Latest / IB Unplugged / Teaching IBDP Psychology: The Power of Concepts for Deeper Learning w/ Rachael Thornton

Transcript

Teaching IBDP Psychology: The Power of Concepts for Deeper Learning w/ Rachael Thornton · 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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Hi everybody.
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Welcome to a bonus episode of IB Unplugged.
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Today we are talking with Rachael Thornton about the new IB syllabus
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and her experience working with Kognity on our new resources.
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So Rachael has been an IB coordinator, a psychology teacher,
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workshop leader, examiner, basically everything she can do in the IB space.
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She's done it.
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And she most recently has been, yeah,
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working with Kognity on our new psychology resources.
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Yeah.
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The conversation with Rachael was really important, I think, especially
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if you are a psychology teacher who's gearing up
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for the new iteration of the syllabus and thinking,
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how am I going to take the resources that I've just spent a bunch of time
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working on
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and transfer them into this new syllabus, which seems like it's
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dropped all this content and it's pushing all these concepts
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and now these class practicals.
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And how am I going to fit all this in?
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The conversation
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with Rachael really made it seem like, oh, that's going to be pretty achievable.
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And it created essentially a cool opportunity.
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It sounds like the new iteration of the syllabus.
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It sounds like the new way that they're approaching psychology
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is going to wrap all that stuff up really nicely
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and create some really good opportunities for some great learning.
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So this conversation, I think, really inspired me,
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and I hope it inspires any,
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psychology teachers out there to feel a lot more comfortable
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as you embark on the new syllabus.
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Yeah, definitely.
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I agree, I have a soft spot for the IB psychology course
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because that was one of the last courses that I worked on
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on the content side, at Kognity.
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And so seeing kind of the old syllabus for the new syllabus, she really gets into,
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the concepts and that approach and then also the practicals.
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So a couple of the kind of big to get new, exciting,
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maybe shiny parts of the new psychology syllabus.
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But I like that she doesn't shy away from the concepts
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or make it seem like it's something that she's sticking on top of
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a regular way of teaching, but she really comes up with a lot of ideas
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of how to kind of fundamentally shape her course and her ways of
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teaching around these concepts and make it really at the forefront,
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as opposed to being something that you remember later on, like,
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oh gosh, gotta add those concepts in.
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So I think she has a great approach and I think, yeah, it's,
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a great episode to get you excited to be preparing your classes for next year.
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We hope you enjoy.
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Hi, Rachael, welcome to Kognity Unplugged.
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We're glad you're here.
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Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
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It's great to
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join this episode.
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Yeah, we're excited to have a kind of deep
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dive episode right here talking about the new psychology course.
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Obviously, you authored that and have quite a bit of,
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background in terms of what's going on with this course.
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So we're really looking forward to this conversation.
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We like to start out all of our shows with some warmup questions.
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And the first one is why education?
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There's so many other options.
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Why did you choose education?
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Well, so originally I actually started my, career,
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working in universities, rather than in schools.
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So I used to work in the area of student voice and student engagement.
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Just because I really did view kind of education
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as this kind of great gateway, into providing opportunities, people.
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And I was from a family of teachers,
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and so I didn't really want to be a teacher just because people are like,
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you'd make a great teacher.
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And I was like, nope, I'm resisting.
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But then I only resisted a certain amount and went, oh,
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yes, actually, teaching is great.
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And then so I did my PGCE and my PC in the social sciences.
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So, in kind of sociology and psychology,
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I started off teaching in the UK in,
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only sociology.
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And then it was only when I went international and when I moved to Mexico,
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that I then picked up the kind of psychology in a bit more, depth.
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And that’s where I also moved all the way to Mexico.
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And I found my now husband, who is a Scouser from the UK.
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So I did a great
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job of going far away there and getting it.
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Getting a local boy.
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And then so we were there in Mexico for a few years.
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Fantastic place.
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Could not recommend, Mexico more.
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And then we decided to have a new adventure together.
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And then we moved to, Shanghai.
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So I've been in Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong
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for about five years now.
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And so I've held a number of different roles of, like,
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e coordinate, head of year.
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And now I'm the head of psychology,
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and, IB coordinator at school.
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And so I really do have the privilege of working with,
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that group of students who are the critical juncture, in the life
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kind of deciding what they want to do next and that really formative stage.
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And so for me, personally,
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while subject knowledge is important,
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and I know we're going to talk about the IB curriculum, but for me,
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that is not the most important thing that we do as teachers.
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It's the kind of pastoral side that goes alongside it.
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It's the, being able to help students
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kind of identify the next steps, help them with their identity
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formation, develop effective study skills.
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And that's really what kind of motivates me.
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And we just had our graduation on Friday, for our team.
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So super quick after they finish those exams last week.
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And for me, that was a great,
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and powerful reminder of why I really chose education.
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Yes, there's been all these other careers, but being able to,
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witness the students there reflecting on their achievements and,
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talking about what they're going to do next and their bright futures.
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Education's one of the most rewarding, things you can get into.
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It absolutely is. I know that was a long answer.
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Now, I love it because we just did a celebration as well.
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And I think it's those events that really help you ground
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you back to like, what's my purpose?
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Why I'm actually doing this thing in the first place.
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And we can easily get wrapped up in the content.
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And, you know, fellow IBDP coordinator, you get caught up in the admin
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and that sort of stuff, but it sounds like you've got a really
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unique and pretty special position here.
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Like, obviously you're coordinating the whole program.
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You're helping them go on to the next steps,
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but you also get to teach some psychology and talk about kind of passions
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and get into why people are doing their thing.
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So it sounds like you've really found
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a really great niche within education to have a positive impact on young people.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And, in the last few years, I did my masters,
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and I kind of chose for my dissertation to do it on the science of learning.
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So, I developed program at our school around, effective study
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strategies and habits and worked with evidence based education.
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And we had did this whole program that year, ten and 11, do,
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to help some kind of study smarter.
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And it was this moment where I was like, wow, the world of psychology
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and IB coordinator
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and all the roles that we hold in schools that don't need to be separate.
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If we can just tap into things that we do, we can really help
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the students, study smarter rather than harder.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. You put all of your pieces together.
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You put all your hats into one class there.
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Yeah, absolutely. Great.
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And it sounds like we're talking to you at a nice time.
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I think it's great that you guys do graduation right after, because I imagine
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during the exam season is not when you're in your peak inspiration,
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or best version of yourself, but then you get yourself back into graduation.
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Yeah. Don't talk to me.
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I've got stuff to do.
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It's basically how it is during exams, isn't it?
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Yeah.
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Then after graduation, you're like, okay, it's all good.
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I love my job again.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Well, and then you could very quickly go.
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And now 12.
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Yeah, yeah.
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I'd say as IB coordinator that is definitely, what happens.
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And as teachers
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I think we always talk about like, oh, this is just the busy period.
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And I feel sometimes as IB coordinator, we're like,
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oh, it's okay with this is just a busy period.
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And then you go, oh, but there’s that one of the especially if you've got
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like the IB review on the horizon and things like that as well.
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I feel it is quite a fluid kind of process.
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But yes, it's always a nice moment when you're 13 go,
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and you get that wonderful celebration reflection.
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Yeah.
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It is such a whiplash there, too, as you mentioned, because you're like,
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full celebration, celebrating these kids, reflecting with them.
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And then it's almost like you get like a day
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and then immediately it's like, right, next class, what do they do?
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You know, let's do some practice exams. Let's get them moving on.
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The next thing, they've got some deadlines too.
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And you almost have to forget
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all that emotional stuff you put into that one group.
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Because now you got to shift gears and put it into this next group.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Then this time of year, like, it's, the
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TOK exhibition is due, in like, on Wednesday.
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Yeah.
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And then it's the E draft by the end of the term and things like that.
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And so yeah, very much is, always quite a busy, program.
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It's the IB program, for sure.
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Yeah.
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Well, in all of that busyness, you've decided to take on
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another enormous role, and that is authoring,
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one of the Kognity resources, the new psychology one.
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And we've got a brand new syllabus.
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And you have been tasked with the, enormous role of being able to create
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high quality, highly interactive, really
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exciting and innovative resources for the new subject.
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And we have as a whole company, we love our authors,
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and we really want to champion
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our authors who have really been able to be the heart of what Kognity is.
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And I would love to hear from your experience.
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Yeah.
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What it's been like authoring the New Psychology resources.
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Really interesting experience.
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It initially stemmed from,
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meeting one of the members of staff from Kognity,
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who was kind of our contact, for the school, at the IB conference.
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And then we were talking about psychology, and then he was like, oh, we're
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reviewing our psychology, curriculum, and textbook.
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And then I was part of a kind of focus group of different teachers talking
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about, well, how could Kognity review the like the provision,
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and how does it compare to other
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like, online textbooks that are in the market?
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And then gave lots of feedback around,
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one of the things I like, I use it another textbook for our use
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in thinking for was that it has the teachers and student
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materials like provides as well.
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And so one of the things that I thought was,
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really impressive was the way that, when I got involved in the project,
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there was so much thought that I'd gone into, the new design of the textbook
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to really make it a resource that's going to be useful for teachers,
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useful for students.
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And it's got all these inbuilt resources, into it as well.
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And so I feel that I've done a fantastic job
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of listening to what people said, identifying gaps,
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what people need.
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And so there's really clear sections
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to like TOK,
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international mindedness and so this really good
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like rich examples that I've given in there and activities.
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And so when I was asked to be one of the reviewers for it,
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it was just an interesting experience to see kind of what happens
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behind the scenes in some of these, textbooks and resources that get created.
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And so being able to
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be part of this huge project, suddenly it's not just a wall,
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it's the textbook, as you might think, when you're a classroom teacher,
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it's the textbook.
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But actually the amount of work that goes into creating,
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a textbook like that, and the way in which it then also gave me
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an insight into the new curriculum a lot more as well.
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So it was really useful.
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Like, I already had the,
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course guide because I am a workshop leader.
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But it was only by doing that project
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that it really gave me a much deeper understanding of like,
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okay, well, in the new curriculum, we need to map out the learning outcomes.
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Okay. It's a lot more integrated.
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There's this big shift around the approaches.
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The concepts are now, really key.
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And I won't lie, when I first got sent through the information for it, I sent
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through the guide, and I sent through all these documents,
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there was a moment when I went..
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and I had to stop and
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reread about like, so many times, the guide, especially when you first
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see that diagram where it's like the concepts, the content, the context.
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And I was like, why does everything start with a C?
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It was really useful for me to be able to get familiar with the guide,
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but also to actually see, oh, wait, this is how this integrated
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approach is actually going to be a lot more beneficial for the students.
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And so I found it a really interesting and useful experience.
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And I highly recommend,
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if there's any opportunities in the future that people get involved,
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in kind of any of the review of roles, as well.
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So it was really useful, valuable, great people to work with.
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And it was
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in my role very much was going in there and kind of seeing, are we linking to what
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the IB guide saying, but also with that teacher hat on.
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So where does those, activities, where does those kind of teacher support,
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materials thinking about what would that work in,
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like my context in, in China, for example, would that work,
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when I was, over in Mexico, would that work in those different contexts?
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Are we thinking about, English as a second language learners in this moment.
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Okay.
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Is that term going to be a universal term that everybody knows?
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And so it was useful because it obviously helped
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yes with understanding guide, but also really having a think
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about the needs of the diverse different students that the IB,
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is actually providing that provision for as well.
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So yeah.
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Fantastic experience. Good.
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I'm so glad to hear it.
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Yeah.
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It sounds like you were able to integrate quite a few different aspects of,
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you know, considering the new course itself.
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And obviously, you know, this is kind of a special episode
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that is geared more toward our psychology teachers.
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So we know a lot of people listening are going to be, you know,
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drinking the Kool-Aid, for lack of a better term.
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They're they're already in the same boat here doing psychology.
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But I wonder, you know, let's just start
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by just sort of talking about the IBDP psychology course in general,
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because obviously, as a DP coordinator, you know, we're kind of in the same boat
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where you get to select
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what courses are actually going to be offered at your school.
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You know, why should schools be thinking about psychology
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as an offer that they should have on their curriculum?
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What makes it special? What makes it unique?
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Let's just kind of talk about the psychology course in general.
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So psychology as a subject in general,
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I do think that everybody should take psychology.
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Just saying at some point in their lives, they should do a bit of psychology,
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because I think it's just a fantastic subject for students
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to develop that critical thinking about the world around them.
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And to look at the way people behave through a different lens
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and to really go, oh, I never thought of it that way.
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And I think it's a subject that increasingly
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has so many real life applications.
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And it's increasingly in the news and there's so many things
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that are making it, a growing subject as well.
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And when I speak to a lot of, other IB coordinators,
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they talk about the way in which psychology numbers are starting to grow,
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and there's a lot more people interested in taking it.
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So as a subject generally,
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I would say it is one that students always,
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say that they look back on like, I'm glad I took psychology.
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It's made me think, more about, why people behave the way they do.
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And it's really made me,
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think about things like different cultures and things like that.
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And so sometimes it's you
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have a lot of students who are taking it as the additional subject.
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You're not always the first choice subject.
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In psychology, you often might not.
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In some schools, they might have done it at IG
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or they might have touched on it in NYP, already.
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But in a lot of places it's completely new.
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And I think there's actually the value in both sides of that.
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In some ways, when it's new, it can offer that nice diversity
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into, the spread of subjects,
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and that students have this opportunity to kind of push themselves,
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out of their comfort zone or be a risk taker, as IB would say.
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In terms of the new curriculum,
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I would say that the new curriculum is very exciting.
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And so when I gave my why should you take psychology
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kind of chapter to the New Year elevens,
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the key thing I said was you may have spoken to older students.
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They may have said that there's a lot of content in psychology.
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That is one of the big changes.
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Okay.
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As we're moving away from memorizing facts
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in isolation and just by themselves, for themselves,
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and really trying to get students to think like a psychologist.
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That's what I think the new curriculum is all about, and emphasizing
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critical thinking and, a lot more links to kind of the real world.
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I think the class practicals in particular,
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we kind of take it away from just learning psychology
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to being able to actually be a psychologist, do your own research.
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Okay. Which gives that deeper engagement
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in students.
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I'd also say that the concept based structure
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and organizing around these six overarching concepts,
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obviously that's in line with,
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the new, curriculums that are coming in.
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So the sciences, for example, already have these concepts.
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And so it's a way of kind of..
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If we think about like the science of learning, concept based learning
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makes sense, because it's allowing us to draw connections between what we learn.
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It allows us to develop schemas.
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And so rather than just learning things in isolation, students are going to be able
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to encode information more deeply, retrieve it in a much better way,
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than they might have been able to before.
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But also some of the key concepts
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across the IB have commonalities.
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So for example, perspective and responsibility
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are also in the key concepts in TOK,
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as well.
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And so it's the idea the IB is very much starting
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to have students kind of go from class to class
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without that big kind of jump of, well, what's happening in this classroom?
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Okay? How is this assessment different?
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And I know that's part of the 16
19:05
plus review, but I think it's a really exciting,
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like shift that we're seeing in psychology as well.
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And so the
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idea of, it's not just about surface level recall,
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and can you remember the end procedure findings conclusion
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of every single study, as it currently is,
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we're thinking more about how can we transfer knowledge,
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and how can we have students make those connections by themselves.
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That's great.
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I mean, I definitely remember in the old syllabus
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that remembering all the details of the studies was like
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a huge part of the students preparing for the exams.
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Everything was like,
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we need flashcards for all of our studies and we need to memorize these key points.
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So it's nice to hear that there is a bit of a shifting priority there.
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Yes, I would definitely agree with that,
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and I'd say that, that's one of the reasons I think
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we did need a bit of a change in the syllabus,
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was to do with the amount of content that students were expected to know.
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But the detail of the content and kind of,
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paper one at the moment in particular, there was a huge amount of content,
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but the detail of the studies they need to know is when are you going
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to need to know, the detailed procedure, of Maguire's study, for example?
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Yeah.
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And so, at the time I was having to.. I always am
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a big fan of retrieval practice, but I feel like at times,
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like all of retrieval practice
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where I'm like, no, I really need this stuck in your memory, okay?
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And then that detracts from the opportunities to have those great
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discussions and explore concepts a bit more and ideas more.
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So I do think that that's a good change,
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especially for our kind of students who, maybe it's
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English is not their first language or, they've really struggled with writing.
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I think there's
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some real exciting changes, in the curriculum.
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So it sounds like pulling away from that sort of tighter recall is now
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allowing better concepts and better connections in terms of understanding
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the whole thing, as opposed to spending all this time on the nitty gritty.
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And I guess
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it was that kind of, in your view, the main needed change in that syllabus,
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or do you feel like there are other things that have come up that,
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like they addressed this need as well, that we were kind of missing before?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I would say, the shift towards short UX questions
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in the new syllabus, is really, useful as well.
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Okay. I think that's a positive step,
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as a way to build student confidence, and allowing them
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to kind of demonstrate that knowledge maybe a bit more succinctly.
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Especially if you think,
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in the current, curriculum in paper two, if you're a standard level student,
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you go in and you write 122 mock essay and that is that paper.
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Yeah.
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Whereas I think now, the new curriculum has a lot more opportunities in the
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like the where it's being assessed of shorter questions.
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We're seeing the introduction of full marks and six mark questions.
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And then the longest being that 15 mark.
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And I think that's really key is allowing a greater opportunity
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for more students to be able to access to the course in particular.
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And I do think the IA as well,
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the IA was great, in the current, format.
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But over time, we've seen a lot of issues around, academic integrity
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and things like that, mainly because it's a group project
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and students were doing, a group write, a group study, but an individual write up.
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But then there's always going to be some level of commonality that maintained
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in the writing.
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And so I
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think that was quite a challenge for a number of different schools.
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And the only time students really would often
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be able to do meaningful
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psychology hands on is for the IA.
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Sometimes, the might be time to have that practice.
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But I think more often than not what happened
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is because there was so much content, those opportunities
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to actually engage in psychology practicals, wasn't really there.
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And so I think this shift towards class practicals,
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I think it's a really positive shift.
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And I think at first when I saw it, I was like, but
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I like the IA, and a lot of the teachers had to have that kind of response.
23:25
And then I went, oh wait, they've got four times now.
23:28
They can do mini IA’s.
23:31
And then it means that actually by the time they get to IA,
23:35
it's just a case of putting together a proposal.
23:37
And it's actually more similar to what we're going to be doing in university.
23:42
And so I think that's,
23:44
a really positive change to make it more inclusive,
23:47
and applicable to the real world of psychology.
23:50
Nice.
23:51
So kind of the decrease in content, the increase in concepts,
23:55
the removal of that sort of group IA, but bringing in class practicals,
23:59
allowing a little bit more
24:01
authentic engagement with the themes and concepts of psychology.
24:05
And from what you've just described, the way
24:06
that it's going to be assessed possibly gives us a better way of knowing
24:10
what a student actually knows about the topic,
24:13
as opposed to if they maybe just got one question
24:15
that's going to kind of throw them off on that whole kind of one essay.
24:18
Yeah, absolutely.
24:19
That idea of, well, it's a lot more based on application,
24:23
of knowledge is the new way it's being assessed,
24:26
rather than what can you remember of your knowledge.
24:30
And so being having that meaningful application through kind of, the concepts
24:35
and being a more aligned to real world, psychological thinking,
24:40
I think it got a lot more potential to support diverse learners,
24:45
but still have academic rigor, and relevance as well.
24:49
It sounds like some really exciting positive changes.
24:51
Yeah.
24:51
No, I think that there's a lot that can be really evolving.
24:58
It's sometimes it feels like with some of the syllabus changes,
25:01
it's like, oh, this is really stressful, but it's nice
25:03
when there are things to look forward to about those changes as well.
25:07
And it seems like there are a lot of the new syllabus.
25:10
When you were doing all the reviewing
25:11
and working on the Kognity resource, what was or what
25:14
were some of the most interesting bits or pieces of the syllabus to work on?
25:18
Yeah.
25:19
So the thing I think it's actually most interesting about
25:22
this is in the past, it was, in terms of the context,
25:28
you chose which context you wanted to do for paper two.
25:31
So this separation and in the current.. So the current
25:35
psychology curriculum is three approaches.
25:39
And then in year two, if you are a school
25:42
that does SL all in one year, in that same year you do the context,
25:47
and the context and content was separate.
25:50
And I think what's really interesting
25:51
is the integration of the content and the context together.
25:56
And it allows a bit of a broader curriculum.
26:00
But we've taken out, it doesn't have as much kind of,
26:04
depth in terms of students having to know, like
26:07
mundane details that they don't necessarily need.
26:10
Okay.
26:11
And so it's this integration.
26:12
And, when I was doing, the work with Kognity, what I found,
26:16
really interesting was I think it's 3.1, I want to say,
26:21
don't hold me on that, which was around
26:25
models of development, in the human development unit.
26:30
And for me, I found it
26:31
so interesting reading through that and reviewing it.
26:35
Mainly because I saw just how integrated this new curriculum can be.
26:39
And so, in that section, it was talking about,
26:42
the idea of biological brain development, but then also going
26:46
into the social development as well.
26:47
And, the Kognity and it was all kind of in there together
26:52
in terms of this idea of like, well, what are the different models of development?
26:56
And so, talking about Piaget's, stage theory as well,
27:01
and this idea of taking in multiple different perspectives,
27:06
rather than viewing a behavior from one singular factor.
27:09
And I feel,
27:11
in the new course, this kind of shift where there's a bit more
27:15
of an acknowledgment of, well, actually, that's not how psychology is always done.
27:19
And in the old curriculum, it focused very much on this idea of,
27:24
we'll talk about one approach, then we'll critique that approach
27:27
and say, well, it's reductionist. You can't just focus on this.
27:29
Then we'll go on to another approach.
27:31
And so whereas I think the new course, at this idea of,
27:36
well, actually we're looking at more
27:38
in terms of that context, and when we come to describe a behavior,
27:42
this is the different ways we can describe it.
27:44
I think it's a much more holistic way of studying psychology.
27:48
And so
27:49
when I was going through and working through the Kognity work, I found it
27:53
these areas where I was like, oh, I currently don't actually teach Piaget.
27:58
I have knowledge of it, but I need to go away and I need to,
28:02
review, my understanding of that, of all those areas
28:06
where I'm like, oh, I didn't do human relationships.
28:10
The context, or topics that I've done previously
28:14
were abnormal, and health psychology.
28:16
Oh, right. It was the options. Yeah.
28:19
So this idea of, like the options, it's now everybody does all of them.
28:23
Right.
28:24
And so that's what I find quite interesting is kind of,
28:28
the opportunity to learn a bit as teachers,
28:32
but also that a lot of the old content can still be in there, too.
28:36
And so when I was going through, seeing, things that were to do
28:40
with learning and cognition, I was like, oh, wait,
28:43
so many members also just need to tweak for this area.
28:46
And so it's not a case of, with the new curriculum,
28:49
you have to kind of get rid of everything, start fresh.
28:53
It's a case of actually looking
28:54
where can I use some of these resources still, what do I need to amend.
28:58
And then why do I need to upskill,
29:00
as well.
29:01
But I think that idea of it being a lot more integrated, is something
29:05
that I found really interesting, when I was working on the project.
29:11
Becoming a better
29:12
IBDP educator is a daily practice informed through reading,
29:15
research, personal experience, and episodes from IB Unplugged,.
29:19
like the one you're listening to right now.
29:21
But sometimes the show can go a bit too quickly,
29:24
or we simply forget some of the key points once
29:26
we're out of the car or back from our walk.
29:28
So to revisit the content in a condensed version, you can download
29:32
the episode summary at kognity.com/ibunplugged.
29:36
You'll find useful links to other resources and exciting
29:38
bits of information that you can use immediately in your daily practice.
29:43
So now back to the show.
29:46
Nice. And the idea of the concepts I think
29:48
is really quite fascinating, and I think it's good.
29:51
As you mentioned before,
29:53
we're seeing in some of the other curricula as well,
29:54
like in the sciences, we know they're doing a lot more concepts
29:57
and sort of trying to find the connections between all of these areas as well.
30:00
But I'm also thinking of this
30:01
like from a student perspective, I know often students
30:03
just kind of come in and they're like, what is it that I have to know?
30:06
And they can be pretty content focused, right?
30:09
What's the specific thing that I have to know? How do I get there?
30:11
So let's talk about the concepts
30:13
and that sort of approach within the psychology course itself.
30:15
How do we make those concepts really tangible for young people
30:19
so that they truly grasp, like
30:21
this is a thing that can be applied to all these different areas as opposed to
30:25
I just have to memorize this case study or this specific event, you know,
30:29
how do we kind of make that more real for young people?
30:32
So I think there's a few different things.
30:34
So I'd say it's around, as teachers,
30:38
being a bit intentional in how we design our curriculum,
30:43
in terms of one where we kind of, are going through
30:46
and were designing our scheme of where I would in my scheme of work,
30:50
and I've started it that were, I'm getting there.
30:54
That's how a lot of psychology teachers feel it minute.
30:56
It's like we're getting there. Yeah. Honest.
30:59
But this is how most teachers feel right now.
31:01
It is.
31:02
And it's also the term three promise we always tell ourselves as well.
31:06
Especially teachers like psychology.
31:09
We have, exam classes.
31:10
It's the promise of, in term three certainly, but the most productive person.
31:15
Yeah.
31:15
I'm going to get all this gain time.
31:17
I'm going to get all my classes worked out.
31:19
It will be finished before the end of term.
31:22
But yeah, it's hard not to reassure anybody listening.
31:26
It's okay if you are nowhere near just yet.
31:29
There's a lot of us in the same boat.
31:31
But, yeah,
31:32
when designing, things like the scheme of work, I would,
31:35
I'd have like a box on it called Key Concepts, and I would be kind of mapping
31:40
at what point am I bringing in those key concepts that I'd have that column.
31:43
So it's real key
31:45
so that as a teacher, I'm intentional about where I'm bringing them in.
31:49
There's a lot of discussions happening around
31:51
how people are going to start the new course. So,
31:55
people going to do a big section of research
31:57
methods at the beginning, like the use stories
32:00
that can be more dispersed, but with the key concepts as well.
32:04
A lot of people are discussing.
32:05
Well, do we start with a bit around the key concepts?
32:08
And so I'm planning at the start the year.
32:11
That's how my sort of the course will work is that I will
32:15
I'll start with a very brief kind of intro psychology,
32:19
you know, the history.
32:21
And then I'm going to do a bit of work on the key concepts
32:24
and do a lesson on each of the key concepts really breaking down.
32:28
Well, what do these key concepts mean? Okay.
32:31
Bringing in some topical debates and some aspects from the news
32:35
and just really get them used to and familiar, with these concepts.
32:40
The other thing is for me is it's all about being explicit, invisible.
32:43
Okay.
32:44
Like anything into our teaching, whenever we there's something we need them
32:48
to know.
32:48
It's all about signposting it and signaling it.
32:51
Whether that is signaling power points
32:55
or whether it's being visible in your classroom.
32:58
So having a display that has the definitions
33:02
of all of the key concepts in your classroom, that you can point
33:05
to regularly and be like, okay, how does this relate to bias?
33:10
And having that kind of visibleness around, the curriculum,
33:16
I think is really, really key.
33:17
Yeah, yeah.
33:18
And I like that idea, especially of kind of almost like topping
33:21
and tailing the course, you know, like, so I don't teach psychology,
33:24
but in biology we have a similar approach where basically I start off with here
33:28
the kind of key themes or the key concepts that you need to know.
33:31
And then when we finish the course, we come back
33:33
and we do like a thematic review.
33:34
So it's almost like we start off with, here's
33:36
the key stuff I want you to be looking at as this course goes on.
33:40
And then when things might happen, you might sort of call it out
33:42
just as you say, I'll signpost it here and make it more explicit,
33:45
but then very intentionally kind of wrap it up as well.
33:48
So instead of thinking like, I'll hit this concept, then this one,
33:50
then this one, then this one, more like, here's all of them up front.
33:54
I want you to see where they kind of poke
33:56
their heads up throughout this whole curriculum.
33:57
And then we're going to come back and look at the whole thing together.
34:00
At the end of it.
34:00
I think that's a good way to make it more,
34:02
as you say, or explicit, more visible for the young people as well.
34:05
Yeah, absolutely.
34:06
The idea of, making it kind of part of their routines, and structures,
34:11
so having kind of those things in the initial planning and set up, but
34:15
then also having points where it's like, okay, let's make this really obvious.
34:20
Okay. So,
34:22
tie it into the things that you would already do
34:24
if you were teaching the subject.
34:25
So, things like retrieval practice, okay.
34:29
All of your retrieval things,
34:30
you might usually do cancel and suddenly be linked to key concepts.
34:34
So whether it be.
34:36
Okay, we've just finished the lesson at the end, I might say,
34:39
how does this concept of change, help us evaluate that study we've just looked at?
34:44
Okay.
34:45
Which concept, helps explain the limitation of the method.
34:49
Okay.
34:49
And like you, it could be at the start,
34:51
the lesson, end of the lesson, but just kind of that regularity of
34:55
it just becomes part of our language and vocabulary in the subject.
35:00
And so things like,
35:02
I'm a big fan of when we come to do like retrieval based things, of having things
35:06
on big A3 sheets and then wander around the room, and rotate,
35:10
and so whenever you just on a theory, it could be all right.
35:15
Everyone's got different concepts.
35:17
I'm going to give you three minutes.
35:19
How does this link, to the concept. Okay.
35:22
And then have them rotate around the classroom,
35:25
and then having them then go back and write
35:27
which one actually has the greatest link to what you've just taught.
35:31
And it's that way of kind of building their confidence
35:34
before you then able to go, all right, actually, that links to paper
35:38
one because, okay, this links to Pep two because
35:42
and just been that bit more explicit.
35:45
No, I think that makes a lot of sense as you've been obviously
35:48
to work in progress, but figuring out,
35:50
how you'll be teaching next year with the new syllabus
35:52
and kind of going through this, we always we talked about the concepts.
35:56
We talked about the practicals.
35:58
Is there anything else that you feel like is a really big shift in your ways
36:02
of teaching?
36:03
Anything else?
36:05
I think the concepts definitely are a big shift.
36:10
And just because it's something that is a bit new,
36:12
like I've not worked in a school where I've done concept based learning.
36:16
And so it's about thinking for me
36:19
about how I can adapt some of my practice and things I already do.
36:22
So things like the Four Corners debate,
36:26
at the end of a lesson like,
36:29
like just having a quick pose of like which
36:32
concept links the most to what we've done today.
36:34
Okay.
36:35
On this topic, having students go to the different areas of the room
36:38
with that key concept, come back into the middle, and debate,
36:43
and then see if they can influence and change each other's mind.
36:47
So I think the ideas can be quite key is just the things I already do.
36:51
But then how do I make this more linked to the idea of concepts as well?
36:55
And, the other idea I had, recently was about
36:59
maybe having student concept experts in a lesson.
37:03
So you might assign like, a number of different students
37:07
in the lesson to be, the key concept expert in that lesson.
37:12
At various points, they have to note down whenever we do something
37:15
that relates to that concept.
37:17
And then at the end we share the examples and like, collate
37:20
those examples together.
37:22
And so just
37:23
thinking of this thing already engaging things that we do
37:26
in the classroom, how do we just make it so it's linked to those conceptual areas.
37:32
And then how does this relate into like the class practicals.
37:35
How do you see,
37:36
you know,
37:37
the practical, as you mentioned, the kind of the four main sort of ways
37:40
that they can build up the skills throughout the whole course.
37:41
How do you see these all kind of coming together
37:44
nicely to create a good experience for the students.
37:47
Yeah.
37:48
So I in the last kind of like month
37:52
or so, had a big revelation.
37:56
It was one of those moments you know,
37:58
you wake up in the middle of the night and it's it was about school and you go,
38:01
oh my gosh. Yeah.
38:03
Yeah. I'm too much of a game.
38:05
Am I actually going to wake up and find a pen and write this down?
38:08
Or am I just going to try to go back to sleep?
38:10
I went with try and go about sleep.
38:12
Yeah, I do that too most of the time.
38:14
Never mind. I'll remember.
38:16
I'll remember.
38:16
It's fine.
38:18
And then sometimes you don't, you know, like, I'm sure I had a good idea.
38:21
I had a great idea. Yeah.
38:24
But, yeah, I suddenly had this great idea, and I was like, oh, my gosh.
38:27
Like, I'd been looking at it around kind of.
38:30
It's all about the concepts and the three C's
38:33
of trying to get everything to kind of map in.
38:37
And then I was like, wait, the class practicals are literally
38:41
at the heart of all of this.
38:44
And so it's that idea of like, they've got
38:46
they're going to have these fall, class practicals in the different contexts.
38:51
But actually there's a really streamlined way that you could do this.
38:56
And so when I first saw it, I was like, oh my gosh, class practicals
39:01
where we're going to have the time to do all of these.
39:04
And then I was like, wait, it doesn't always need to be.
39:08
You go off and design year round one.
39:09
Sometimes it might be okay as a class where you go to all do the same class
39:14
practical in groups.
39:16
I would like you to do this class practical and having kind of like
39:19
the diversity in really thinking about actually how maybe you might scaffold it
39:24
up towards the IA in particular.
39:28
But also the link between class practicals.
39:31
What you need is paper two, the HL content for paper three and then the IA.
39:37
And so there is a resource that I'm, working on with Harpercollins
39:40
at the moment, which is very much focused around research methods
39:44
and how you can teach the class practicals,
39:48
have a planning sheet that students have to do
39:51
and then a recording sheet, for each practical
39:54
where the recording sheet explicitly links to all of the paper 1A, 1B, 1C.
39:59
Because if you think on that, you're going to have a question
40:03
about, the idea of which two concepts does this relate to and how.
40:09
And so the initial like planning of it
40:12
and getting the approval from the teacher, then the recording of it.
40:15
So you've got that record and if as a teacher or encourage students
40:19
to do that well, they've got their ready made answers almost for that area.
40:25
Because they've got that understanding of, well,
40:27
how to compare contrast it, how that worked in my study.
40:32
And then HL students using the class practicals
40:36
to very much do a lot more of the data analysis and interpretation
40:41
around what, has been covered in the SL lessons.
40:44
And then by the time you actually get to the IA,
40:47
all the IA is just another practice proposal.
40:52
And the students at that point should have the confidence,
40:55
to be able to actually do that
40:57
IA in a confident way.
41:00
And so I think the class practicals, are a great, great
41:05
introduction into, the curriculum and this idea of actually,
41:10
they're a way of teaching research methods in a way
41:13
that's not going to be as rote, as previous times.
41:16
But it's also, developing their understanding
41:20
of applications to be actual psychologists as well.
41:23
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're saying
41:24
like the practicals are actually what can really drive the curriculum.
41:28
Like, if you frame it around the practicals each time,
41:31
then the curriculum is naturally going to come through that.
41:33
Did I hear that correctly?
41:34
Yeah, absolutely.
41:35
And, thinking about kind of structuring the course as well, it would make sense
41:40
that learning and cognition is definitely taught in the first year
41:45
of the course, if it's a school where they do,
41:48
the IB of two years, it definitely makes sense
41:51
that they'd probably do that in the first year, because realistically,
41:56
a lot of students will probably choose an experiment as IA proposal.
42:00
And so it's the idea that you also don't
42:03
have to have your class practicals always at the end of the unit.
42:07
You can have them at the beginning.
42:08
So you could, for example, do
42:11
two of the contexts, and then you could be starting the third context.
42:16
But do your course practical at the beginning and then do the IA.
42:20
And then all the students have actually done three out of the four
42:24
plus practicals by the time they do their IA.
42:27
And so it's a way of actual in-class
42:29
practical can really fit into everything else.
42:32
That's happening.
42:34
And the HL students in particular
42:37
as well, getting that experience of data analysis and interpretation.
42:41
Sounds super effective and actually really aligned
42:44
with like the idea of applying the knowledge
42:46
and getting that practice of it throughout the whole course,
42:48
as well as them when they get the chance to be assessed on it too.
42:51
Yeah. No.
42:52
So that was my little brain wave
42:53
I had, and so that should be out for the start of, the teaching year for everybody.
42:59
It's the goal.
43:03
In our kind
43:04
of last segment of questions, we always like to make sure
43:07
that we have time to be giving advice to the teachers who are listening,
43:11
who are also in that work in progress stage of figuring out
43:14
what they're going to start doing, come the new school year.
43:18
And I was wondering if, as you were, because obviously you have thought
43:22
about this syllabus probably a lot more than most people working on it.
43:27
For the Kognity resources, do you have any specific advice
43:31
on any kind of guidance for prepping for the beginning of the school year?
43:35
Anything to build confidence for teachers, whether they're new or veteran?
43:39
You're still dealing with a new syllabus.
43:41
Anything you'd like to share?
43:43
Absolutely. Yeah, I'd say so.
43:45
The first thing like you say is that everybody's starting different places,
43:50
but also there's a huge community of people who do IB psychology.
43:55
And so that's the number one thing I would say is that you do have
43:59
that support network around you.
44:02
So you're not
44:03
going to need a perfect curriculum on day one, okay?
44:06
Because you don't need to know that lessons already made,
44:11
for example.
44:12
And so it's you have that network of people,
44:15
whether it be, the Facebook community, that's quite active.
44:20
There's a number of different ones of them.
44:22
Okay.
44:23
All the online IB forums as well, where you can get feedback and,
44:28
ask experienced colleagues or you've probably got
44:31
some network in your local community as well.
44:34
But I would say the best place to get started,
44:38
is to really think about, mapping out the learning outcomes
44:42
and then seeing at what point
44:46
you're going to feed in the content at the approaches,
44:51
into the context, and just having a double checking of like,
44:55
this master kind of document that you really have everything.
44:59
Because I think that's the bit
45:00
that's the most daunting is that, oh gosh, what if I miss something?
45:04
Okay.
45:06
The other thing I would say is to make some of the decisions early.
45:09
So, there is a lot more
45:12
in this current curriculum that we're going to be doing.
45:15
That wasn't in that fall.
45:16
So as I said previously, I've not done human development.
45:19
That's exciting.
45:20
I've not done human relationships. Okay.
45:24
But there's also a lot of
45:26
flexibility, like, so you can choose, for example,
45:30
which disorder you're going to be focusing on, which health problem,
45:34
in health and wellbeing in terms of cognition,
45:36
what type of cognition you can be focusing on.
45:39
And so making some of those decisions will really help you in understanding and
45:43
breaking down, some of the requirements, for their curriculum as well.
45:48
Obviously engage in some IB training and, look at the resources,
45:53
if you haven't already, the teacher support materials, are now on, IB as well.
45:59
And so always getting a bit of that kind of training,
46:02
it can be really useful as well.
46:03
And getting those textbooks in obviously you've got Kognity,
46:07
which is an incredible resource.
46:11
But making sure you've got kind of a few different things
46:13
that you can, like lean on, as well.
46:17
And as I mentioned, yeah,
46:19
it's a daunting process, but it's one that everyone else is in the same boat,
46:24
as well.
46:26
Yeah.
46:26
I love that you've commented on that.
46:27
Just this idea of like, don't worry
46:29
if you don't have it all figured out right away.
46:31
You got some people that are there, you got some good resources.
46:34
And I kind of I bring it back to, you know, the top of that,
46:36
when we started here, we were like, so why psychology?
46:38
What's kind of like what makes this course unique?
46:40
Why is it special?
46:41
Are there maybe things that every psychology teacher
46:45
should just kind of have in their head as they're planning out the curriculum?
46:48
I mean, of course it's like, I don't want to miss something.
46:50
I want to make sure I cover everything.
46:52
But how do we make sure
46:53
that the intent of the new psychology course are going to come out?
46:57
Is it as easy as just following what's in the curriculum,
46:59
or do you feel like there's something
47:00
that we've got to always have in our mind as we go to prepare the class?
47:03
So I would say, yeah, having that shift in,
47:07
like mentality of it's that now a concept based, curriculum,
47:11
I think it's really can be helpful because that is one of the big intentions
47:15
of the curriculum.
47:17
The other, I would
47:17
say that a lot of teachers, at the moment are a bit like, hm, interesting
47:22
is the HL lessons, and the amount of hours for HL.
47:26
So there's, I think it's an additional 90 hours,
47:31
that are going to be in the curriculum, which
47:33
when you compare that to the amount of content,
47:37
it seems quite a lot of hours to spend on.
47:40
And, the only assessed part for HL is going to be
47:44
that data analysis, interpretation paper three, which
47:48
nobody wants to be spending 90 hours doing data analysis and interpretation.
47:53
Oh hold on, I do.
47:55
I'm fine with that.
47:56
We can do 90 hours of data analysis. All right.
47:58
Some people do.
48:01
Some odd people like you, John.
48:03
Yeah,
48:05
yeah.
48:05
Sorry, John.
48:06
Not everyone's like you.
48:09
And only if they were right.
48:10
Can we talk about.
48:11
No, I'm just kidding. Yeah.
48:14
But the other part
48:16
is that you're meant to be teaching the HL extension.
48:19
So the motivation, culture, technology.
48:23
But you don't actually have to map it to each context.
48:26
It just has to be
48:27
that they're familiar with exploring those topics to look at behavior.
48:31
And so I think that's where
48:32
when we're thinking about like the intentions of restructuring
48:35
this course, that's one of the things to be mindful of, is
48:39
with that HL time, it's a great way to do a bit
48:43
extra data analysis interpretation using SL content.
48:46
It's a great time
48:47
maybe if you want them to go off and do a little bit more research,
48:51
and do that data analysis as well.
48:53
But also it's great as a kind of inquiry area.
48:56
okay,
48:58
to really
48:59
promote that idea of international mindedness, okay.
49:02
Thinking about motivation and culture and technology.
49:05
Gosh, there's loads of really cool inquiry
49:08
that we could now then have students going off and doing.
49:12
And I think having that variety of both will mean that it becomes
49:16
a really engaging part of the courses that the HL areas.
49:19
Yeah. Great.
49:21
That sounds super cool.
49:22
And you know what I've loved about this conversation so far, Rachael, is actually
49:25
you've got me pretty excited about what the new course is bringing.
49:28
You know, I think it's what you've mentioned with regard to
49:31
pulling away from content, getting into the concepts and especially
49:34
using things like the class practicals to really drive a lot of what we can do.
49:38
Hopefully that's making any, you know, psychology teacher who's
49:41
maybe like having to restructure or think about how to deliver the new course.
49:44
Hopefully this is making them feel a little bit more excited
49:46
about the possibilities that are there with class practicals and the concepts
49:50
in the context to make it, you know, a far more engaging, realistic
49:54
look at what psychology is as opposed to kind of memorizing specific content.
49:58
Yeah, absolutely. And the,
50:02
the one of the health behaviors added is social media addiction.
50:05
And I'm like, oh my gosh, that was great for students to go to.
50:10
Like, absolutely.
50:12
So I think there's so many things that have been brought into this that make it,
50:16
just great opportunities to engage students
50:18
in some fantastic debates about society.
50:22
And that's actually just what psychology is,
50:24
having them have that critical view of what's happening around them.
50:29
And so, yeah, there's a lot of fantastic changes happening.
50:32
Great.
50:33
Rachael, thank you so much for this conversation.
50:35
It's been so enjoyable to hear you talk about
50:38
what you're excited about teaching in your class next year,
50:40
and kind of the some of the reflections that you've had so far.
50:43
So I really appreciate you coming and talking with us today.
50:46
Thank you very much for having me, and for geeking out about,
50:50
the best subject in the world.
50:51
It is a great subject, I'll give you that.
50:54
It's great.
50:54
Best subject? Hm. No, I’m just kidding.
50:57
Rachael, this has been really great. Thanks so much.
50:59
Thank you so much.
51:00
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51:04
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51:07
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