Carrie Nelson Blogs!

In order to prevent students from becoming passive learners and instead develop important life skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving, IB World schools encourage inquiry-based learning in the classroom. This is when classroom learning and discussions are driven by the students themselves, whose questions are utilized by the teacher and guided to ensure all the material is being covered, but in a way that allows students to exercise their agency, become confident speakers in front of their peers, and be curious about their education!

Research has demonstrated that when students participate in meaningful classroom discussions and actively participate in their own quest for knowledge, they make deeper connections to concepts which results in long-term academic and professional benefits. With inquiry-based learning, when students ask questions educators are not simply giving them the answers like a lightning round Q&A session. Teachers work with students to discover the rights answers together. Students are not simply being taught the answers, they are being provided with the process to discover solutions, which they will learn to adapt and apply to other situations. This enables students to feel proud about their progress, and motivates them to participate in class and become more interested in the material being covered.

To learn about the concept-based learning model we employ at St. Jude's Academy, please check out Ms. Chin's post!

I hope you all have a wonderful day!

References:

http://www.edutopia.org/practice/wildwood-inquiry-based-learning-developing-student-driven-questions

http://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2016/02/04/when-the-student-becomes-the-teacher/

In a traditional Ontario public school, students are told that only their course averages from grades 11 and 12 count towards their university admission profile. While this is true, it leads to the creation of the mentality among students that for grades 9 and 10, you do not have to really worry about your grades, because what Canadian university will ever see them? I would argue that this is a dangerous mindset for students to adopt in their early high school years. There is a significant jump in the level of difficulty for coursework and lesson material between grades 10 and 11, from the junior grades to the senior. This jump already exists independently, but it becomes much more difficult for students to overcome when they have no practice seriously applying themselves in the previous years of high school. Grade 11 then becomes a stumbling block for some students and sets them back from their peers who, mostly thanks to their own good habits, are prepared for the sudden demands of senior high school.

IB World private schools in Ontario do not offer the traditional grade denomination as public schools. The Diploma Program (DP) is for students aged 16 to 18 and provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into higher education, recognized by many universities worldwide. However, the Middle Years Program (MYP) is for children aged 11 to 16, thus covering and embracing a larger cohort of students than the traditional grades of 8, 9, 10 etc. do, which are single stand-alone entities. By belonging to an all-encompassing program, especially with the ultimate goal of graduating to the next IB Program, students are provided with the framework and support to achieve academically and stay on track towards pursuing their post-graduate dreams. Graduating to the IB Diploma Program is a great achievement within the private school journey, and motivates students to excel in their coursework during their time in the MYP. I strongly believe that this institutional organization of grades supports university-seeking students much more effectively than the status quo in our public schools.

Dr. Benjamin Bloom was an education researcher and psychologist who famously developed his taxonomy of learning in 1956. He classified types of learning into three major hierarchical models. For cognitive learning, he classified more passive learning like gaining knowledge, comprehension, and rote learning as low-level cognitive work, while more engaged learning such as evaluation, application, and synthesis was deemed to be high-level cognitive work. As part of his overall taxonomy, he identified three domains of learning: cognitive (thinking), affective (emotion/feeling), and psychomotor (physical/kinesthetic).

His purpose was to engineer learning methods that would promote a higher level of learning by inducing high-level cognitive work. He therefore looked down upon rote memorization and passive learning methods, and in fact outlined and ranked the order of effective learning elements from worst to best (in his opinion that is):

- remembering - recalling basic facts

- understanding - explaining said newly learned facts or ideas

- applying - using the information in new situation

- analyzing - making connections

- evaluating - justifying a decision with reasoned argument

- create or synthesize - produce new or original work

His taxonomy has been highly influential for educators worldwide. Learning about Bloom's taxonomy is important for teachers wishing to develop an effective lesson approach. Based on his taxonomy, one can find great support for Switzerland's IB concept-based learning style, employed here at St. Jude's Academy. To learn about concept-based learning, please take a look at Ms. Chin's post: https://sjamypchin.wordpress.com/2016/07/19/private-schools-concept-based-learning/

Image Credit: K. Aainsqatsi, 5 May 2008, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blooms_rose.svg, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

Sources:

http://thesecondprinciple.com/instructional-design/threedomainsoflearning/
https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

Blog Archive

About Me

St. Jude's Academy is an IB School

Total Pageviews

Popular Posts

Education Blogs I Follow

What do you value MOST in a school?