Break-out Session

The National Institute for Play believes that as play is woven into the fabric of social practices, it will dramatically transform the education we provide our children. In this session, its founder Dr Stuart Brown, will illustrate how play can be a catalyst for learning at any age. When students have fun at learning, they continue to pursue it for its own sake.

This session offers a glimpse into what school fees (annual, examinations, workshop etc.) pay for now and what they will pay for in the future. This will include an analysis of IB’s cost base and cross-subsidization of activities. It will also give a view on the development activity that the IB is undertaking (including 2020 restructure work) and how it will be funded.

"Partnerships between business leaders and educators are all the rage these days. Perhaps the pre-eminent organization in the field is The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), which has emerged as the leading advocacy organization focused on infusing 21st century skills into education.

At 40, it is time for the IB to assess the impact of its educational mission on the lives of its. Three former IB Diploma students, one of whom also completed the IB Middle Years Program, will come together in this session to reflect on their IB experiences. These are three people from very different backgrounds, who are at different places in their ongoing education.

The IB celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2008, and has come a long way since Alec Peterson first developed and introduced the concept of the Diploma Programme in 1968. The goal back then was to facilitate the international mobility of students by providing schools with a curriculum and qualification recognized by universities around the world.

Save instruction time, incorporate standards, and increase high-level thinking by using open-ended learning experiences with multiple applications. This practical session invites participants to select from a repertoire of modeled strategies and activities that encourage students to excel while minimizing teacher preparation time.

The IB began in 1968, one of the most tumultuous years in recent history. For four decades now, the core values of the IB have been tested. Time and time again they have been validated, and the IB has thrived while many other educational movements have come and gone. But there is much more to do.

Arun Manilal Gandhi is the fifth grandson of Mohandas Gandhi, and has spent much of his life promoting the principles of non-violence and social activism that made his grandfather one of the seminal figures of the 20th century. As an Indian growing up in South Africa, he had firsthand experience of the humiliations heaped on people because of the color of their skin.

When the IB began in 1968, even the most optimistic of its founders might have scoffed at the notion that 2500 schools would be offering IB programs by our fortieth anniversary. But that is only the start - in the next dozen years, the IB is expected to quadruple in size.

This workshop will build expand on the themes of Dr Patel's keynote. He and his colleague Cassie Meyer, Director of Outreach Education and Training at the IFYC, will provide examples and teaching tools about religion and religious diversity that can be easily adapted to schools.