Confessions of a PYP Teacher

Send us Fan Mail How does our learning space design reflect the needs of your language learners?  In this episode, we will explore how the learning environment supports or is an obstacle to language acquisition for your language learners.  We will explore some simple ways to make language more accessible and rich in order to make all of your learners feel included in the environment. For a written...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to our new series on the importance of the learning environment and play to support inquiry.  This has been a labor of love over the past few months as I’ve experienced my own a-ha moments about the importance of learning space design.  It sounds so intuitive, yet, it’s one of the hardest things for educators to give up.   In this episode, we will explore different strateg...

Send us Fan Mail As we focus on learning environment design and building learning relationships, we must first consider a simple practice that bonds a community together.  Pronouncing the names of our learners correctly. What’s in a name?  It’s the first gift your parent’s give you when you are born.  It shapes your identity, reminds you of your family heritage, and is a lasting legacy that you ma...

Send us Fan Mail Once you have a solid understanding and use of split-screen teaching, you will be prepared to turn the ownership to your learners.  Our ultimate goal with the PYP and a part of good teaching practice is developing learner independence. We can use split-screen teaching to support this process by having learners create their own goals by using the ATL sub-skills as their success cri...

Send us Fan Mail You’ve chosen your ATLs and now comes the part of breaking them down into bite-size pieces, so your learners can apply them on a daily basis.  I’m not going to lie, I used to struggle so much with this part, because these skills often felt insurmountable.  When that happens, we tend to bury them like a stinky fish in the back of a closet.  Over time, the fish will decay and the st...

Send us Fan Mail Now we have gone over in-depth how to use the Approaches to Learning (ATLs), how will we select them for our units of inquiry.  This does not just apply to homeroom teachers, because all specialists and supporting teachings need to be part of the discussion.  If we expect these teachers to be a part of the teaching, they need to be part of the selection process.   How can we consi...

Send us Fan Mail As a child advances in age, it’s assumed that they know how to manage themselves, because they are quiet, sit still, and complete assignments.  There is so much more to self-management than that.   When I think of self-management, I compare it to ownership as part of learner agency.  Both of them are more difficult to define, because it’s part of our being of who we are.  We can’t...

Send us Fan Mail I believe self-management is one of the hardest ATLs to “teach” in the PYP.  It’s at the root of who you are as a learner, similar to ownership in agency.  There are things you can do to support self-management development, but it requires the learner to do most of the heavy lifting.   As you enter any early years classroom on the first day of school, you see a lot of curiosity, t...

Send us Fan Mail Social skills are so pertinent in the specialist and supporting classes.  They reinforce what is being done in the rest of the school, so we need to find some consistency in modeling them to our students.  In this episode, we are trying to examine the social skills that learners need in order to operate within the world.  We will be using the same social skills as the grades 1-6,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we are trying to examine the social skills that learners need in order to operate in the elementary classroom. As you enter the elementary age, there seems to be a trend that I have noticed in nearly two decades of education. The older the learner, the quieter they become in a traditional learning environment.  This should not be the case in a PYP classroom, since...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we are trying to examine the social skills that early learners need in order to operate within the world.  Every time I enter an early years classroom, I feel the same energy.  The room is full of young people trying to figure out the correct social cues and behaviors to properly participate in the classroom and school.  They make mistakes, they make others cry, t...

Send us Fan Mail In our last episodes, we were talking about the ATL Communication Skills.  Communication is about finding our voice and helping others to get more informed about the world around them.  Sometimes, we have to discuss difficult and uncomfortable subjects, to help our learners better understand the systems of inequity, justice, and accountability.   For a written blog post and other...

Send us Fan Mail Communication is a complex process, so how do we capture it in a specialist classroom or while receiving additional help with supporting teachers?  Just like a homeroom teacher, it requires continual practice in new ways, so students can have those aha moments.  This process will take years to develop, so it requires us to constantly chip away at it.  When thinking of a specialist...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I am going against the norm and choosing a different ATL than the early years. It spoke more to me as an upper elementary teacher.  One of the things I struggled the most with my students was getting them to analyze and interpret information and connect to their own lives.  This is a difficult thing for most adults to do, so imagine being an eight year old trying...

Send us Fan Mail When I think of communication skills, I can’t help but think of you early years teachers.  Our youngest learners are so curious about the world around them that they want to continuously ask questions, add comments to the learning topic, and make connections to their everyday lives.  At times, it can be overwhelming the sheer amount of questions that early learners ask, but isn’t...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we will look at elements of traditional research skills and adapt them to our needs as a specialist or supporting teacher.  The process takes intentional planning, but the results are well worth it. For a written blog post and other resources, visit:    https://thinkchat2020.weebly.com/ Thanks for listening!  Please join the epic learning journey at lugerlach.com...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we will explore the ways we make research come to life with our elementary/ primary aged learners.  We will delve into our part in setting stage for authentic research to happen and how we can unlock opportunities for students to analyze information authentically. For a written blog post and other resources, visit:    https://thinkchat2020.weebly.com/ Thanks for l...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we are looking at the unique ways that early years learners research the world around them through play.  It's an exciting time to be alive in this stage and we want to help our earliest learners to create generalizations of the world around them.  Join me as we explore the things we can do to set the stage for this magic to happen. For a written blog post an...

Send us Fan Mail Hello to my friends who work with learners in the entire school. You have such a special role in touching many, if not all, of the students in your school.  With that, comes a unique challenge to get learners to better understand the learning in your classes and give them the tools to become more independent thinkers.   Welcome to this episode my friends that has been crafted just...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to this episode my friends who teach primary/elementary aged students.  We are going to take a deep dive today into the thinking skills to help you broaden your understanding and help to unpack one completely.  My aim is to get you to start thinking differently about the ATLs; not as an add-on to the program.  In this episode, we are going to examine the ATL thinking skill...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to this episode my early years friends.  I’ve long thought about how to create for you my early years teachers.  I think going forward, we are going to need to adapt the learning for you, since we are getting past some of the ideas that are applicable to any age level.  As a PYP Coordinator, I’ve come to truly appreciate the amazing things you accomplish in the early years...

Send us Fan Mail For this episode, I thought I would do a deeper dive into the IB documentation to get a better gauge of the ATL structure.  To be honest, I’m still developing my understanding of these valuable tools.  Prior to 2018, I was selecting one of the ATL categories (thinking, research, communication, social, and self-management) as the focus in the unit with little plan on how to execute...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to our new series on the approaches to learning.  My brain is a bit toasty after the transdisciplinary challenge, but don’t you feel pumped?  I really enjoyed going through that experience, because it really helped me think differently about transdisciplinary learning.  I hope it helped you too.   Now, we are giving our brains a slight reprieve.  I shouldn’t say that, beca...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we will wrap up our transdisciplinary challenge and provide suggestions  on how to plan for next steps in this school year and beyond.  For a written blog post and other resources, visit:    https://thinkchat2020.weebly.com/ Thanks for listening!  Please join the epic learning journey at lugerlach.com Join our Confessions of a PYP Teacher Facebook Group!  Let&apos...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the fifth and final transdisciplinary challenge!  Wahoo, you made it! Evaluating Transdisciplinarity Every process becomes better when we regularly evaluate its effectiveness and areas of growth.  Through continual feedback, we are able to see clearly the path towards the next steps.  This has always been the goal of assessment.  Now, we will apply this to your transdis...