PBA

Iman Mashaal

George Mason University

EDUC 622

Dr. Holincheck

January 15, 2014

The School / Classroom Context

My place of work is King Faisal Preschool in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. My class is

the Kiwi Class and I work very closely with the Arabic teacher to ensure that the Unit of

Inquiry (UOI) is taught and the scope and sequence standards are covered. The Kiwi

Class is made of twenty students, seventeen of which are boys. The students are at

various developmental levels. On the first of week of school, all students go through a

general assessment that covers language and math. These early assessments are used to

create developmental goals tailored for each child. The students are divided into two

groups and alternate every day between an English and Arabic teacher. This allows for

language development in English and Arabic at an early age.

The Kiwi classroom is set up with centers for learning. My classroom has a

drama center, math and language centers, a writing center, table toys center and an art

center. The Arabic teacher’s class shares a complementary relationship with my centers.

In her classroom next door, she has the language and math centers and blocks and science

centers. This allows the students to experiment with different centers in the different

classes. Our circle time rug is a place where our day begins and ends; it is also the place

for group discussions and play, introduction of UOI, math and language concepts, and

reflections. What changes every day is which playground the students go to and the

specialist teacher they visit.

The Written Curriculum – the Plan

For the two weeks covered in this plan, student learning is broken down into three

categories: Unit of Inquiry (UOI), language and math. See the Overview Chart below

(Appendix A). The Unit planner for the written curriculum is attached.

The Taught Curriculum

Students learn through inquiry and are engaged in pre, formative and summative

assessments during the unit. The students learn in a dynamic environment and in large

groups, small groups and individually, depending on their need and inquiries they have. I

do my best to ensure that the taught curriculum is coherent. According to Erickson

(2002), a curriculum is coherent when it is unified and connected by the sense of a whole

and has a sense of purpose, unity, relevance and pertinence. The IB curriculum is in line

with a systems design for curriculum. Erickson (2002) emphasizes that a systems design

to curriculum addresses student outcomes, critical content, key concepts and essential

understandings and focuses on skills and quality assessments. By learning through

concepts, students can construct meaning and improve both critical thinking and the

transfer of knowledge (IBO, 2009).

At the start of every UOI circle, the students repeated the central idea. Although I

am not a supporter of having students memorize to learn, I tried out a new routine with

this unit. Every day, I pointed to the transdisciplinary theme, told students what it means

and had them repeat the CI and the lines of inquiry after me. Within a few weeks the

students wanted to impress me with their memorization of the (CI) and lines of inquiry.

Memorizing the CI was useful; it reminded me and them what we were learning during

the unit, helped them learn new vocabulary and improved their pronunciation. By having

the CI idea as a place to begin every day, we knew what our goal was and remained

focused. The key concepts we focused on during the unit were causation and they tied in

very well with the idea of making balanced decisions to live a healthy lifestyle.

For the pre-assessment activity, students were introduced to a drawing of an

overweight child their age and asked to name him. By introducing the concept in a visual

way, students were engaged immediately! They were curious and interested and asked

many questions about him and named him Zezo. Zezo served as a strong provocation for

students to begin talking about how to care for themselves and make balanced decisions.

They began to make comments and ask questions that were recorded. They began their

comments with the word ‘maybe…’ and continued to share what they thought what was

wrong with Zezo. Students felt like they had to try to understand him and help him out.

They understood that by the end of the unit, they would share with Zezo what they

learned about health and well-being to help him. Students were learning about empathy

from the start. They were also learning about causation, that actions and choices have

consequences. Students learned about the cause and effect when they talked about food

choices and the consequences of their food choices. They were reminded that balance is

important and imbalance causes problems. Staying focused on the concepts and tying

content with concepts is important for effective concept teaching (Erickson, 2002).

Sample of Student Comments about Zezo"Maybe he ate too much of his gift of chocolate.""Maybe he is angry because he doesn’t love school.""People laugh at him and he is sad.""Maybe he ate a very big hamburger and became fat.""Maybe he ate too much candy and his tummy hurts.""Maybe he got a gift and when he opened it, it was broken.""Maybe he eats too much junk food and is too fat and he is not happy.""Maybe he doesn't want to go to school."

Table 1

Food Pyramid

To introduce the food pyramid, I cut out a large triangle in front of the students

and listened as they tried to figure out what I was doing. I used tape to outline the

pyramid and then created the different levels. Students commented, “It’s a triangle,” “It’s

a pyramid,” “It’s a tent,” and came up with other ideas for what they thought I was

making. Others asked, “What is it?” As I listened, I enjoyed their curiosity. I completed

the taping and was ready for discussion. I turned to them and asked, “What’s our unit of

inquiry? They responded enthusiastically, “HEALTH and WELL-BEING!” Then I said,

so if this triangle has a relationship with health and well-being, then what is it? One

student called out excitedly, “It’s the food pyramid!”

We spent the week talking about food choices and every day we added a level to

the pyramid until we reached the top of the pyramid. At lunch time, students spoke about

what they brought and rated their lunches as healthy or unhealthy. The main point that I

taught was that we need to make balanced decisions about our food and too much or too

little of anything is not good. Students talked about how Zezo could make balanced

choices to lose weight. As each line of inquiry was taught, a connection was made to

Zezo and how the learning could be used to help him. Students were assessed

formatively through an activity of cutting and pasting foods where they belong on a blank

pyramid. Again the concept of causation was discussed in the form of the question, what

happens if we eat too many fats? What happens if we eat too little fruits and vegetables?

Summative Assessment

For the summative assessment for Health & Well-being, students participated in

the creation of a brochure for an awareness campaign targeted at students of all ages.

The participation and presentation of the brochure was recorded. Students covered four

important areas in the class brochure: safety, hygiene, exercise and nutrition. Students

reflected on the unit and anecdotal records of their reflections were written. Using their

reflections and recorded responses, a movie was created to play in other classes (see

video attachment). Again we talked about good and bad choices in the four areas covered

in the brochure and reflected on what we had learned. Students were interested and

engaged because they were learning about something relevant to their lives. The IB PYP

requires that lessons be engaging, relevant, challenging and significant (IBO, 2009).

When they are, they capture student attention and interest and help them make real-world

connections. Erickson (2002) believes that learning through a conceptual lens is a way

to convince students’ to learn. She says conceptual learning holds their interest because

it is relevant to their lives and because students’ can develop and support their own

analysis of issues.

Assessment of the learning

As an assessment, the student comments were recorded at the end of the unit:

Why do we need to make balanced choices? November, 2014Name Response

Abdullah We have to make balanced choices so we are safe and so we don't become fat.

Andrea We don't eat lots of chocolate. We have to eat food that is healthy. We have to make balanced choices so we get stronger.

Fahad We should be healthy and balanced so our tummy doesn't hurt and we don't die.Mohammed Alsaleem We have to make balanced choices so we don't become fat.

Mohammed Aldahash We need to make balanced choices so we can be alive. We have to be balanced and take a bit from the healthy and bit from the unhealthy.

Fig.2

Language:

During this 2-week period, the letters introduced were Rr, Mm, Dd and Gg. The

letters were taught in a circle time discussion, using visuals. The flip chart has the

alphabet on it with the letters of the week framed. The wall nearby displays letters of the

week and how to form them and a poster for each letter is created as an activity after the

students decide what words go with the letters. When teaching the letter in the circle, all

ten students have an opportunity to make the letter sound, and repeat words beginning

with the letter. Students practiced writing the letters on the white board. Once the lesson

is complete, students are directed to their tables to begin writing the letters in their letter

books. I observe how they hold the pencil and correct the pencil grasp of a few. Students

who need help ask and I visit them individually to show them how to write letters.

Writing sheets are compiled in a writing folder and serve as a formative assessment. For

those who are weaker in language, especially with sound and letter recognition, they are

called individually to work on the letters and sounds introduced. To make

transdisciplinary connections, letters introduced during the unit are connected with words

that relate to the unit. For each letter, a word that relates to health and well-being is

placed on the word wall in the classroom. For example, h – health, e – eggs, r – rice, d –

dates, and m – milk. Students are encouraged to include these words in their daily

journals and draw pictures to go with them. Students reflected on their journals and

assessed their work using the journal assessment form.

Assessment in Language

To check understanding at the end of the unit, the students were assessed on the

letters and asked to recognize and make the sound of each letter and found word that

began with the letter. Journals are an essential learning tool in my classroom. They are

used to help students develop writing, drawing, speaking and presenting skills. The

journals go through phases, starting with phase 1 at the start of the year, where students

write their names and draw a picture. In the 2nd unit (phase 2), they write their names and

begin to write a word along with their names. For this two-week period, students were

expected to write a word along with their drawing and name. An assessment form was

created to review student progress and for reflection (See appendix A).

S, A, T, I, P, N is the first group of letters introduced using the jolly phonics

language system. Students learn those letters first and then begin to read words that are

made from those letters. These letters were introduced during the first unit of the

academic year, but students are still learning to read using them. During this 2-week

plan, students were learning to read these words during group time and individually with

me. The students had a number of opportunities to learn to read. In addition, students are

regularly reviewing the ‘at’ and ‘an’ family words to practice reading.

Math

For this two-week period, I focused on teaching students to make connections

between 2D and 3D shapes. To teach the concepts, I drew 2D shapes on a poster and 3D

shapes on another poster and put the posters beside one another and allowed the students

to make observations about the two and to make connections between the two. Students

also went on a 2D and 3-D shape hunt in the class and observations were made while

they were playing the game. They made cone hats and ice cream cones to remember the

cone shape and name.

To teach counting in my morning circle, students count to one hundred as a group

every day. The counting has allowed everyone to get comfortable with numbers and to

be able to count confidently. To teach students to recognize 0-5 objects in a set without

counting them, we played a game during center time. I took items from our math center

and threw them down and asked the students one by one to say how many they are

without counting them. I told them that they were really going to learn to mentally count.

They had so much fun with the game. To reinforce the counting, students made

transdisciplinary connections to the unit of inquiry by counting foods in their lunch

boxes. Students counted their crackers, estimated the number of grapes they had and

attempted to mentally count their cheerios and other countable foods.

Math Assessment

In this sample, students were assessed on their ability to count to twenty. They

also were assessed on their ability to recognize groups of zero to five objects without

counting them. During a circle time activity, students were shown how to mentally count

up to five objects and everyone was given a few opportunities to try. Notes were taken

and a checklist was used to show the results.

IB Learner Profile Attributes

For the Health and Well-being Unit, two main profiles were selected to be

emphasized during the unit, however, focusing on other profiles was inevitable. The two

profiles, balanced and principled, connected mainly to the UOI, however, the other

profiles were more appropriate for language and math teaching, such as knowledgeable,

thinker etc... Connections were made to the UOI. When Zezo’s health improved because

he made balanced decisions, exercised, and ate well, students understood he was a thinker

and was balanced. Beside his picture, he says “I am a thinker because I use my brain to

think and make good decisions,” and I am balanced because I am healthy and take good

care of myself. At the end of the unit, students rated themselves on being balanced and

principled. During the unit, when students made comments or took actions that

supported the learner profile attributes, their comments were written in speech bubbles

and pasted on the IB Learner Profile board under each profile attribute. To bring

attention to the IB Learner Profile, each time their action or comment matches a profile

attribute, I commented and used the name of the profile. For students with English as a

second language, the profile names are not easy. Students must hear them repeatedly and

see them in action to understand their meaning. At the end of each day, students have a

take-home file that shows whether they ate breakfast and lunch or not, what centers they

visited and which learner profile/s they modeled during that day. For the learner profile

section, I check the box in front of the child and talk about the action that made him

model a certain profile attribute on a given day. To teach the profile attributes, I have to

model the profiles.

Reflection and Conclusion

When looking at this unit of inquiry, I asked myself, is this IB? Was the teaching

and learning effective? What made it work? To start, the pre-assessment for our UOI

about Health and Well-being was very effective. Students were quickly engaged and

their questions and inquiries helped drive further inquiry. All students participated in the

inquiry and shared their thoughts and questions. It worked because the children could

relate to the child. He was their age and he was grossly overweight. They felt sad for

him and their emotions poured out from the start of the unit. It bothered them that he was

overweight and they felt determined to help him. The students showed compassion and

empathy. They wanted Zezo to be better and kept asking when he would be redrawn into

a healthy and fit Zezo. The Learner profiles of balanced and principled were portrayed

by the students. The attitudes of empathy and commitment poured out when students

wanted him to be well and felt like they could help him. However, more could have been

done. In reflecting, I realized that a malnourished child could have also been included in

the inquiry to focus on both sides of the problem - being overweight and being

underweight. Then, we could make connections to other countries and places where

people experience hunger and famine. The concept of balance could be achieved that

way and the inquiry could have helped the students become more internationally minded.

For language, this process of zooming in on two weeks of learning allowed me to

improve my work by creating new rubrics and reflection methods for the unit. My desire

to map their progression prompted the rubric (Appendix B) which shows what students

should be achieving every unit. My process overall for teaching language is coming

along. I started reading earlier this year and am seeing results much earlier. Students are

capable of just about anything and if they are motivated. As long as they know a group

of letters and their sounds, they can start reading

Math has been easier to teach and students are grasping mathematical concepts

quicker than language. Is it that the way they are taught is clearer or is it that the

concepts at this point are just easier to grasp? I have found that the 100 days of school

countdown has really helped the students learn numbers and counting without thinking

because they do it every day. They can count, estimate and round from the 100 days

chart routine. For 2-D and 3-D shapes, they spent time making crafts to solidify the

point. Language, takes more time to grasp, especially reading. Students need time to

read daily and weaker students need individual time. I am considering some sort of

reading activity that I can do every day to teach students reading. For the UOI, the

students understood the concepts and showed clear understanding of the central idea.

Their brochure reflected their learning and understanding. The IB philosophy and

process of teaching and learning is apparent in the written, taught and learned curriculum.

Appendix A

Overview Chart

Trans-disciplinary theme:

Who we are: An inquiry into the nature of the self; beliefs and values; personal, physical, mental, social and spiritual health; human relationships including families, friends, communities, and cultures; rights and responsibilities; what it means to be human.

Central Idea (CI): Making balanced choices about daily routines enables us to have a healthy life style.

Concepts: Causation and Reflection

Related-Concepts: Balance, well-being

Concept Questions:

1. What are the things we do every day? (Form)

2. How can you live a healthy lifestyle? (Reflection)

3. What might happen as a result of our choices? (Causation)

Knowledge:

·         Daily habits and routines (hygiene, sleeping, playing, eating)

·         Balanced choices

·         Consequences of choices

Skills:

Self-management skills:

a.      Safety - Engaging in personal behaviour that avoids placing oneself or others in danger or at risk. Through identifying potentially dangerous situations and activities and the appropriate ways to respond to them.

b.      Healthy lifestyle - Making informed choices to achieve a balance in nutrition, rest, relaxation and exercise; practicing appropriate hygiene and self-care.

c.       Informed choices Selecting an appropriate course of action or behaviour based on fact or opinion.

Attitudes:

Empathy: Through putting themselves in other people’s shoes, those in safe or unsafe situations, we understand how others feel.

Commitment: Students learn the importance of being committed to a healthy lifestyle.

Action:

Summative Assessment – Health Awareness Campaign – Creating a brochure that shares what they have learned during the unit. Teachers record their presentations and reflections and create a video to share as a part of the campaign. Students share their video and brochure to other classes in the preschool.

Learner Profile Attributes:

Balanced:   Through doing the daily exercises, and eating fruits and vegetables in the lunchroom. By understanding that we can make choices that are balanced and that oo much or too little of anything is not good.

Principled: Through taking responsibility for their actions and the consequences that accompany them. For example the consequences of eating unhealthy food.

Appendix B

Task Name Student Learning Assessment Task – student Assessment tasks- teacher

Measurement tools

Language

Formative Assessment

Letters: R, M, D, G - recognition and sound

Students are called one by one to the chart with the letters and asked about each one to see if they recognize them, letter and sound.

Observation Rubric

Formative Assessment

Letters: R, M, D, G – writing Used writing sheets for assessment Observation Checklist

Formative Assessment Reading: SATIPN words Students are asked to read the words from the

word list.specific response Checklist

Formative Assessment

Reading: at and an family words

Students are asked to read the at and an family words.

specific response Checklist

Formative Assessment Journal writing

Students are expected to write their names, draw a picture and write one word to go with the picture.

open-ended Exemplar / Rubric

UOI

Pre-Assessment

Discussion about the overweight child

Students share their thoughts about what his problems are and how he can be helped.  Open-ended Anecdotal

notes

Formative Assessment

Spend a week teaching the food pyramid, one step a day starting at the bottom of the pyramid.After learning about the pyramid and healthy and balanced foods, students cut and paste healthy foods from a grocery store magazine and place them on the cart.

Food pyramid activity + Food cart activity observation anecdotal notes

Summative Assessment

Students participate in the creation and presentation of a brochure about health and well-being

Students share their reflections about the unit and answer the question, "Why is it important to make balanced choices?"

open-ended response

anecdotal notes

MathFormative Assessment Count to 20  Students are asked to count to 20 individually. specific

response  Checklist

Formative assessment 2D and 3D shapes

 Students compare and match 2D and 3D shapes using the posters in the classroom and the 2and 3D shapes.

specific response  Checklist

Formative assessment

Mentally counting objects to 5

 Students are asked to mentally count / recognize a group of objects from 0-5 objects.

specific response  checklist

Appendix C

Journals - Progression of learning How am I doing?Unit Milestones Skills Student reflection

Unit 1 - Cultures

Write name

draw a picture

describe the picture to peers in groups or to the class during circle time

Learn to write the name, drawing skills, presenting and listening.

Unit 2 - Health & Well-being

Write name

draw a picture

1 word - Use the word wall to add one word to describe the picture.

Learn to write the name, drawing, copying words

Unit 3 - Transportation

Write name

draw a picture

2 words - Use the word wall to add two words to describe the picture or try to spell a word on your own.

write the name clearly, drawing and writing

Unit 4 - Life Cycles

Write name

draw a picture

3 words - Use the word wall to try to spell 3 words to describe the picture or try to spell them on your own.

writing the name clearly, drawing and writing

Unit 5 – Environment

Write name

draw a picture

sentence - Use the sentences taught in class - I can, I am, This is… etc.

writing the name first and last, drawing and writing

Unit 6 - Stories Write name

draw a picture

sentence - Use the sentences taught in class - I can, I am, This is… etc.

writing the name, first and last, drawing and writing

The highlighted row is the one used during the 2-week unit discussed in this paper.

The Health and Well-being bulletin board – Zezo before and after

References

Erickson, H.L. (2002). Concept-based curriculum and instruction: Teaching beyond the

facts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

IBO, (2009). Making the pyp happen: A curriculum framework for international

primary education. Retrieved from

http://www.sph.edu/sphi/tl_files/Curriculum/Making%20the%20PYP%20Happen

,%20December%202009.pdf