Heads of school/MYP coordinators:

Implementing the MYP curriculum

MYP projects, school community and leadership
Welcome to module 4!
In this module, you will investigate the personal project and community
project within the MYP framework. In particular, you will consider the roles
reserved for the school staff and, with this in mind, agree with your
colleagues on best practices around effective resource planning for this
purpose. You also will discuss how leadership in the school can influence
teaching and learning towards international-mindedness. Finally, a research
exercise on school policies and IB programme standards will enable you to
outline action items towards a successful implementation of the MYP.
Learning objectives
To reach the aims of this workshop, in this module participants should be
able to:
consider the impact of the horizontal and vertical curriculum plan for the
subject group
develop an understanding of the nature and requirements of the personal
project
develop an understanding of the nature and requirements of the
community project
discuss the role of the MYP in developing internationally-minded citizens
develop an understanding of the MYPs policy requirement
discuss the challenges of implementing authentic, contextualized,
student-centred learning in a whole school environment while adhering to
the authorization timeline
investigate what is required at the time of verification.
Learning engagements
To achieve these objectives, you will engage in a number of individual and
collaborative activities throughout the module.

Personal project and community project

IB continuum pathway to projects in the IB
MYP projects
The MYP community project (for students in years 3 or 4) and MYP personal

project (for students in year 5) aim to encourage and enable sustained

inquiry within a global context that generates new insights and deeper
understanding. In these culminating experiences, students develop
confidence as principled, lifelong learners. They grow in their ability to
consider their own learning, communicate effectively and take pride in their
accomplishments.

Objectives
The guiding process with five stages of service learning, developed by
Cathryn Berger Kaye in The Complete Guide to Service Learning (2010), is
the foundation for MYP project objectives and assessment criteria. These
stages provide a useful framework to develop the attributes of the learner
profile.

Visualizing the project objectives

Projects and MYP years
The personal project and collaborative project stand on their own as
culminating projects for approaches to learning and both are a prime
opportunity for students to engage in collaborative, student-centred inquiry.
In schools in which the MYP finishes with year 3 or 4 of the programme, all
students in the final year must complete the community project. Students
are expected to spend approximately 15 hours on their community project.
Schools that end the MYP before year 5 must complete the collaborative
project and must use the objectives and assessment criteria as published.

Global contexts
Global contexts direct learning towards independent and shared inquiry into
our common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet. Students
must identify one of these global contexts for their MYP project, to establish
the relevance of their inquiry.
Students should ask themselves:

What do I want to achieve through my personal project?

What do I want others to understand through my work?

What impact do I want my project to have?

How can a specific context give greater purpose to my project?

Inquiry in MYP projects

The community project and personal project are culminating examples of

inquiry because they reflect students ability to initiate, manage and direct
their own inquiry.
The inquiry process in MYP projects involves students in a wide range of
activities to extend their knowledge and understanding and to develop their
skills and attitudes. These student-planned learning activities include:

deciding what they want to learn about, identifying what they already
know, and discovering what they will need to know to complete the
project

creating proposals or criteria for their project, planning their time and
materials, and recording developments of the project

making decisions, developing understandings and solving problems,

communicating with their supervisor and others, and creating a product or
developing an outcome

evaluating the product/outcome and reflecting on their project and their

learning.

As students become involved in the self-initiated and self-directed learning

process, they will find it easier to construct in-depth knowledge on their topic
and to develop an understanding of themselves as learners.

Community project: service learning

In the community project, action involves a participation in service learning
(service as action). As students evolve through the service learning process,
they may engage in one or more types of action:

Components of the MYP projects

Reporting the personal project
The format of the report for the personal project can vary depending on the
resources available and the interests of the students. Possible formats for the
MYP personal project report are divided into four main areas:

The role of the staff

Schools should provide a structure in which the roles and responsibilities of
staff supervising the MYP projects are defined. Schools must allocate
resources to supervise and coordinate the MYP projects.

MYP project examples

Exploring the MYP projects guide

Activity introduction
The MYP projects guide describes all relevant aspects around the personal
project and community project. In this activity you will explore its main
sections and discuss any doubts or concerns with your colleagues.
Steps:

Download the MYP projects guide, available in the resource library.

Find the relevant sections that contain answers for the following
questions:
What are the requirements of the community and personal project?
What formats can students use to report the project?
What is the role of the project coordinator, the supervisors, the library
media center and the specialists?
Which teachers must be supervisors?
Which languages can be used to present the projects?
What is the requirement regarding academic honesty?
Considering the requirements of the MYP projects, answer the following
question:

What structures/systems/processes/positions/trainings do I need

to establish in my school for effective implementation of the personal
project?

Post your answer to this last question in the MYP projects forum and
comment on your colleagues contributions.

Tools:
MYP projects forum.

International-mindedness
Reflection point: Global citizenship
Activity introduction
IB programmes aim to develop international-mindedness in a global context.
Students are prepared to become global citizens in a highly interconnected
and rapidly-changing world.
What does it mean to be a global citizen?
How do schools today prepare students for global citizenship?

Policies
Policies
All schools offering the MYP must develop and implement policies consistent
with IB expectations, including:

Language policy

Assessment policy

Special educational needs policy

Academic honesty policy

Policy development
Leadership perspective

There are three essential steps around developing successful policies:

Step 1: Establish a review process that

stipulates the timing

gathers research and develops new ideas
reviews the policy
includes roles and responsibilities for the evaluation of the effectiveness of
the policy as a working document.

Step 2: Link the policy to other working documents

Step 3: Communicate the policy by

considering how to keep the whole community informed and involved

clarifying the roles and responsibilities for training new teachers.

Reflection point
What might be required of all stakeholders to ensure that these policies are
created with the students best interests in mind?

Policy jigsaw
Leadership perspective

Activity introduction
IB programmes aim to develop international-mindedness in a global context.

In this activity you will have the opportunity to discuss with your colleagues
what it means to educate students to become global citizens in a highly
interconnected and rapidly changing world.
Steps:

At the beginning of the fourth week, your workshop leader will assign one
of the MYP policies discussed (language, assessment, special education
needs and academic honesty) to each participant/group of participants in
the Announcements forum.
Research what the IB documents indicate should be included in the policy.
Determine who would need to be involved in the creation of that policy
and how it would affect teaching and learning.
Outline potential challenges related to teaching and learning in the
classroom and possible solutions to the identified challenges.
Summarize your findings and make a post in the Policy development
forum.

Note: Sharing your thoughts is an essential part of this workshop. Make sure
to read and comment on other participants posts.
Tools:
Policy development forum

Authorization process
School authorization
The journey towards authorization is an intensive learning period for schools
through a transparent and highly supported process. The process ensures
understanding of the requirements of the programme the school is applying
for. Professional development supports the process to help administrators
and teachers further develop education for the international-mindedness,
conceptual understanding and inquiry-based teaching and learning that form
the hallmarks of an IB education; professional development also supports
teachers and administrators in embedding and implementing these concepts
in their schools programme. Schools will find this a challenging but
rewarding process that normally takes two to three years to complete.
At the time of authorization, some of the practices and requirements from
the Programme standards and practices (2014) are expected to be in
place whereas others need to be in progress. Thus, not all requirements
listed in the conclusions of each chapter in this guide are expected to be in
place at the time of authorization. This is detailed in the Guide to school
authorization: Middle Years Programme (2014).

School authorization (continued)

The authorization process is the same for all schools and has been designed
to support schools in:

making the decision to become an IB World School

understanding the nature and requirements of the IB programme

defining their readiness to implement the programme

planning to sustain the programme in the long term.

Guide to School Authorization (2014)

Stand up for your standard

Leadership perspective

Steps:
Access the Programme standards and practices glossary.

You will find 7 entries, one for each standard.

Choose the standard that you find the most challenging for your school.
Think of and describe possible actions to take to ensure your school can
meet that standard.
Read all contributions by other participants and make sure to comment on
those you find useful and original.

Tools:

Program standards and practices glossary

Your workshop experience: tweet it!

Leadership perspective

Activity introduction
As we approach the end of this workshop, it is time to look back and
summarize your experience in less than 140 characters.
Steps:

Based on all of our discussions and learning engagements, create a brief

summary of your workshop experience.
If you have a twitter account, please feel free to tweet it! #ibmyp

Tools:

Twitter

Your summary

Module checklist
Before you move on to the next module, check that you have:

Conclusion
Congratulations!
You have reached the end of this workshop.
It has been a pleasure to have you among our participants. We truly hope
that this workshop has presented a valuable professional development
experience for you.
We look forward to welcoming you again in one of our workshops.
IB Online PD Team

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Assessment

Optional activity

Coffee corner /
High tea

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Resources

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