Reflection - Understanding of PYP (Learning Journey)

 How is my understanding of PYP principles and practices evolving?

As the saying goes, Change is the only constant and this new change in delivering education especially to early year learners has been nothing short of a revelation. The impact on pedagogy and the inquiry based approach to learning has helped me discover different facets of teaching and engaging with children. I am already beginning to see the impact of this methodology in terms of increased engagements, changed language of discourse and better connection between me and my class.

In what ways can I apply learning from this workshop in my own learning and teaching?

The workshop has helped us understand and take ownership of our learning. The communication and interaction between the participants has helped widen my horizon and through these interactive discussions, I have been able to share my views and accept/understand  other's point of views too.

Although we have been practicing the different PYP aspects like the applying the different learner attributes in class and even international mindedness through stories and different learning engagements, this workshop has helped me develop a deeper understanding of how this can be further implemented in our classroom to enrich the learning amongst our children.

How is agency supported and nurtured through this workshop?

This workshop encourages us to take ownership of our learning. The reading and collaboration has helped me develop self-efficacy. By giving us the freedom of exercising our voice/opinion and the choice on a particular topic of discussion  by reading the view of other participants and sharing my views on the same. The workshop gave us the liberty to choose the way present our thoughts through a medium of our choice thus keeping  true to the PYP principles of learning.

Specfic REflection questions

• how am I developing international-mindedness in my students?

The following strategies are used in class to promote International- mindedness

·       She should cite examples from her life in the form of stories or photographs to help her children understand the necessity of being open minded to overcome any shortcomings.
• Virtual connect across the globe will be beneficial in helping children understand the cultures and traditions
• Awareness amongst student about different culture and traditions can be made more interesting by asking students to explore different books on any country of their choice to begin with and then take it forward from there. They can also be asked to present their finding through wither drawings or a project that they can create
• Exchange programs where children from different countries will visit each other and share about their cultural beliefs and traditions.
• Students will develop empathy and become more caring when they get to interact with international students and also learn to respect others
• Children usually learn through visuals, hence sourcing videos and sharing with her students will be very helpful
Introducing different cultures can be done through fun activities like having country specific dress up day. the children will have an opportunity to explore more about that country assigned to them and share it through a medium of their choice like stories/photographs/show and tell etc. they can share about the culture, language, cuisine and put forth a challenge question to their friends to find out any facts about this place and share it with their peers.

 How do I get the learning of language to encompass being international minded?

• An open day would help the parents understand better about international mindedness
• Having other schools participate in our schools cultural events which will helps build a bond between different cultures and help parents adn children understand the importance of international mindedness

 How am I embedding the learner profile into learning and teaching?

• Story sharing sessions by students about their community, their culture and beliefs
• Role play/ Drama  on different learner profile attributes/assemblies
• Celebration/ International Day/ Food Festival
• Music and movement
• Team building games/sports day
• Goal Setting and reflecting on our learning journey
• Encouraging children to learn new things  and accepting new ideas , for ex. a new sport
• A question jar- To encourage questioning skills and develop inquiry skills
• Awareness Campaigns – E.g. no straw, blow the balloon etc.

• How am I encouraging students to engage with local and global issues and challenges?

Students are made aware about the different local and global issues through different awareness campaigns like the No straw campaign, No sugar campaign, the beach clean up drive to save the marine animals. The value behind these were brought about through specials assemblies and projects.

Children were introduced about the endangered animals during the unit of inquiry on animals and through discussions we came up with different projects to save these endangered animals  like " Save the Arabian leopard (local issue) and "save the sea otter"(global issue)

Different special days like Etta day, terravista etc, international dot day are celebrated to make children aware of the importance of the 3 R's (Reduce reuse and recycle)