Curriculum Development

Unit of Inquiry for 3-4 Years Old

The unit is about fire, one of the five transdisciplinary elements of Chinese Wuxing.

FIRE

The unit inquires about the transdisciplinary theme of “sharing the planet” within the local context in Shenzhen, a coastal city in South China.

jelly

Units of Inquiry for 5-6 Years Old

The one-year transdisciplinary curriculum framework for 5-6-year-olds was developed in the group project for the course of Professional Learning of the IB educator certificate.

Final topic: international-mindedness

Group Inquiry Question:

How can bilingual/multilingual schools adapt IB philosophy of international mindedness in school practices and curriculum?

framework

Cambridge Primary English

The Cambridge Primary English Curriculum Framework (0058 and 0084) specifies learning objectives in six stages. I developed a lesson plan for micro-teaching, integrated with IB principles, including differentiation in tasks and success criteria, and formative assessment. During the introductory course, we were provided with ample opportunities for group discussions, in which I helped my peers consolidate their understanding and application of the course materials, such as the reference to mark scheme as a sample of success criteria for narrative writing, and examples of active learning as part of the success criteria previously analysed.

Here is the link to my lesson on the interactive chalkboard.

https://view.genial.ly/62fe5e3c88238d0018fb6d6a/interactive-content-animated-chalkboard-quiz

Lower-secondary English (12-15 years old)

I developed a curriculum for this age group based on Oxford’s textbooks Discover and online multimedia materials. I once used similie poems to teach writing of Level 3 in the series. Students’ poems showcased their capability and unlimited potential.

similie

A Student’s Poem

poem s

Upper-secondary English (15-18 years old)

For this age group, it is extremely important to make learning meaningful related to students’ experiences aiming to motivate them during the study for exam preparation.

Example of Meaningful Learning:

Connecting Contents of Listening Exercise with a College Candidate’s Arts Learning Experience

The scenes depicted in the advertisement were as vivid as in a painting that requires imagination and attention to details. The descriptive skill could be used in graphic design for advertisement.

University Interdisciplinary Learning (Adults)

Being aware of the importance of key subject mastery to student success in the 21st century (Battelle for Kids, p. 2), I have been helping one of my college students with her written assignments in English through modeling with explanations and samples. I once taught her to surf the internet with keywords in a global interdisciplinary theme (the Covid-19 pandemic) and a dual-mode presentation of data in a Microsoft Excel document for her final presentation on the impact of the pandemic with the inquiry of the concept, connections, one of the sixteen interdisciplinary key concepts in MYP (IBO, 2014, p. 66), with citations in APA format. I also suggested a mind map software for her to prepare the speech. The teaching method has worked well so far, with her score for the final presentation at 13.5/14. The learning outcome has strengthened the student self-efficacy, i.e. confidence in learning and greater effort for more academic achievements (IBO, 2018, p.2).

IELTS Exam-Preparation

From my experiences of teaching IELTS and learning of IB PYP educator certificate, I believe academic achievements can be gained by combining units of inquiry with subject matter. In fact, what students can learn from this type of integrated course goes beyond high achievements in knowledge mastery. The soft skills they can acquire and connections across disciplines they can inquire about would benefit them for their learning in higher education, their personal life, future career, and professional development.

Example of an Integrated Lesson

integrated

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