Continuation from Planning meeting:
4/17/00 meeting at Lincoln High School 3:40-5:00 PM

recorder: Michele Anciaux

NOTES ON PYP PLANNER 
Concie, Margretta, Nani, and Sandra Hernandes (from UW)

Concie & Nani presented an overview of how to use the PYP
planner to plan for a unit of study. This was based on the 
training they received last month.  (Primary Years Programme
is part of the International Baccalaureate North America.)

The PYP Program makes use of a set of organizing themes:

* Who are we?
* Where are we in time and place?
* How do we express ourselves?
* How does the world work?
* How do we organize ourselves?
* How do we share the planet?

Each Unit relates to one of the Themes and includes a Focus,
as well as specifying Unit Title, Teacher, Level, School, and
Proposed Duration.

The PYP Planner itself consists of 6 Stages:

STAGE 1:  What is our purpose?
(A concise description of the central idea to be addressed and
the scope of the inquiry.)

Example (from Concie):  "Rocks and minerals go through changes."

STAGE 2:  What resources will we use?  People, places, AV
materials, literature, music, art, software, etc.

Comment (from Concie):  Go from the inquiries (teacher's and
students' questions in Stage 3) to drive the Resource List.  (Usually 
there is a tendency to bring out the resources, then teach from those.)

STAGE 3:  What do we want to learn?
(The key questions which will drive the inquiry.)

Comments (from Concie):  Teachers should limit themselves 
to 3-5 questions (to help focus) because the children will have more.
It's better to have a narrower topic and go more in depth.  Also, check
out the balance of questions across the categories.

After you've generated questions, connect them to the Categories, 
which correspond roughly to Bloom's Taxonomy. (It's useful to
make sure you've gone beyond just the lower levels of the taxonomy.)

Note: you don't have to have questions in every category in every
unit, but throughout the year you should get coverage of the categories.

Categories:
* Form - What is it like?
* Function - How does it work?
* Causation - Why is it the way it is?
* Change - How does it change?
* Connection - How is it connected to other things?
* Perspective - What are the points of view?
* Responsibility - What is our responsibility?
* Reflection - What do we know?

STAGE 4:  How best will we learn?
(Teacher and/or student designed activities that will address the key
questions.)

Comments (from Concie): Make sure that these activities fit with the
inquiry questions.  For example, if a Science Kit doesn't fit with the
questions generated on the topic, don't use it.

STAGE 5:  How will we know what we have learned?
(The strategies which will be used to assess learning.)

- Student Self-Assessment

- How will we take action?  (How the students demonstrate their 
ability to choose, act, and reflect.)

Comments (from Concie):  Important to include Student Self Assessment.

STAGE 6:  To what extent did we reach our purpose?
(To what extent were the purposes fulfilled; was the unit relevant, engaging,
challenging, and significant; were the resources adequate; were the concepts,
skills, and attitudes addressed?)

Comments (from Concie):  This is the teacher self-reflection piece.
What changes do you need to make. Good idea to include student feedback
(e.g., what part of the unit was your favorite?).

GENERAL COMMENTS:

Hardest part was coming up with the central idea.  It was helpful to work
with other people.  Once you've got that, the planner is easy.  It goes
quickly once you get started.

Andrea suggested using the planner to help identify where community
resources are needed.  Michele suggested using Stages 1 & 3 to communicate
the purpose of units to the UW partners (through the Intl Marketplace) to
get appropriate, targeted resources.

NEXT STEPS:

Workshop for staff on using the PYP Planner.