Primary Years Programme

The session will detail techniques for a multi-faceted approach to building the IB in your local school, community, and state. Included will be techniques for approaching state departments of education, organizations of university presidents, chief academic officers, and state legislators.

This session will provide information on how to implement a community read in an IB World school based on a similar program at Baker Middle School. Presenters will discuss the positive impact a community read can have on raising awareness of global issues, uniting students, staff, and community members, and encouraging action.

In this session, participants will experience and learn how to utilize an easily accessible method to stimulate internationally-minded thinking in their schools. The method uses visual imagery drawn from a variety of sources and is designed to help participants engage in novel forms of thinking about the problems and issues facing the population of the world today.

In order for schools to encourage students to develop new ways of thinking for a new world, the faculty must first address the necessary change in school culture to create a sucessful IB programme. School improvement requires that teachers change what they think, say, and do. This workshop promotes the use of the IB Learner Profile as a means to develop a professional working community.

In this session, participants will understand teacher-leader development through established business protocol, professional learning communities, and collaborative planning.

In this session, participants will be introduced to the ideas and strategies of teaching for understanding. Planning a course usually leads us to consider our aims, objectives, assessments, and the knowledge we wish our students to learn. Clarifying these ideas will help us prepare a more meaningful experience for our students.

It is not enough to talk about other countries and cultures. A new world and new thinking requires that we interact with others from diverse backgrounds. When teachers participate in short-term international immersion experiences, they bring to their classrooms a richness that cannot be found in books.

Grisham Middle School in Texas, USA and Colegio CIEDI in Bogota, Colombia collaboratively studied the Amazon rainforest from the AOI of Human Ingenuity. Through online sharing via a moodle platform, Year 5 students at CIEDI became the teachers and even assessed the learning of the Year 1 students at Grisham.

This session will focus on how one school used new thinking to address student behavior challenges and an increasing achievement gap. The new thinking includes: adult learning around the issues of poverty, essential agreements, and the creation of structures that empower students to become more responsible learners.

This session will provide a brief overview of IB Americas’ professional development services. Participants will learn more about the variety of workshops offered in North America and in Latin America. New developments will be highlighted with a focus on Level 3 workshops, including subject specific areas of interest, pedagogy, learning theory, and areas of scholarly inquiry.