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Meaningfully connecting teacher actions and student learning goals within the IB classroom, Laura Gutmann, Pai-rou Chen and Raymond L Pecheone
Meaningfully connecting teacher actions and student learning goals within the IB classroom
Laura Gutmann, Pai-rou Chen and Raymond L Pecheone explain the formation of a framework to help teachers embed IB frameworks
At the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE), our core mission is to design, develop, and implement equitable performance-based assessments that capture authentic teaching and learning (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Darling-Hammond & Hyler, 2013; Wei et al, 2015). In the US, our edTPA system is widely used across 41 states and 900+ educator preparation programs to measure readiness to teach among pre-service candidates. edTPA asks candidates to engage in documenting and reflecting on their beginning teaching throughout a student-centered cycle of planning, instruction, and assessment. The framing principles behind this initiative have resonated both nationally and internationally as an educative approach to setting a standard for entry into the profession (Bastian et al, 2016; Pecheone & Whittaker, 2016). As part of our collaborative partnership with global organizations interested in creating similar assessment tools, we began working closely with the Kuei-Shan School, an International Baccalaureate (IB) school in Taipei, Taiwan. Kuei-Shan presented us with a challenging dilemma – during the hiring and on-boarding process, they tried their best to screen teachers for fit with the IB context and offer access to training and workshops. But when teachers arrived at the school, they often needed additional support to build their capacity to apply IB frameworks to their content pedagogy and instructional practice. Could we help them create a tool that would provide their teachers with concrete feedback about evidence of their practice in relation to the IB Learner Profile Attributes and Approaches to Teaching & Learning (ATL), in order to support continuous improvement?
SCALE’s design process for this tool started with a groundlevel investigation into the learning outcomes that are valued within IB, with the goal of making connections between desired student-oriented objectives and strategic teaching actions or behaviors. Because IB takes a holistic, 21st century approach to learning that includes attention to thinking, research, communication, social skills, and selfmanagement skills, we focused on those key categories of applied skills and knowledge as we defined what IB teachers are working towards. We found strong parallels between the competencies that define IB culture and the broader global attention that has been given to the importance of developing deeper learning competencies such as ‘learning how to learn’ or ‘thinking critically to solve complex problems’ (William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, 2013; Learning Policy Institute, 2019). Our experience as national leaders in performance-based assessment of deeper learning enabled SCALE to innovate a customized IB measure that put fostering students’ engagement in understanding and using their knowledge and abilities at the forefront.
After completing content validation, and piloting the tool in IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) classrooms in Taiwan and Canada, initial implementation data and validity evidence informed refinement of the IB Teacher Development Tool for ongoing professional growth aligned with IB principles. The resulting system of support materials includes a comprehensive set of rubrics that can be used by administrators and coaches alongside teachers to examine high-leverage dimensions of practice across progressions of teaching quality. It also includes training materials with guidelines for implementing the system with reliability and validity. This IB-specific system is framed for formative use, driven by teacher discussion with coaches about selected areas of practice that relate to their current unit of inquiry and their individual needs as developing practitioners. As observation and other relevant instructional evidence is collected, explicit feedback is intended to structure meaningful conversation about effective pedagogical strategies in relation to each dimension. Illustrative examples of teaching practice provided at each rubric level are an additional resource for coaches to guide educators at all levels of expertise to make deeper connections between evidence of their reallife instruction and achieving the learning objectives for IB students that are nested within their units of inquiry.
Thinking 4: How does the teacher facilitate students’ use of thinking strategies to generate novel ideas or consider new perspectives to solve complex problems?
Emerging
The teacher encourages students to generate novel
ideas or consider new perspectives to solve complex problems. Developing
The teacher models how to
use thinking strategies to
generate novel ideas or consider new perspectives to solve complex problems.
Proficient
The teacher guides students as they use thinking strategies while generating novel ideas or considering new perspectives to solve complex problems.
Advanced
The teacher challenges students to use thinking strategies and local or global resources while generating their novel ideas or new perspectives to solve complex problems.
Figure 1. Sample Portion of a Thinking Rubric from IB Teacher Development Tool
The IB Teacher Development Tool is purposefully designed to build teachers’ capacity for targeted reflection that informs their next steps in the classroom, while illuminating a range of approaches to fostering learning, at varying levels of intentionality and sophistication (SCALE, 2017). Engaging in this process may be particularly important for teachers who are new to the IB world and forming an emerging understanding of how to build the attributes and skills that will contribute to IB student growth. IB teachers have the complex task of supporting students to develop skills and abilities like critical thinking, effectively collaborating with others, or problem-solving within and across disciplines, while facilitating the application of content knowledge to local and global contexts. Consequently, IB schools can benefit from utilizing a common set of rubrics that provides coherent criteria for helping teachers to grow in their practice and prompts actionable feedback about multiple aspects of their instruction over time (Reynolds-Keefer, 2010).
For instance, a rubric within the ‘thinking’ domain examines how well teachers facilitate students’ use of thinking strategies to generate novel ideas or consider new perspectives to solve complex problems. At the emerging and developing levels of the rubric, the teacher broadly encourages students to generate new ideas or perspectives, and may move towards modeling problem-solving approaches for them. However, at the proficient and advanced levels, the teacher supports students as they are directly engaged in applying specific thinking strategies and generating their own ideas, perhaps even combining their own thinking with different perspectives or local/global resources (see Figure 1).
While our focus was on the most salient, generalizable dimensions of IB practice that carry across different subjectareas and school contexts, as more educators begin to use this tool to guide and structure concrete support for instructional development, further implementation data will continue to inform grade-span, disciplinary content and site-specific application. Ultimately, we envision IB schools, administrators, coaches, and teachers being empowered to learn from authentic, classroom-based evidence of instruction, as they expand the depth and breadth of their professional knowledge and consider how to personalize and contextualize their practice in order to engage every child within their classroom in becoming a 21st century citizen of the world.
References
Bastian K, Henry G & Lys D (2016) Teacher candidate performance assessments: Local scoring and implications for teacher preparation program improvement. Teaching and Teacher Education, 59, 1-12. Darling-Hammond L (2010) Evaluating teacher effectiveness: How teacher performance assessments can measure and improve teaching. Center for American Progress. Darling-Hammond L & Hyler M E (2013) The role of performance assessment in developing teaching as a profession. Rethinking Schools, 27(4), 1–5. Learning Policy Institute. (2019) Deeper learning. Retrieved from https:// learningpolicyinstitute.org/topic/deeper-learning Pecheone R L & Whittaker A (2016) Well prepared teachers inspire student learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 97(7), 8-13. Reynolds-Keefer L (2010) Rubric-referenced assessment in teacher preparation: An opportunity to learn by using. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 15(8), 1-8. Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (2017) SCALE Checklist for Quality Rubric Design. Retrieved from http:// performanceassessmentresourcebank.org/resource/10481 Wei R C, Pecheone R L & Wilczak K L (2015) Measuring what really matters. Phi Delta Kappan, 97(1), 8-13. William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (2013) Deeper learning competencies. Retrieved from http://www.hewlett.org/uploads/documents/Deeper_ Learning_Defined__April_2013.pdf
