Discussing the PYP Learner Profile

Thursday 12th April 2012. I joined my very first Twitter chat. #pypchat was set up by a group of educators, “created to provide PYP teachers with an opportunity to come together and share thoughts, experiences and strategies ~ to learn from and with each other“. Hear about how we all connected here.

The focus of the chat was the IB PYP Learner Profile (from here on referred to as the LP). For one hour my #pypchat Twitter feed was on fire! There were some fabulous questions used to guide the ‘conversation’, which was at times difficult to keep up with. Answers, thoughts and suggestions were flying fast and furious across cyberspace. It was an amazing experience to be part of such a dynamic dialogue, sharing ideas and thoughts with educators across the globe who are as passionate about learning as I am, without even meeting them face to face. Archive of the 500+ tweets of the chat here.

I am going to reflect here on a few of the questions that were raised. Questions that really made me think about what I do, how I plan and how I facilitate learning. Can you ‘teach’ the learner profile?

My initial thought was that you cannot implicitly teach the attributes of the learner profile. Model, yes. Teach? I don’t think so. It seemed that most people agreed with this. How do you ensure the LP goes beyond rhetoric? What do you do to make it real?

Immerse them in it. Don’t have it as a thing you add on at the end of a unit. Or something that is only mentioned in assemblies. Have it there ALL the time. Make it visible. I don’t mean just by making a LP display in your classroom, but refer to the LP often, discuss the attributes with your students and ensure that students see them in action in all areas and in many different authentic contexts. I also think we need to involve students in the conversation. Ask them what they think it means to be caring or open-minded. How do they think they would exhibit the characteristics of, for example, a risk-taker? How does your school encourage modeling of the learner profile among school staff?

I’m not going to actually answer the question! But, it did make me really think about how schools should encourage modeling of the LP among school staff. In fact I believe that the whole school community needs to be actively striving to live the LP.  It needs to be embedded in everything we do in the school and inclusive of the whole school community; students, teaching and non-teaching staff, parents. My point here is that if the students do not see the entire school staff  and the people around them promoting and living the LP, how can we expect them to? I appreciate that this could be a challenge to actually put into practice. To get absolutely every single staff member on board, not to mention parents, would be quite a feat. We should, as a IB school, endeavour to embody the LP and make it an intrinsic part of every day, of every student and of every teacher. Do students need to be aware of the language of the LP or is the behaviour more important?

I guess balance is the key here. Obviously the behaviour is incredibly important. And while it is good for students to be able to label that behaviour in order to discuss and describe it, there is a danger that the students’ understandings of what attributes could become very restricted. Having said that, I do believe that young students LIKE using big words. If we are using the words of the LP consistently throughout the school, making sure that staff share a common understanding about what each attribute looks like in practice, in many different ways, students will become familiar with the language and eventually develop their own understandings.

So, is this sixty minutes of digital conversation going to change what I do? Quite possibly, yes. My biggest ‘take-away’ from the event was that I need to think more about the Learner Profile at the very early planning stages, not as an afterthought. I am really going to try to change my approach to the inclusion of the attributes by choosing content, processes and learning engagements with the LP in mind from the very beginning.

And finally, my favourite quote from this first #pypchat about the PYP Learner Profile:

Live It. Don’t Laminate It.

#LearnerProfile #PYP