Latest / IB Unplugged / Unplugged and Reflecting: Season 1 in Review

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Unplugged and Reflecting: Season 1 in Review · IB Unplugged

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Welcome to IB Unplugged, a Kognity podcast for IBDP educators
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that tackles your submitted questions and challenges by connecting you with
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experts and peers who share their ideas and stories from real classrooms.
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It's right there.
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You just have to press record.
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Although, you know, props like getting everybody's attention
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for a while really well.
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Katie looked like she was doing something like ready.
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Focus.
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Let's get this right.
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Exactly.
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Hey, everybody, it's John and Cort here, and,
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we started a podcast a while ago, and now we've gotten to the close of season one.
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Yeah. Let's talk about it.
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Okay, let's talk about it.
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Talk about season one. Some of the stuff that we did.
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Well, I guess first off, we had an aim of trying to do something
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that would be useful for IB educators across the community.
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And I guess before we kind of think about each episode that we've done.
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How do you feel?
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How's it gone? Is it like meeting our aims?
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I think so.
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I think it's been a really great group of people,
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and I think that we've realized really quickly that we can do our best.
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But if we don't have a good guest, we can only go so far.
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No guest. It's just the two of us.
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We can only go so far with this episode.
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Exactly.
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So good thing we can talk about everyone else.
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That's it. Yeah.
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So, yeah, I think we kind of
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naturally had a really good group of people where all of their ideas,
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it was really different topics each time, but I felt like there were certain key
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themes that we kind of were able to keep coming back to.
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I think it was really nice that, I mean, every episode
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there was some of those nice conversations that you want to be able
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to have in the education space,
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but still also feel like there was some value coming from it as well.
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Yeah. And some really practical pieces.
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I think we've heard from quite a few people that you've appreciated
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the conversations, and you appreciated this structure of, way of listening to
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and consuming content as opposed to maybe some of the more traditional ways.
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Yeah.
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I remember we were talking a lot about how you can get a lot of good information
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from a workshop or a webinar or something like this,
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but this just sort of transformed the media
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a little bit so that you could get
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really valuable stuff that you could action right away.
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But at your own pace and kind of whenever you, you wanted it.
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And I know for me,
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even just with a small commute walking to school, it was nice to listen to things
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and kind of go back and be like, oh, yeah, we talked about that thing.
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And I want to actually, I do want to do that right now.
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Yeah.
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And it's been a really cool, transformative approach
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to the way that we approach, at least for me, approaching my teaching,
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approaching our policy development, the stuff that we talk about, both
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at the senior leadership team level as well as what I'm doing, my students.
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I think you’re absolutely right,
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the variety of guests has been really great,
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and we couldn't be more thankful
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for the guests who took their time to to join us and chat with us,
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share their ideas, and share those with the rest of the community here.
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So let's, you know, let's talk about each of those guests
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that we, that we got to speak with.
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Yeah, we opened with David Spooner, right?
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With the demystifying TOK.
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Yeah.
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Why why, David, why did you want to start with David?
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Yeah.
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I mean all of the guests are great and we're not picking favorites.
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But we are. No, just kidding.
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No, we were looking at the list of people we wanted to talk to. David’s
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somebody that I've worked with time and time again, that we've gotten so much
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positive feedback from all of his workshops and webinars.
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And I think that part of it is this idea that he has such a good way.
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It's really funny talking about someone behind their back, by the way.
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Yeah, we're just gossiping right now.
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We’re just saying all sorts of things.
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They have no chance to defend themselves. No. Exactly.
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That's perfect.
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No. He had such a good way of like, I have all of this experience.
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I've learned so much.
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And you can see how deeply the TOK course
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has been embedded into his way of thinking about education.
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But instead of that becoming, this really daunting, lofty
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way of teaching, it's like, no, you guys are overthinking this.
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It's not as hard as it looks.
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It's not as mystical, exactly.
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That was a really intentional awareness.
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It's like, no, let's just have intentional
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questions and conversations with students and it's going to be okay
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is kind of the message he always gives when he's talking about TOK.
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Especially for new teachers. It's like it's going to be fine.
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Yeah, it's not that hard.
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And I think it was a really nice, opening to the podcast.
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Definitely.
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So when I think about when I first started as an IBDP teacher,
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this idea of TOK was just so foreign to me, and it was really outside of it.
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And I knew we had these are like spots in our
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in our course guides of like, hey, here's a TOK thing that you can call out.
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And I remember
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even in my first few times I would like highlight
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it, I'd be like, TOK moment everybody.
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Let's kind of shift gears from biology to TOK.
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But what I really loved about what David was talking about is how easily
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you can integrate TOK style thinking into the way that you're teaching
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learning now.
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And as you know, from that episode, I've really shifted the way
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that I teach my lessons from instead of being like,
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let's like pivot and change gears here to more,
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how do we actually know this particular thing?
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And really just kind of having that constant in the back of my head
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and really helping the students try to appreciate that more, too.
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So even if we're talking about I don't know, nucleotides, DNA theory
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or like transcription, translation,
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How to name drop all these biology things?
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Well, I need people to actually know that I'm
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a biology teacher, not a chemistry teacher or anything else.
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So I just got to throw that in there, don't it?
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Yeah.
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But yeah, all those things to just really get the students
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to ask that question that I think is perpetually there for TOK.
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Which is like, how do I really know that?
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And what knowledge structures made that possible for me?
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And I think when you take it from that lens,
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it makes this whole TOK idea far more approachable,
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far more accessible as any type of subject teacher that you might be.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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I think I gained from that particular episode that we were really good.
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Yeah, good.
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Next up was, Wakanyi
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with the indigenous knowledge systems in AI.
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I loved speaking with the Wakanyi.
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I felt like there was just such a there was a good connection with her.
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Yeah.
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Hopefully she feels the same.
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She's like, I had enough time talking about,
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Has it returned your email since?
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Yeah, exactly.
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Like, hey, let’s be friends?
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No. I just thought because I went in there with Wakanyi pretty naive
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understanding of AI really in terms of how it's produced and,
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and the biases that exist.
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And, and I remember I even ask the question now I look back
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and I laugh, but I was like, what do you mean when you say
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ethical approaches to a AI was like, it's just information.
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And it was so enlightening to have a really talk about like, no, these AI is
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being informed by certain groups of people and therefore they're judgments,
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their ideas are going to be coming through there as well.
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So there's a couple of things we can do with that.
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One is critically evaluate that knowledge that's being presented to us.
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Really think critically about what questions am I actually asking AI. Is this
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actually an AI-able thing that I need, or can I just like do this on my own?
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AI-able, there’s a new word. Yeah.
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Can I just do this actually on my own?
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Do I really need AI to summarize this stuff?
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But then the second thing I thought was really useful is
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you can create your own sort of small language model.
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And so when you think as a school, this is our mission.
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These are values like let's create sort of our own chat bot
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for our school that helps to reflect our particular cultures.
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That small language
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model can be a little bit more beneficial than a large language model.
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And I really hadn't thought of that.
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I thought of it being too narrow minded.
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But the way that she expanded on that
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really helped me understand that that has so much value
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to bringing up the mission, the vision, the values of your culture.
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Yeah. And helping people understand that particular place.
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And then you can evaluate all the other small language models as well.
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Yeah, yeah. I agree.
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When I was thinking about it in the Kognity context,
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I was thinking about our product teams have been so intentional
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over the years in picking the right authors and designing the right course
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and like every aspect of content development has been so intentional
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to make sure that it's genuinely global
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and international, where having diverse voices that are.
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So it's not everyone's coming from the same place with the same experience.
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It's do you teach it?
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What kind of schools do you teach it? Right?
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All these things that are really carefully crafted to be able to make a resource
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that supports students globally, which is what we do.
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Yeah. And I think that
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we have to
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be really careful that we're doing the same thing with AI,
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because we can't assume that it's global or there are all of those biases
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that you need to be really intentional about when you're prompting.
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And I think that, yeah, it's really an important lens to always have
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switched on when you're using AI, especially in education.
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Yeah.
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It really implores us to think critically about,
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are we truly doing something that's an intercultural understanding
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or redeveloping intercultural understanding?
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Or are we highlighting one particular framework? Yeah.
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So that was really enlightening episode I think for sure.
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Yeah.
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Let's jump back to Lance. Lance was great wasn't he?
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Yeah he was. I can't think of this is episode without thinking of juggling.
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I know, I know, or just like,
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picturing him going through that airport with the bag of juggling balls.
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Like a whole bag of juggling balls, getting stopped. Exactly.
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But obviously talking a lot about building resilience.
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And I think the,
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the thing that really stood out for me from that episode
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was this idea or this concept of like, failing well. Yeah.
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How important it is to create safe spaces for failure for students
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and helping them understand,
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like failure is not just like important, but it's crucial to learning.
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And so as educators, I think we really have to be intentional
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about creating those spaces where students fail in a safe space.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And I think it's one of those things that is so much easier said than done
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with the IB in particular, because the all the external pressures.
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Right.
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Like you, it's a hard conversation to have with a parent of like,
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yeah, but they failed so well.
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Like your kid was the best at failing.
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They get the number one
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failing part. Exactly is so good at it.
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But you know, they are expecting the students
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to succeed in their grades and things like that.
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And I think you can
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you know,
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there are things like formative assessment and blah blah blah that you can do.
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But it's I think it's really important
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that they can have an actual learning from the actual feeling of failure.
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But there's also this pressure that a student is going to freak out
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if they fail in the traditional sense.
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Yeah, like if they are not doing what they assume as well
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and what they've been ingrained to think of as well. Right.
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That's also going to really impact their confidence.
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And yeah, yeah, there's so much around building the culture
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of embracing failure and building the resilience that comes from it.
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That I think you have to do a lot of work
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in the school to create that culture where it's normal to fail.
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Yeah.
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Grades systems like, for me, when I did my master's
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degree in the UK. You did your master's degree in every subject possible.
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No, no, but I did my regular university studies in the US, and it's
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where you'd have, like, a 90% is an A, and you generally are aiming for an A.
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Yeah, but then I got to the UK and I submitted my first essay and it was
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I don't remember exactly how it came out,
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but it was like the grade came out to like a 60% or something.
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And I'm like, I'm failing.
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I gotta go back. It's too hard. It's too hard here.
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And then I like,
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went and I went to the office hours and I'm so stressed and I'm like,
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this is maybe revealing too much of house blame of a student.
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I'm having a great time. But I was so stressed and I go to the office hours
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and I'm at the Scottish professor that I can't really understand super well.
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So I'm like, ready to really listen in here.
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And I'm just like, what did I do wrong? Know, like,
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this is good.
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Yeah. Like I don't really have any feedback for you.
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And I'm like, but I fail. There’s 40% of this that I don't know.
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So I think creating the culture
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of defining what is what means you're doing well
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in a class and learning that's separate from..
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What it might be measured as in some sort of quantifiable.
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And I think that really stood out.
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Is this like intentional
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scaffolding of qualitative measurements for how students are doing?
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And the other thing
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that really stood out to me is this, like he spoke a lot about mindset
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and helping students understand, like, no, you can do things that you didn't.
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You previously thought you couldn't.
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And I think that's where the whole juggling thing came up for me, right?
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Yeah.
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But this general idea of we need to help students
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understand that you're not just following a formulaic model of, like, here,
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I get this information, you memorize this information,
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I tell people I know it, and therefore I get this grade.
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But more of, like, engage with a deep, difficult work of learning process.
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Yeah.
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And, you know, for me, in my own teaching now,
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I've really thought deeply of like, how can I create those safe
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failure structures
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and in biology, it's actually pretty easy,
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like when you get to some of the practical work,
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often some of that practical work doesn't go as expected.
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And so it's really.. It shifted the way I looked at that quite a bit,
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because now I see that is such a good opportunity
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for students to see like, oh, my data didn't come out the way I wanted it to,
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or this analysis didn't work out to support my hypothesis
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or something like that.
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And just really driving through the, the idea of like,
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but that's still useful data, even if it doesn't
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support your hypothesis, it still comes in a good way.
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And so even just like
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pivoting just slightly and saying, like, maybe you didn't fail,
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But this idea of an experiment
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not going the way that you want it to is still very, very useful. For me,
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created a soft cushion to like, get down to the space of like.
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And when you fail, when you mess things up, it's not the end of the world.
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It's actually still very useful in the learning process.
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So let's talk about
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how you learned what your assumptions were and how we can go forward on that.
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Yeah.
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So yeah, super, super useful stuff that came out of that one, I think for sure.
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Agreed.
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Next up was Clara.
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She was talking about AI governance in education.
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And I was thinking about Wakanyi's and Clara's episodes
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kind of in tandem because there were there are some similarities there.
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And I think with Clara, it was a lot
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about like just being mindful of what you're doing.
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Like just because you can have it doesn't necessarily mean
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you should. Just sprint because you can. Exactly like,
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how do we think critically about what we're doing?
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How do we just like any edtech, like, don't just introduce things
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because you got a freemium account with it, right?
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How do you be careful?
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Yeah, well, and I know you guys at Kognity have done this as well.
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I mean, some people might criticize.
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I mean, like, why hasn't Kognity just jumped on the AI chat bot bandwagon thing?
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You know what?
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What made you Kognity kind of hold back, I guess.
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Yeah, I think that it is part of this of the,
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the natural responsibility and importance of
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and integrity of being a provider
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that's trusted with student data and trusted with a student's learning.
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And how do we really carefully preserve that trust
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and keep a safe space for students?
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How do we make sure that we're building something?
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Like I said, we've spent so much time building out our learning principles
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and our learning models and working with the way that students are learning that
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if we just rush into throwing in artificial intelligence,
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then it could take away from the integrity of the product.
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Yeah.
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It's something that we are doing and moving forward
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with, and I'm really excited about the future ways of working
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with assessment, with the enhancement of AI.
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But I do think that she was really what she was really talking about of like,
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how do you evaluate these AI tools as a school
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and making sure your policies are in check?
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And it's something that we want
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to make sure that as we develop from the edtech side,
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we are really working with the schools that use Kognity
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to maintain that trust, maintain that relationship, and make sure
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that we're actually really intentionally embedding AI in the ways that we work.
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Got so much respect for that because yeah, I think there are many people
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who would just jump on and say, well, here's this tool, use this tool
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without actually like check the check the rules of this thing
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as well, like the guidelines here and what you're committing to.
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And in some cases, like most of your students
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aren't even old enough to access this, this platform
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or what's actually happening to their data on the back side of this.
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And I think I’ve really revealed a lot of that and helped me understand
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more about like, don't just automatically jump to an AI thing.
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Yeah, in many cases, it's probably
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entirely unethical to do that with students of this particular age.
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Yeah.
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So one there was there was that aspect, but I think the other thing
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that was really useful is this idea of like
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using AI to enhance the learning process.
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But you were just talking about.
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Yeah, with like Kognity itself, not to replace educator judgment to, but
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to enhance educator judgment and help us have a better idea of what we can do.
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So I think, yeah, just as you say, Kognity says
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some really smart things here, I think with regard to like holding back,
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on just let's not run yet.
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Let's just be sure that we're still a provider
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people can trust and where we're doing the right thing in that respect.
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And, I think that was emphasized in Clara’s episode as well.
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Quite a bit.
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Yeah.
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Actually we got into the chat with Jen.
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Yeah I love Jen.
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Especially
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part we had such a trouble getting that things started right?
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There was like all these connection issues and the equipment wasn't working.
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And we finally got to like.. She was upside down.
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She was upside down at one point.. A great time.
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Yeah.
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Now we finally got it working with, like, her phone and that sort of thing.
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And then her cat was in the back, right?
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Yeah. Yeah, her cat was pissed.
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Yeah.
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Cat was not happy because the cat was screaming.
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Yeah.
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Well, you know, cats aside, I think what was really useful about that one was
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we spoke a lot about like the encryption results or the EUR process.
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And when I think back to Lance’s
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episode Lance was more about like failing well for students.
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And I think Jen was like, how to fail
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well, as teachers. Yeah.
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You know, and recognizing
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that the encryption results process is actually super useful for us.
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Yeah. You weren't convinced in the beginning.
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No, I definitely I was like, we're having a talk about EUR’s like,
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you're like, I don't use them.
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Come on. Why why do this?
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And then it was just really
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it was revealing and humbling, I guess at the same time to recognize like,
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yeah, we always ask students to reflect on their tests to see how they're doing,
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to find their mistakes and make them better.
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And that's exactly what we as educators can be doing with the EUR’s.
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And we should be like, we should get our EUR’s.
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Take a look at them, see like, this student answered this way versus
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what they could have done in this respect.
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And that reshapes how you think as a, as a teacher as well.
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Yeah.
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But it is really clear that you have to have like a culture
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of that too, you know, generally emphasize that it can't be,
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I don't know, like a performance metric or something that like,
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yeah, you want to hold accountability but you don't want to like,
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okay, your your job depends on this particular thing.
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It's more of a, you need a culture where feedback is is valued.
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So it's a culture of reflection rather than just reacting and saying like,
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oh, we didn't do this well, and therefore I'm a bad teacher.
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Yeah. But like, let me reflect on this in a, in an honest way.
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No, exactly.
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There's, there's this, way of approaching feedback and it's called radical candor.
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I don't know if you heard about it. And it's like a quadrant.
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And radical candor means like you're able to give feedback,
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and a really authentic way.
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That's very honest.
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But you still have this building of trust that has to come first.
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And so it's like if you give a lot of feedback,
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but they don't trust good intention then it's obnoxious aggression.
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You don't want that. If you don't give any feedback at all and you're not,
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but you have a lot of empathy, then it's like,
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oh God, I should have thought about this beforehand.
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Yeah, honestly.
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You’re really looking bad right now. Yeah.
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Whatever.
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It's like this idea of, like, an empathetic ruin.
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Something like that
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of, like, I'm just so nice to you that it's actually hurting you, right?
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But it's like getting that sweet spot there.
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And I think that that's such an important part
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of the culture of the school to be able to say,
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we're going to be really upfront about, like,
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these are the things that you didn't do well or that your students struggled with.
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Right?
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But we're not going to fire you because we've like, it's
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okay for you to acknowledge the things that you didn't do well.
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And we should we should acknowledge that too.
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Let me just call that out so that I can get better.
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Like it's that lifelong learner approach. Right. Exactly.
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So it's like it is such she really emphasized that culture building.
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And I think that's something that she does really well as a school leader,
20:21
is really building the relationships amongst the colleagues.
20:24
So it's also that if you have two biology teachers, they're not competing
20:28
with each other of like, I can't admit that I totally bombed this part.
20:33
It's like, hey, I totally bombed this part.
20:37
How did you do it?
20:38
So I can learn from you. Yeah.
20:40
And nobody being scared of admitting any of these things.
20:44
Yeah, yeah.
20:45
One thing that really stood out was like, you could turn a moment of disappointment
20:48
into a springboard for better outcomes, and I think that's exactly what you're
20:51
talking about here with that corporate speak of radical candor.
20:54
Oh, goodness.
20:59
Damien's episode.
21:00
Yes, Damien, we we spoke a lot about, like, blended learning and I think.
21:04
Yeah, yeah, for me, I went into it honestly not really
21:08
knowing the difference between blended learning and flipped learning.
21:10
Okay. For me, I was kind of like, oh, these are similar things.
21:12
Like we're just talking about flipped learning.
21:14
So for half the episode, you were just pretending to understand.
21:17
That's what I do most of the time.
21:18
Yeah. No,
21:21
no. It's just was it was good to really recognize.
21:24
Oh, no, this is truly what blended learning looks like.
21:26
And I was actually quite envious of the space he's been able to create.
21:29
Yeah, it seems like they've really been able to kind of chop
21:33
the timetable dictates what happens around here.
21:37
You know, and sometimes that can happen in any school.
21:38
You're like, here we have these great ideas.
21:40
But ultimately it's got to be fitting into the timetable.
21:43
And you know, when they've got studio time and they've got all these other spaces
21:47
that allow the students have truly self-directed study with teachers.
21:51
They're not just facilitating or like sitting on the back
21:54
writing their emails, but rather like involved in the process.
21:57
But more the actual guide on the side. Yeah.
22:00
That really inspired me a ton.
22:03
I'm picturing that you, like, went home
22:05
and you're like, I'm gonna open them up my own school.
22:08
Yeah, I'm serious.
22:09
And now's the time. I'm gonna do that.
22:11
Now. I did go to, I did go to the head of the science department right away.
22:14
And I was like, look, I have to redo everything.
22:16
I'm changing all of this right now.
22:19
And he was like,
22:20
this sounds like an interesting conversation that we should have later.
22:22
Yeah, I think we should. Time.
22:24
And I said more detail, but no, I love the idea of let's
22:28
let's have like a bit of a time for a particular lecture,
22:30
but then let's very intentionally bring out some studio space.
22:33
You have to scaffold in here the objectives we want to have
22:36
here's like some assessment, here's how I'm going to get some feedback.
22:38
But it doesn't mean that it has to be the same time for everybody.
22:41
Yeah. And it allows students to kind of self-paced.
22:44
And at the same time, it kind of gives more flexibility
22:47
for them to choose what they love. Yeah.
22:48
And you know, my mind just kind of went, you know, I've
22:52
exploded into this creativity of like, oh, if I, if I frame around
22:56
a case study or different things here that students can go in their direction.
23:00
So it's actually made me really excited for the planning period here.
23:03
Before I get started in the next academic year
23:05
with how to like, shift things around. Yeah.
23:07
And obviously like Kognity makes a massive difference on that,
23:10
because if I want to have true blended learning with student led sort of stuff,
23:14
I need to have a resource,
23:16
that allows that allows them to self-check, allows them to move forward.
23:21
And I guess like that lends itself quite a bit to like the products
23:23
you've created and what what you guys are doing here at Kognity.
23:25
Yeah, yeah, we do a lot of training and professional development,
23:28
and we really try to bring in use cases of like,
23:31
these are the ways that we think Kognity works best in your practices.
23:35
And flipped learning has always been one of those core like we work
23:39
really well with flipped learning. Yeah.
23:41
It it all just makes sense, like the way that you do the assignments
23:44
and all of that.
23:45
And then when he's talking about blended learning, I'm like,
23:49
you're going to open up your school and I'm going to product you.
23:51
I'm like, this is the thing. This is the thing.
23:53
This is the thing I really, really like.
23:55
Yeah.
23:56
The idea of having space for students, like it's
23:59
not forcing student led space
24:02
in the classroom that you're having to fight against, right?
24:05
It's like, no, this is the time for them to do their own thing.
24:08
And it yeah, it makes perfect sense.
24:10
Well,
24:10
and then Kognity becomes like the vehicle for that to take place.
24:13
Because if I didn't have something like that resource, I would wonder
24:18
okay, so I need to now create a bunch of different questions,
24:20
and I need to create a bunch of different ways,
24:22
like students can get a checkpoint and how am I going to feedback
24:24
on each individual person at the same time?
24:26
Whereas this
24:27
this obviously allows them to self check and progress at their own speed.
24:30
And then it changes the benchmarks or the sort of checkpoints
24:34
that I'm making along the way.
24:35
So I think that's a lot easier.
24:37
So with those, you know, with the chat with Damian as well as this resource
24:41
with Kognity, it's really helped me explore
24:43
what would possibly be more effective, possibly more energetic and
24:47
hopefully more meaningful lessons with my students as well.
24:50
Yeah.
24:52
Becoming a better IBDP
24:53
educator is a daily practice informed through reading, research,
24:57
personal experience, and episodes from IB Unplugged,
25:00
like the one you're listening to right now.
25:02
But sometimes the show can go a bit too quickly,
25:04
or we simply forget some of the key points
25:06
once they're out of the car or back from our walk.
25:09
So to revisit the content in a condensed version, you can download
25:12
the episode summary at kognity.com/ibunplugged.
25:16
You'll find useful links to other resources and exciting
25:19
bits of information that you can use immediately in your daily practice.
25:24
So now back to the show.
25:27
Cool.
25:27
We spoke with, I will say Junita,
25:30
Because she told me to say, Junita.
25:32
Yeah. Can we talk about this? I was like, how do I pronounce your name?
25:34
She said, Junita.
25:35
And then all throughout the episode,
25:36
everybody was saying, Junita, and I felt dumb.
25:39
I'm sorry.
25:40
Either Junita, or Junita, we will clarify and get back to you.
25:44
But you're not sorry about me feeling dumb.
25:47
No way.
25:48
Okay, that's. That's clear.
25:49
That's the usual.
25:52
Yeah.
25:52
We talked about mental health and well-being in the IB.
25:55
And when her, she had such,
26:00
powerful Why in her education.
26:02
She was like, my dad made me do it.
26:04
And then but then as she kind of talked about her
26:07
journey and like, you've had a really profound
26:11
career in education and you've really been able to help some
26:16
students in student
26:17
communities that really needed such an empathetic teacher.
26:21
And like you can tell that she shows up. Well,
26:24
she spoke about like, the trauma training and things that she went through as well.
26:27
And some of the stuff that she spoke about.
26:28
I was like, well, that's not what I'm dealing with.
26:30
That's a little bit heavier, deeper kind of stuff.
26:33
Yeah. Yeah.
26:34
But I think what really stood out is she spoke a lot about being perceptive,
26:38
you know, like noticing the small changes, things that makeshift
26:41
within your students and that requires you knowing your students well,
26:45
and just building up those relationships and all the small moments like before
26:48
lesson starts after the lesson takes place, noticing of a student
26:51
doesn't want to raise their hand when they normally do.
26:53
Just like you don't have to call it out right then, but catch them later.
26:57
Hey, like, what's going on?
26:58
What's happening with you? You comfortable sharing with me?
27:00
Yeah.
27:01
And and recognizing that sometimes
27:02
you might not be the main person they want to share with. Right.
27:05
But even just calling out and, like, helping somebody know, like I notice you.
27:08
Yeah. Yeah, I think makes a big difference. Right.
27:10
Yeah.
27:11
And I do think that there is such an emotional load for a teacher
27:15
that can be really hard of like if you're having a bad day as a teacher
27:21
and then you have a student coming in and they're super upset and they're angry
27:25
and not showing up the way that you want them to in the class.
27:27
And it's because they got into a fight with her boyfriend.
27:30
It's like you're already not on a level
27:33
space.
27:34
It's hard to create the right empathy for the student because for that student,
27:38
this is the worst thing that could have happened in a day, right?
27:41
And in when you're in a good place, you can really resonate with that.
27:45
Sure.
27:46
But if you're not in a good place, you're like, leave me alone.
27:50
Don't talk to me. Yeah, get over it.
27:52
Yeah.
27:52
No, I so I think just yeah, that that you have to take care of yourself
27:57
as a teacher to be able to take care of your students and really
28:00
also as a school and building again,
28:04
the culture of it's
28:07
we're not expecting you to be perfect every single day.
28:10
And we acknowledge that there are going to be
28:12
there are certain days that are great for lesson planning,
28:15
and there are certain days that are great for hiding in the office
28:19
until the day is over when you're not teaching.
28:21
Yeah, and you need to take care of that.
28:24
You can't always be completely switched on all the time, right?
28:29
Yeah, I loved she
28:30
she spoke about moving the vocabulary from work life balance to work life harmony.
28:34
Yeah. And I thought that was a really
28:36
it was a really nice way of putting it because it doesn't work
28:39
life balance sort of implies
28:40
that they're both going to equal each other,
28:42
but they're not they're not always going to equal each other.
28:43
And and, you know, commonly as a teacher, you kind of like do some work
28:46
before you go to work.
28:47
So that work works better so that when you leave work,
28:49
you can do more work to be ready for the next day to go to work.
28:52
And this idea of like, there's there's this constant movement
28:56
of what you're doing with an education, but,
28:58
you know, work life balance probably isn't the right term.
29:00
Rather work life harmony and looking after one yourself.
29:04
But creating, a culture, as you say, where people feel comfortable
29:07
and where you look out for one another along the way.
29:10
I think that was a really powerful message for any educator,
29:12
and especially recognizing, like there times of the year
29:15
or it's worse than others.
29:17
And, you know, sometimes if you were feeling down,
29:19
there might be a chance somebody else's as well. Yeah.
29:22
So look after one another, right?
29:24
Yeah. Yeah.
29:25
Next up was Matt.
29:27
He was also someone I had the pleasure of working with for quite a long time.
29:30
And now he's been setting up his deep learning course.
29:35
And I think it was the most clear we talk about
29:40
the soft skills and how important they are in most of the episodes.
29:44
Yeah. And I loved him being like, right. It's important.
29:47
And here's what we did about it, and here's how we have put this
29:50
in the forefront and a core component of the way that we operate as a school.
29:55
There was a real structure to how they scaffold
29:58
prioritizing process over product. Right.
30:01
And that the products really didn't matter so much as the process of thinking about
30:05
why they chose this thing, the metacognitive things,
30:07
as well as the effective skills, like how did you work in a group?
30:10
The point of what we're doing right
30:11
now is to see, how are you, collaborator, how well you communicated this thing.
30:14
And really, just as you say, that was the most clear way
30:18
of how you can structure that without kind
30:21
of seeing it as a bolt on or as, like, implicit learning.
30:26
And I think sometimes we approach the well,
30:28
we think of the approaches to learning as if I just do some great teaching.
30:32
Yeah. Then, yeah, they're going to learn collaboration.
30:35
They're going to learn thinking skills are going to learn the social skills.
30:37
But this flipped it and just said like no, we're going to focus on process.
30:41
And he gave some really practical tips on how to do that.
30:44
He showed us with like the Harkness style discussions or student evaluations.
30:48
Yeah.
30:48
How you can really help students think more about process,
30:51
think more about soft skills as opposed to product.
30:53
And that I think is super powerful.
30:56
And there's lots of places for that in DP.
30:58
You know, there's obviously
30:59
like collaborative Sciences project and the way that we approach,
31:02
teaching and learning.
31:03
And you think like the way the syllabus or the
31:05
the guides are set out is to try to emphasize those things. Yeah.
31:08
But I just really thought he he's putting it into practice
31:12
right away with that deep learning course. Yeah.
31:13
And there was a lot that you could take from that one for sure.
31:16
I agree.
31:16
I think
31:17
the last thing I want to say on that one is that I've brought up
31:19
maybe five times now about the brave space instead of a safe space.
31:22
Yeah.
31:22
And how much that applies to so many different contexts
31:25
of how important it is to not just coddle either
31:30
students or people or whatever and be like, it's okay, everything's fine.
31:33
But it's like, no, but you've got to go do something.
31:36
Yeah, and you've got to go be brave.
31:38
I'm going to create the conditions for a brave approach to learning,
31:42
or a brave approach to working or whatever.
31:46
It’s constantly in my head.
31:47
This isn't a safe space. This is a brave space.
31:50
And that I love that.
31:51
Yeah, it's really, really good stuff. Yeah.
31:54
We got to speak with, Richard Jones about the, about the double diploma.
31:58
Right.
31:58
And to both the Swiss maturity as well as the IB diploma.
32:02
It just put so much in perspective for me. Yeah.
32:04
You often think like, oh, the IB has so much content.
32:07
Yeah. Got to get through all this stuff.
32:09
And then he's like guess what.
32:10
We do that.
32:10
And this is just maturity, which has way more content than the IB.
32:14
It's like oh the IB is the fluffy one.
32:16
Like this maturity is the one that has like the deep
32:19
like intensive long list of content that you have to get.
32:23
Yeah, yeah. Right? Over quite a bit of time too.
32:26
Yeah, yeah.
32:26
There was a big thing he mentioned this idea of like,
32:28
you know, students or children who grow up in bilingual households,
32:32
are able to separate the object from the name of the object better
32:35
because they understand that
32:36
this object has two different names that allows the children to have,
32:39
like, a better understanding of what that thing is.
32:41
And he use that as a metaphor,
32:43
to speak or analogy, excuse me to speak about like students
32:46
who do both the Swiss maturity and the IB diploma
32:48
and that it allowed them to think about knowledge in a much better
32:51
ways, to understand, like the way I'm gaining knowledge and the Swiss maturity
32:55
is different to the way
32:56
that I'm thinking about that knowledge in the IB program itself.
33:00
And so you could really see how students would get such a benefit in that.
33:03
Because really, when we talk about things like theory of knowledge or
33:07
how we, value one type of knowledge system over another, yeah,
33:10
that if you've got both that are somewhat, you know,
33:14
they obviously are common knowledge, but they have such a dichotomy.
33:18
It helps students really see the differences
33:21
between those two and helps them appreciate them better as well.
33:23
Yeah. Yeah.
33:24
I think it a really positive way of looking at where
33:26
a lot of schools probably do have to, maybe not to the same extent, have a dual
33:30
diploma there, but they're still going to have national requirements.
33:34
Yeah.
33:34
And instead of always seeing them as being at odds or attention, it's
33:38
more like what is the opportunity here? Yeah.
33:40
We have the advantage by having both of these.
33:44
Yeah yeah yeah.
33:45
And when you're in that tension it can be really useful.
33:47
Yeah I like that. Yeah. That's good stuff. Yeah.
33:51
Fidelis’s episode was
33:53
cool.
33:53
Yeah, yeah.
33:55
Feels like meeting a celebrity.
33:57
I was a little bit starstruck. Yeah.
34:00
Like. Oh, look at this.
34:01
We got, you know. Yeah.
34:02
Director of, curriculum development at the IB.
34:04
And that was.
34:05
It was really cool.
34:06
But beyond that, I think it was so enlightening
34:08
to talk about, like, the curriculum development process.
34:12
And I think naively, there was a part of me that just thought like, oh,
34:15
they refresh the curriculum every seven years because they want
34:18
they want everybody to go to their workshops or something like that.
34:20
Yeah, but but no, it was far more than that, obviously.
34:23
And it was just like it's a reactive, responsive, dynamic curriculum
34:27
where they really value feedback and where they really are looking for feedback.
34:32
And not in a like superficial way.
34:36
Right.
34:36
It was really like, no, we we talked to students
34:39
because it actually changes the way we do things.
34:41
Yeah, yeah yeah.
34:43
And then just things
34:44
that she was speaking about with regard to like we want to reduce content,
34:47
we want to increase concepts
34:49
and how important wellbeing is to that process as well.
34:52
You know, those things really stood out. I think quite a bit.
34:54
And just this idea of like how to include students in the process other as,
34:58
as they were going through the course or even just like immediately finished
35:01
it, reflecting back on it, what was valuable about what you learned
35:04
and how dynamic it could be like changing a course even two years in if necessary.
35:09
Right? Like coming back. Let's recall some of that.
35:11
So we want to shift this around. Yeah.
35:14
It just really
35:15
helped to emphasize how dynamic the IB still can be.
35:18
Yeah.
35:18
Because I think when they started out they were this small,
35:21
you know, progressive organization that was really easy to maneuver.
35:24
And now they're like this giant ship going through the ocean.
35:27
It's like you want to turn course it's harder.
35:29
Yeah, but they still dynamic. They're still responsive.
35:32
Yeah.
35:32
And, the other thing I really loved about that is it it's really paving the way
35:37
for how the IB is pushing on the door of universities.
35:41
Yeah.
35:42
As opposed to the other way around where it's like universities
35:44
kind of set the here's the bar, here's the requirements.
35:46
So you do all your soft skill training and all that sort of stuff.
35:49
Doesn't matter.
35:49
Like you still need to do an exam and it's going to show us what we know. Yeah.
35:52
But really, she highlighted all the ways in which there are many universities now
35:56
that are like, we value that style of thinking.
35:58
We like the the development of soft skills.
36:01
Yeah.
36:01
And how that's now really redefining the entry to university in some ways.
36:06
It made me super excited for the future of the IB.
36:08
Yeah, I agree.
36:09
Yeah. Cool.
36:10
My computer battery's dying.
36:12
Okay. Let's pause.
36:16
We then had like
36:18
the special one of our first special bonus episodes,
36:21
which was with Rachael, and she was talking about the new psychology course.
36:24
And so for those of you who are doing the psychology course,
36:26
I think that was a super useful episode of like
36:28
how to approach it in a in a positive way. Yep.
36:31
I agree, and I think the one thing that I liked about
36:34
it was not just the focus on the new teachers,
36:38
where it's always easy to be like, yeah, the veteran teachers will be fine.
36:42
It's the new ones that were like, no, no.
36:44
The veteran ones also need, to relearn how to teach this course,
36:49
because I think that if you just add
36:52
on the concepts or just adapt slightly, then it's a really big missed opportunity
36:58
of what we were saying that Fidelis
36:59
and her team are working on of like they really do want to change this course.
37:03
So if you just look at like, how do I do the bare minimum changes, you're
37:08
really missing the point why they made the changes.
37:12
No, it's cool.
37:13
After that episode, I spoke with our psychology teacher
37:15
and and it just sort of
37:16
organically came up that we were talking about, like,
37:18
how are we going to get through the context,
37:20
the concepts, the content, and these case studies like I got do
37:24
and fresh off of that conversation with Rachel was like, oh, what about like
37:27
framing it around the case studies? I was just talking about this.
37:30
And then the next day
37:31
our psychology teacher came up to me, and she's like, I got it figured out.
37:34
Oh, amazing. Yeah.
37:35
And it was this idea of like,
37:36
okay, frame the whole teaching through your case studies.
37:39
And that really allows, like the concepts, the context,
37:42
the content to really come out throughout the whole thing.
37:44
So I thought her advice on
37:45
that was really useful and we took it into action right away.
37:48
Yeah, super cool.
37:52
Conrad.
37:53
Yeah, it was like celebrity status as well, right?
37:55
So many people wanted to talk about Conrad.
37:57
I remember going to one of his, his keynotes at an IB global conference
38:01
and just walking away being like, this guy's got some good ideas.
38:03
Yeah. You know. Yeah.
38:05
And I also think it's cool to see somebody who does something quite radical.
38:10
Yeah.
38:11
But actually does
38:12
it doesn't just talk about it of like, wouldn't it be nice if we could have,
38:17
if we could have a learner passport?
38:19
It's like, no, no, we have a learning passport.
38:21
We're doing it.
38:23
And I think that his school and the school group has obviously
38:28
like a really great reputation where they also like the IBO can be.
38:32
We're talking to universities about what we're doing and we are
38:37
at the forefront of these changes.
38:38
It's not just okay, we care about soft skills.
38:41
It's no, we're putting this at the forefront because we believe
38:43
that the current system is broken and we're doing something about it.
38:47
Yeah, yeah.
38:47
That emphasis on competencies
38:49
and how you can develop those competencies in multiple ways,
38:51
it can take place in the classroom, but it doesn't have to.
38:53
So you kind of get this idea
38:55
of like a Cass portfolio just expanding quite a bit and really letting students
38:58
evaluate on like, no,
38:59
but in this scenario, I actually do communicate really well, right?
39:03
I, I am a great collaborator in this space.
39:06
I had to do leadership in this thing.
39:08
And so it really allows every experience to be valued.
39:12
Yeah.
39:12
Whereas you can see where like an old model of how
39:15
to get into a university, for example, or how to be recognized by a company,
39:20
can be so limited if you're just coming down to like, what was your degree
39:23
and what were your grades and that sort of thing.
39:24
But this idea of the learner passport,
39:26
it really emphasizes how much we can value from a student.
39:31
And I think that just brings so much more to the table
39:34
in terms of like wellbeing of young people,
39:36
because you now recognizing more than just their grades, you're recognizing
39:39
far more than what they might do in a specific classroom setting.
39:42
And those things, I think, help to help any young person feel seen.
39:47
And when they feel seen and hear my strengths
39:48
and you're calling on my strengths, you talking about my strengths.
39:51
What a powerful thing that we got going with that.
39:54
And I really hope that learning a passport takes hold.
39:56
And you can see where that in conjunction with someone like the development
39:59
that's happening in the curriculum of the IB,
40:02
this can all lead to some really exciting things
40:05
coming up in the future of education. Yeah.
40:07
Yeah, definitely.
40:08
I think
40:08
even if you're I mean, for you guys, I don't think you're setting up
40:11
a learner passport right now,
40:13
but I think there are some stuff that you have done differently since then.
40:16
Definitely.
40:16
I mean, since that conversation,
40:17
we were we happened to be in a review of our assessment reporting policy.
40:21
And as we were looking at our assessment, reporting policy,
40:24
it just helped having that conversation
40:26
in my mind because I went back and I was like, well, wait,
40:29
how does our assessment reporting policy actually achieve our mission?
40:32
When we talk about our mission, we're trying to like draw young people's
40:35
strengths. We're trying to help them become lifelong learners.
40:37
Like, does our reporting process do that?
40:39
Does our assessment process do that?
40:41
And we while we couldn't create the whole,
40:44
you know, the donut of the learner passport
40:46
that is present there, we started to look at better ways
40:49
we could have students reflect on specific areas or say like, let's start
40:52
with a reflection on learner profile attributes.
40:55
And then let's start with reflection on your approaches to learning.
40:58
And these are going to be the key things
40:59
that we're focusing on throughout this.
41:00
And you can draw upon any experience that you may have had as well.
41:03
So really having the students be like effectively the main authors
41:07
of their report, obviously with quality control and that sort of stuff,
41:11
but it just shifted a little bit more to help students become more autonomous.
41:15
And a lot of that came from that conversation with Conrad for sure.
41:18
Cool. Yeah. Which was useful. Yeah.
41:21
We spoke with David Didau, one of my favorite authors.
41:24
Yeah, yeah.
41:25
That was on your wish list. You're like, I have two of his books.
41:28
We got to talk.
41:29
I want to talk to this guy. Yeah.
41:31
No, it's really cool.
41:32
And I'm so glad that David agreed to to chat with us.
41:36
I think what really stood out there was, like, challenge assumptions.
41:39
Yeah.
41:40
Challenge the assumptions that might say, oh, well,
41:42
direct instruction, that's a bad thing.
41:44
Or a teacher led classroom. That's a bad thing.
41:46
And I think what was really useful is it it just reminded us like ask why?
41:50
Yeah.
41:51
Just because it sounds like a student led classroom is better
41:54
doesn't always mean that it is.
41:55
Right. You know?
41:56
And you really got to think
41:57
intentionally about, like, why am I doing this thing that I'm doing?
42:01
And maybe direct instruction isn't a bad thing.
42:03
It's just the way in which you're delivering direct instruction.
42:06
Exactly.
42:07
It's like looking at the two things where it's so easy to be.
42:09
If you want to maybe sound
42:11
like a progressive teacher, you're like, oh, yeah, I don't do direct instruction.
42:14
I all of my classroom is student led learning.
42:16
Yeah, yeah,
42:17
we have a lot of episodes
42:18
that talk about a lot of the benefits of student led learning. Right.
42:20
But if you're direct instruction sucks, he says, you're just lecturing.
42:25
It's like direct instruction itself is not bad.
42:28
Yeah, it's it's fast paced.
42:30
It's dynamics. Got students involved.
42:32
You're like you're pitching to them often, right?
42:34
Like sometimes there's a time and place for that. Yeah.
42:36
But then it doesn't mean that all student led
42:39
instruction is good, because if there's not the right structures in place
42:42
and the right boundaries and frameworks and things like that, it's like
42:46
then you could end up in really useless situations.
42:51
Useless situations right,
42:52
where you effectively wasting your own time, your student time as well.
42:55
Exactly. Yeah.
42:55
I mean, to me it was just like, you know, good intentions
42:58
have to be supported with good evidence and you can't just like, this sounds good.
43:01
Therefore I'm going to go with it. Yeah.
43:02
And I think that was a really positive reminder for any educator to just go like,
43:06
yeah, what am I doing and why am I doing that?
43:08
And am I just jumping on this bandwagon without really thinking it through?
43:11
Exactly. Yeah. Which was yeah, that's good.
43:13
Ultimately we need that. Yeah.
43:16
We need that stuff. Exactly.
43:19
Yeah. We talked with Matts, right?
43:21
Matts episode we're talking about like future of Assessment with the IB.
43:25
Yeah.
43:25
And we're going to work with him at the global conference again too.
43:29
Season two.
43:29
Season two is coming up.
43:31
And we're talking with Matt at the IB Global Conference.
43:33
Yeah, exactly.
43:34
I yeah, he was such a joy to talk to.
43:36
He and there were so many parts of it where I'm like,
43:40
I'm going to make everyone in Kognity listen to this episode.
43:44
We need to be on top of this, because I think that one,
43:48
he did a really good job of being like, this is not as scary as it sounds.
43:54
No need to be scared about online assessments, right?
43:57
Yeah, the assessments were going to be good.
43:59
It's actually so much more positive.
44:01
Yeah, we're going to have a better understanding of what a student knows.
44:03
We're going to know.
44:04
Like, yeah, just even just a little bit of adaptive assessment right at the start.
44:08
You know, it helps us know like this student actually knows this amount.
44:12
And therefore you get a better understanding of what they know,
44:14
which is ultimately what assessment should do.
44:15
Yeah. Yeah.
44:16
You're just happy you don't need to put the, assessments in the safe anymore.
44:20
Actually. Seriously.
44:21
And we spoke quite a bit about that with like the, the ecological impact as well.
44:26
Just like mailing paper assessments, writing through paper
44:29
assessments, mailing them back, the cost that comes
44:31
with all this sort of stuff, the printing, all that.
44:33
And it's not to say like, oh, everything's going to be green when we go online.
44:36
Obviously you still have power costs, that sort of thing,
44:39
but yeah, it's just like there's an ecological improvement.
44:42
There's a security of exams improvement.
44:45
And yeah, DP coordinators don't have to walk around with like keys to the safe.
44:49
Yeah. Every morning.
44:50
Yeah. You were a little unwell during exams.
44:53
Honestly.
44:56
You guys were like can we do this episode?
44:57
I was like, it's exam season.
44:58
Don't ask me. Exactly.
45:00
So now hopefully it makes things better for, for schools.
45:03
But I think some of the things that I was most excited about was like,
45:07
how much we were talking.
45:08
We were talking about it in David's too of like the alternate reality of the exam.
45:13
It's like, okay, this is how we teach all year long.
45:16
And then all of a sudden we're
45:17
going to go into this magical exam room where everything's different
45:20
and we need to, like, pretend like the real world doesn't exist.
45:23
Yeah. For this,
45:25
like this
45:26
niche thing that also happens to be the most important test that you're taking.
45:30
Yeah, right. Your life thus far. All those things you learned. Great.
45:32
But can you tell me in this two hour session? Exactly.
45:35
So being able to make it a holistic or a part of your holistic assessment.
45:39
Yeah.
45:39
Seems so much easier with moving into digital exams
45:44
and also the kind of potential that we can use
45:47
AI for in assessment, all of that just like
45:50
this is what Kognity also really is about, right?
45:54
Is being able to like, how can teachers make better
45:57
informed, data driven decisions in their teaching?
46:01
How can we use formative assessment to help with learning, not just exam prep?
46:06
And when it when it all is in the same ecosystem,
46:11
it all just makes so much more sense.
46:12
Yeah, yeah,
46:13
I could see where you'd like going round to the team elsewhere and like look
46:17
we spoke about assessment. Assessments are coming up.
46:19
That's what we why we want to like move this forward
46:21
in our in our product design and what we're doing here. Yeah.
46:23
I mean even if something as silly as right now with exam style questions,
46:27
it was always like okay with exam like in Kognity like now
46:30
everyone needs to go and write on paper because they need to practice writing.
46:35
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
46:37
And that would be how they would do it.
46:38
And then it's like, but if we bring everything back
46:41
and we have everything be together and the summative assessments
46:45
working with the formative, it just makes it so much more powerful.
46:48
Yeah. It makes me excited for the rollout of the assessments.
46:50
And I know like, you know, obviously we're going to start with ones
46:52
that are a little bit more accessible, like the languages.
46:54
And that sort of thing. Talk to me in three years about maths.
46:57
Yeah, exactly.
46:58
So you know, but ultimately I hope that any, any educator listening
47:01
to that episode went away feeling better about where we're going with this,
47:05
because I think it's a really positive direction.
47:07
Also, when I think of all of season one, what we were able to accomplish here,
47:10
ultimately, I feel more excited about being an educator,
47:14
being an educator in the IB and the future of the IB.
47:17
I think it's a really responsive and dynamic space where they're listening
47:21
to researchers, they're moving things forward in a positive way.
47:24
And it's just been really cool to be a part of this podcast
47:27
to host it, to talk with these really cool people
47:29
and to share these people with our audience. Yeah.
47:32
And help people see, like, there's some really positive things
47:35
going on in education and we can grow quite a bit as educators.
47:37
And here's just a cool, cool medium for us to engage with each other, right?
47:41
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
47:43
No, it's been a lot of fun.
47:44
I've gotten so much out of talking with the different guests.
47:47
I agree, it's fun to be able to get these different perspectives
47:51
and hear what other people are doing.
47:53
And yeah, people are doing really great things.
47:55
People are smart.
47:56
They are. Smart people out there.
47:58
Yeah, yeah. Let's talk with more of them. Yeah. Which of course we're going to do.
48:01
We got season two coming up here. So season one was tons of fun.
48:04
We got to speak with some great people. We hope you enjoyed all of that.
48:07
Stick around because season two is coming up.
48:08
We've already got some amazing guests planned.
48:11
I won't name drop right now, but
48:13
there's a few where I literally jumped up and down bit.
48:15
It was pretty exciting.
48:17
So yeah.
48:18
So thank you so much for everybody who's been listening this season.
48:21
We hope this has been as fun for you as it has been for us.
48:25
As always, if you have ideas of who you want us to talk to
48:28
or any kind of topics that you really want us to go into, please let us know.
48:32
You can go to kognity.com/ibunplugged and let us know,
48:36
and we will hope to be able to make it happen.
48:39
Absolutely. Thanks, everybody.
48:41
IB Unplugged is a Kognity podcast, hosted by John Patton
48:44
and Courtney Marline and produced by Katilina Gaffney.
48:47
Be sure to subscribe or follow and share with your fellow IB educators.
48:51
If you'd like to submit a topic, request, or a question, please do
48:54
so on kognity.com/ibunplugged.
48:57
Let's keep the conversation going
48:59
and support each other in teaching with confidence, creativity, and joy.
49:02
See you next time.