Planning the inquiry

1. What is our purpose? To inquire into the following: A Mirror to the Soul

Class/grade: 3rd School: Oak Forest

Age group: 8-9 School code: 006610

transdisciplinary theme PYP planner Teacher(s): Murdock, Szczodrowski, Blakley, Moore, Vester, Williams, Rodgers Date: April 30 May 18, 2012 Proposed duration: number of hours: 4 weeks

How we express ourselves: An inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity; our appreciation of the aesthetic.

Central idea: Communication is expressed through the arts.

Summative assessment task(s): What are the possible ways of assessing students understanding of the central idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?

2. What do we want to learn? What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective, responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry? Reflection, perspective

Task: Students compose a verbal/nonverbal form of communication (song, poem, rap, poster, miming, etc) to represent facts about a culture. Evidence: Students presentation

What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?

Differentiating between sound and pitch Gaining a cultural perspective of the arts Ways to reflect and express ourselves through the arts

Assessment: Students will write a brief reflection of their presentation.

What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries? What is the difference between sound and pitch? What are similarities and differences in your culture vs. other cultures? How do people express themselves? Provocation: Students will play a variety of musical instruments and discuss what they hear. Teacher can show a photograph to engage students into inquiry about culture.
International Baccalaureate Organization 2007 dates taught 4/22- 5/22/2012 revised 5/2012

Planning the inquiry

3. How might we know what we have learned?

This column should be used in conjunction with How best might we learn?

4. How best might we learn? What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving questions? Week 1- (Pre-assessment)(Engage) students will play and/or listen to a variety of music and discuss similarities and differences in them. Identify pitch and volume. Create a KWL chart for Pitch and volume, Engage in journal writing activities, class discussion, show video clips of various music genres/cultures

What are the possible ways of assessing students prior knowledge and skills? What evidence will we look for? Class discussion about ways we communicate in the past and present KWL chart Venn Diagram comparing/contrasting their culture to another culture Journal writing

Week 2 & 3 - Class will explore different cultures through research, students compare and contrast two different cultures with a partner using a VENN diagram

What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?

Week 4- Students compose a verbal/nonverbal form of communication (song, poem, rap, poster, miming, etc) to represent facts about a culture.

Students will demonstrate knowledge of pitch and sound using an instrument Students will compare/contrast two different cultures Formal observation of final presentations Rubric for students reflection

What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the development of the attributes of the learner profile? Transdisciplinary skills: research skills, communication skills, Learner Profile: communicator, open-minded, Attitudes: creativity, cooperation

5. What resources need to be gathered? What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available? Brain Pop Jr. for pitch and sound, Pandora for a variety of cultural music, library, teacher resource books, United Streaming, instruments from music teacher, poster board

How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry? Parents and family of students from different cultures may be guest speakers in the classroom to share aspects of their culture. ESL/ELL teachers will present information about the cultures we have represented at our school. Our Chinese teachers demonstrate poetry and music examples from China. Musical instruments from music department

International Baccalaureate Organization 2007

Reflecting on the inquiry

6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose? Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students understanding of the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the planning and teaching of the inquiry should be included The students were able to connect to the central idea while writing their song/poem, which demonstrated their understanding of the central idea that communication is expressed through the arts.

7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?

What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:

Develop an understanding of the concepts identified in What do we want to learn?

Students listened to a variety of different types of music and identified similarities and differences between them. Students then explored different cultures and compared their own cultures to those they researched. Students were able to reflect and compare their perspectives to those of other cultures. Students enjoyed learning about other cultures and comparing their own beliefs and traditions to those of others. Many students were surprised to see the similarities they found with others around the world.

How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more accurate picture of each students understanding of the central idea We could incorporate a field trip to Chuculissa to enhance their learning experience and deepen their understanding of the central idea.

Demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?

Students demonstrated the transdisciplinary skills involving research and communication while researching different cultures and working together, communicating, with each other when creating their poems/songs.

Develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?

What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the transdisciplinary theme? Students were able to make a connection between the diversities of communication among various cultures. (similarities/differences between their own culture and cultures they researched)

Students were communicators when working in groups and during class discussions. Students were open-minded when learning about different cultures and the differences between those and their own. Students were creative and co-operative when working in groups when researching and completing their assessments.

International Baccalaureate Organization 2007

Reflecting on the inquiry

8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning? Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that were incorporated into the teaching and learning. Why are there different cultures? How many different cultures are there? How do people create different music? Why do people dress differently from me? How are my beliefs different from others?
At this point teachers should go back to box 2 What do we want to learn? and highlight the teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries.

9. Teacher notes

Students responded well to working together and researching. The music teacher was able to incorporate sound, pitch, and volume during her class time. Teachers in PE incorporated different forms of dance and music. The ESL teacher was able to incorporate various cultures in her lesson with ESL students. Unfortunately, we did not have as much time as we needed to go further in depth for this planner. Next year, we would like to take a field trip where students can see artifacts from different cultures or students could possibly make artifacts from different cultures. As we taught this unit, we felt like we needed to change the central idea wording. (Communication to Culture)

What student-initiated actions arose from the learning? Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to reflect, to choose, and to act.

Students gained a great interest in learning about other people in other places of the world. They continued to research further about different cultures and their traits versus their own. When working on the summative assessment (creating a poem/song) students wanted to make some of the instruments they found through their research of other cultures and used them in their presentations to the class.

International Baccalaureate Organization 2007