchat hash tag at this time in order to see the tweet or have your TweetDeck set up. I would advise this to be done well in advance. The moderator will then begin posting questions in order to stimulate discussion. An example would be: ''Q1. How do students at your school have input into the development of UOIs? #pypchat'' 

When answering a question it helps others following the conversation if you indicate which question you are answering. A possible answer to the above question would be, ''A1. Students, parents & teachers are invited to the PYPC's office to provide input #pypchat.'' Always remember to add the hash tag or nobody will see your answers, unless they are your followers.

#pypchat is very fast paced and there are often multiple conversations happening at the same time. It has been for me the best source of information on the PYP. Truly the more you give the more you get. We are all at different stages in our journey as inquiry teachers, but we all have something we can learn from one another. I hope this helps you get started.

Approaches to Learning in the EAL Classroom

This article highlights practices that address the development of ATL skills—communication and social—in an EAL lesson.

In our school context EAL (English as an additional language) refers to students who require support with the school’s language of instruction. We determine whether students need support in two ways. The first is through an exam called the W-APT. This exam measures a students listening, speaking, reading and writing proficiency at grade level.  The second way we determine if EAL support is required is through observation. Students are pulled-out of class for EAL lessons and the EAL teacher also pushes-in to classes to support the students learning. 

According to the IBO (2008), language development is a process of constructing meaning in which there are three phases: learning language, learning through language and learning about language. Cummings (1979) speaks of two phases of language development:  basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). BICS is the social language a child needs to communicate with his/her peers and teachers. Students may function at this level within two years, in their second language. CALP is the phase when learning through language is taking place. Attaining this level can take up to seven years. It is the goal of our EAL department to help our students reach the BICS stage as quickly as possible so they can communicate in the classroom.

The lessons in question focused on the two social skills of group decision-making and cooperation. They also focused on the communication skills of listening and writing. At the start of the lessons the students were asked what they wondered about. All of these wonderings were pasted on our class wonder wall.  This is a living area of the classroom that changes regularly. According to Vygotsky (1978), in order for learners to move into a zone of proximal development where new learning can take place, prior knowledge needs to be taken into consideration. I have found that the wonder wall is a good way to determine students’ prior knowledge as well as determine their interests in order to motivate learning.

Wonder Wall

The students used their writing skills to document their wonderings. After this they used their group decision-making skills to decide which story they would write and how many of the wonderings could be incorporated. Some of the decision-making strategies we have been learning in class are listening, voting and playing scissors, stone, paper. In this context listening refers to, listening to the ideas of others then discussing them.

After deciding on the theme of the story students continued to use their group decision-making skills and their writing skills to plan their storyboard. A sample of a storyboard the students made for a story about the ocean may be seen below. It is encouraging to see them working in groups, using their communication and social skills, supporting each other to write the text.

Story Board

Finally a template is given to the students with space for a picture and with lines to write on. The students were supported to create a correct sentence and then draw a picture. After they had finished we traced the text and pictures with a black felt tip pen. The pages are then photocopied and bound. We read the finished book twice or three times in each lesson. This way students who may not be reading yet have the chance to learn the words off by heart and experience success when they take the book home to read.

By teaching the above mentioned ATLs in this manner students can be scaffolded to not only learn in the BICS area but also in the CALP area of learning about language. Students can be introduced to various linguistic genres such as narrative or argument at an early stage of their language development. By creating the books collaboratively I have found that students learn to cooperate and communicate. Parents have reiterated that students have brought the books home and read them confidently. Some students have described the production process to their parents in their mother tongue.

References

Cummins, J. 1979. “Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimum age question and some other matters”. Working Papers on Bilingualism. Number 19. Pp 121–129.

International Baccalaureate Organization. 2008. “Learning in a language other than mother tongue in IB programmes”. Cardiff. Pp 4-5.

International Baccalaureate Organization. 2014. “Language and learning in IB programmes”. Cardiff.

Vygotsky, LS. 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard University Press.

Got your first interview for a PYP job?

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Making the PYP Happen" before? Well it has a few different meanings depending on the context. I would like to explain my understanding of the phrase in this blog post. This should give you a head start in your first interview with an IB school.

First of all, "Making the PYP happen: A curriculum framework for international primary education" (2009) is a manual that thoroughly explains the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program. It is one of those amazing manuscripts that every time you pick it up you learn something new from it. You can Google it and find it easily online.

Making the PYP Happen is also a Category 1 course that is offered by the IB's professional development department. It may be done in a face-to-face workshop, which may be over two or three days. It may also be done online over a period of four weeks. All the information you need to get on the course may be found on the IB website. When a PYP school comes to its authorization or self-study stage all teachers must have taken this course. It is an excellent introduction to the curriculum framework.

If you are looking for your first job in an IB school I would advise you to take this course yourself. It will be in your favor when you have your interview. I would like to share some advice here for that first interview.

The IB mission statement which may be found on the website is taught to students through what is called the learner profile attributes. These are 10 attributes that we wish to pass on to our students as they progress through the program. The IB consider the development of these 10 attributes to be international mindedness, an important concept within the programme.

There are five essential elements to the PYP. They are: Knowledge, Concepts, Skills, Attitudes and Action. It would be worthwhile to learn about these five elements in the book Making the PYP Happen, mentioned above.

Two other very important parts of the program in my opinion are inquiry and understanding by design. A definition of inquiry may be found on p. 29 of MTPYPH and a good video describing UbD (which is our assessment theory) may be found here. To me however, inquiry is guiding students to socially construct their own meaning.

A good model to follow for a lesson would be: 1. Introduce the lesson and assess students prior knowledge. 2. Have the students create groups and work to socially construct meaning. A concept map like I mention in this post would be a good way to document this. 3. Have the groups come up one by one to share their learning. 4. Stick up the students concept maps on the wall.

I have been a recruiter at Search Associates fairs for two years now and I would like to leave you with one gem. In your confidential references there is a question: "How does the candidate affect school climate?" It is on a scale from 1-10. It is very important that you are a positive person at your school. Unfortunately there are too many naysayers out there. Do not be one of them, it will get you nowhere! I hope this helps. 

The Role of Mathematics in the PYP - Day 3

Our first activity on day three was to order these into which you do from most to least: Written computations, mental computations, estimation or calculators?

After this we had two readings: Nine Ways to Catch Kids Up by Marilyn Burns and 10 Big Math Ideas by Marilyn Burns. We read them in pairs and then had to use post-its to write a Word-Phrase-Sentence. You do not then need to read all of the two articles to get the gist. You can differentiate the articles by reading ability.

Word-Phrase-Sentence

Ma & Pa Kettle math videos on Youtube were suggested as a good resource. A good idea was to use strips of paper to display the length of students limbs. Another strip was used to measure the circumference of the head. These were then attached to the wall. 

Use all three forms of assessment: assessment for learning, assessment of learning and assessment as learning. Summative assessment tasks should be UbD. Everything is done in UbD. MTPYPH should be brought to all planning meetings. Simple oral check, can I say my big numbers on a sheet. Students could do this in pairs.

Tania Mansfield Sharing

An example of a summative assessment task would be to plan a field trip. They would work out transport, accommodation, research hotels, food and pay for activities. When reporting use the Math scope and sequence to highlight where every child is. Do it at each reporting period in different colors. Summative assessments do not have to be grand projects they may be simple and are to assess the central idea. Cooking something would also be a great example of an assessment task.

Planning

If it does not fit, do not try to make it! Do not be scared to change your yearly plan! If in doubt, leave it out!

Transdisciplinary Planning

Tania gave us a table with the six units across the top and the five math strands across the side. We then looked at a summarized scope and sequence document and just ticked what would fit naturally. We then went on to look at a year long overview, which are also broken up into six week plans. Everything that does not fit in is then done on stand alone planners. The same central idea might be used throughout the whole school.

It was a fabulous three days of learning and as Tania said from the start, they way she taught was explicitly inquiry. I learned a lot!

The Role of Mathematics in the PYP - Day 2

When we came in for day two our work was up on the walls. There was a photo slide show on the whiteboard of our work yesterday. It was obvious that our work was being celebrated. We then began with a Math song. It was a funny one in karaoke style.

Student work on display

We read MTPYPH p.82 Constructing meaning about mathematics, Transferring meaning into symbols and Applying with understanding. We also read the introduction sections to the mathematics scope and sequence. Tania mentioned INCA assessment similar to MAP.

When we went on to applying with understanding market days were mentioned when the students have to use money in real life situations. Tania suggested 60% of the time on constructing meaning, 10-15% on transferring meaning and 25-30% of the time on applying with understanding. Plan a field trip would be another example of a summative assessment.

We then did a "Loopee" - I have 49 who has 5x5, I have 25 who has 3x4. This needs to be in a safe environment where mistakes are not frowned upon.

First, second, third, kids on little bikes

Kids have to share half during their snack.

Look at the 5 strands, use a picture of a bicycle.

We did the same activity with a map. There are multiple ways to learn the strands of number and shape & space by looking at the streets, parks, shapes on the map. We decided to use string to measure the distances of the ring road. At the end we had a gallery walk where we walk around and look at each other's work.

Sorting shapes

We were sorting shapes. There were no right or no wrong answers.

After lunch we played Making 10s. For this game five cards are put down. The idea of the game is to get the most cards. To do this you have to make 10. You may do this in anyway, but a picture card is 10. 

Concept map is a good assessment.

Concept Map

TED Talk from Dan Mayer was a very good video. 

We should have Math journals. Students need to reflect on their Math learning. This is another way to get the conversation going. Dialogue journals build up a great relationship with you and your students. 

The Role of Mathematics in the PYP - Day 1

In November I had the pleasure of learning from Tania Mansfield on the Role of Mathematics in the PYP.

She told us from the very start that, explicitly the things we do in the workshop are things you can use in your classroom.  The live binder for example is where Tania shared all of the workshop documents. This seems to be similar to Edmodo but I prefer the Edmodo interface. One of the first strategies we were taught was to show fingers if we needed more time. She also reminded us to tell her if she is speaking too fast.

We introduced ourselves using Maths. Tania pointed out how the who we are unit, is at the start of the year. We introduced ourselves using mathematics: favorite number, height & birthday. Other ideas were: I have 3000 ruppeses in my wallet, impotent dates to me or I have flown xxx miles.

The Blob Tree below was used determine prior knowledge and how we were feeling.

Blob Tree

Session two began with Tony Ryan’s Thinker Keys. The Reverse Key - Think of something in life that is not a Math problem? Everything is related to Math. How we organize ourselves is a transdisciplinary theme that lends itself to Math. 

Wonder wall – What are we wondering? It is for the children to question and ask. Make sure you use it…

Wonder Wall

Lines of inquiry and summatice assessment criteria given at the start. We wrote our essential agreements through the PYP attitudes. EAs should be few in number, refer to things done, be positive, observable & agreed by everyone. We did a Think-Pair-Share 

Next we did Living Graphs to represent: the level you teach, years teaching the pyp, stand nearest to the strand you prefer, when you were in school how you felt at Math (3D). We also looked at Mathematical Glyphs - students make their faces using shapes. Biography Glyphs - Parents have to guess if no names are on there.

Living Graph

Next we did a C.O.R.I. - Collect Organise Represent Interpret. This activity had all five of the strands in it. We all had a sticker on our book. This determined who we would work with. It was another strategy for mixing up the class. There were always lots of resources on hand and we had to do a two minute presentation at the end. Everything was stuck up on the walls after the presentation. We learned from each others work and saw that our work was celebrated. A CORI could be used for creating a rubric. Visual dictionaries, could be used to support EAL students. We need to be sure whether we are checking for math understanding or language understanding. We played another  game with two coins called heads up. We had our hands on our heads or bottom while Tanya tossed a coin.

For our final session we were asked to come up with a definition of a Math learner. We played a game called place value bingo and then did some reading. We did the 3 Rs - Review, Remind, Reflect before going on to an activity where we were asked to estimate a length of string. People used a number of different strategies to guess the length of string. The point was that we all come into the activity with prior knowledge. 

Reading RRR - Review, Remind, Reflect

The day wrapped up with rocket writing - we had to reflect by writing for 3 mins. What a day!