ISB Starts Work on the Curriculum Overview Map

In our mission statement, ISB is a collaborative learning community. In the spirit of this lofty goal, the entire faculty is working on making a PreKinder to Grade 12 Curriculum Overview Map (C.O.M.) for eight academic disciplines in the IB curriculum. This document will display the common elements for all three programmes (PYP,MYP,DP) to be used by teachers to monitor and improve vertical alignment. The COM is important especially for new faculty members or new parents to the school.

Each discipline and year or grade level is divided into six columns. They are listed and defined below:

• Concepts (key and related) – An organising idea, that is timeless, universal, abstract, broad, and represented by 1 or 2 words.  example- change
• Global Context – A way of organising and exploring knowledge as trans disciplinary  or inter disciplinary issues of global significance and relevance to students. In the MYP, which I am familiar with, these are the Areas of Interaction (AOI). An example would be the “environment.” These are the lenses which the student looks at each academic discipline.
• Significant Content – Within each subject area, there are interconnected strands. For example, “measurement” for mathematics.
• Subject Specific Skills and ATTLs – These are the Approaches To Learning and Teaching. These are skills that transcends boundaries of specific subjects, like “self-management.” A subject specific skill example in science is “controlling variables.”
• Learning Outcomes – Specifically what the students will be expected to know (to define) understand (to apply), and do at the end of the learning period.
• Units – The planned, taught, and assessed process of learning, synthesized into a meaningful inquiry planner. These are the “unit planners” that teachers and students use to guide teaching and learning.

There is a danger in putting too many details in this Curriculum Overview Mapping (C.O.M.).

There was a lot of discussion to get to this point. Today will be the first session we are working on the C.O.M. A challenge is to match the terminology used in the PYP with the terminology used in the MYP and DP. We started off today with a discussion of the IB terminology.  I am participating in the Science group for this map.

We really focused on the skills of science. At last meeting, the science chair, sent a form for grade level teachers to indicate the skills they teach.