Latest / IB Unplugged / The Power of Enquiry Upon Results: Turning IB Data into Dialogue w/ Jen Olmsted

Transcript

The Power of Enquiry Upon Results: Turning IB Data into Dialogue w/ Jen Olmsted · 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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Hello and welcome to IB Unplugged.
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I'm John Patton and I'm Courtney Marline, and today
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we had the pleasure of getting to speak with Jen Olmsted.
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Jen is the former head of school at the Singapore School
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in Jakarta, Indonesia and principal at ICS Paris.
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She has over 30 years experience as a school leader and teacher.
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She has led both teacher
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and leadership workshops, and is committed to developing educators
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to reach their greatest potential and foster positive school culture.
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Jen has worked in a range of international schools, from Hong Kong
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to Switzerland, and appreciates diverse school communities.
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And the conversation with Jen was incredible.
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What you're about to hear is really quite
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useful, regardless of where you might sit within your school structure.
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If you're a school leader, there's a lot in this for you.
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If you are a teacher in your school, there's a whole lot here for you as well.
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Plenty to take away.
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Yeah, I think that with Jen, we really appreciated that
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she was talking about the inquiry upon results.
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Of course, that's the topic of this episode,
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but she really dove into not just the idea of what this does for the students,
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but really how this can be a professional learning opportunity.
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And she really talked about how these are so powerful for her teams
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to be able to improve their teaching for the next year,
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and really be able to use those results to improve and kind of work as a group
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and work as a community and the teachers and really help each other get better.
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Yeah.
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I mean, I have to say, I was actually kind of surprised because,
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you know, we started talking about like leadership.
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And I was like, oh, there's so many different ways
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we can talk about leadership in schools.
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And you know, Jen really focused on the Enquiry Upon Results
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process that you use with the IB and specifically results coming in.
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And as a IBDP coordinator myself,
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sometimes I found those EURs to not be so helpful.
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You know, sometimes
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you just get like a blank set of results or sometimes just tick marks.
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And so for me, it was really enlightening to speak with her and find out,
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like, here's a specific strategy for how you can use this.
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Shifting that teacher mindset of like, I'm going to be a learner now and understand
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more about my results, how my students did,
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and how I can actually enact positive change in the classroom, ultimately
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leading to better results, ultimately leading to better skill development.
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So it was really very useful to talk with her and see, like
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there's some key strategies we can be implementing right away.
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Yeah, definitely.
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And I think that she gave a lot of really nice ways to get started with that.
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A few ideas of how to change things both as a teacher and a leader.
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So yeah, I hope you're going to enjoy this episode because I definitely did.
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On with the show.
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Hello, Jen. Welcome to the show.
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Hi. It's great to be here.
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We're so glad you're here.
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As I've said, I've been looking forward to this conversation for quite a while,
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and really glad that we're going to get into all sorts of stuff.
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Leadership related.
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Talking about the IBDP, talking about how we can use EURs to improve our practice.
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So I'm really looking forward to this conversation quite a bit.
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We'd like to start off each of our episodes
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with a couple of warm up questions.
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Don't feel like you have to give us the full, like, the full monty of the
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answer here, but rather just kind of a brief synopsis, if you will.
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So the first question, why education?
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I think we're so lucky as educators, and I'm sure you feel the same way, John,
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because we get to shape students.
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We get to define our future.
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We get to shape what our students think and about what they're going to do,
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what they're going to achieve.
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And it's a really powerful thing.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, it's a quite a bit of responsibility there too.
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And how do you see the role of the educators really evolving
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in the next decade?
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I think that's such an interesting question.
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And I think we got a little bit of a taste of the future with Covid.
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And I remember with Covid, all of a sudden we were all grappling.
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We all had to teach remotely, and all of a sudden we're using
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all of these new technologies and new teaching strategies.
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And it was really hard.
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And I think, one of the things that came out about that
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is how important a school community is: being in the classroom,
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being with students, being with kids.
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I think Covid proved
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we're not going to be replaced by robots very soon.
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And I think the future of education
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is going to be about how we use technology.
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It can't replace what we're doing.
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It's got to transform.
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It's got to enhance what we're doing.
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And I think that technology that's very interactive,
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I think that's got to be our future.
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Nice.
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So kind of learning how we can still maintain
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that role of the mentor in the classroom and be,
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you know, that really close relationship with the students, but also kind of moving
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forward with the times and recognizing the tools that we have access to.
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Absolutely.
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So if I understand it correctly, you know, you've built up a a massive,
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a really great career, basically, and especially within leadership itself.
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Now as a school principal, am I assuming correctly,
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that you're no longer in the classroom as a school principal?
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I miss it very much.
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I know, right?
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So what do you..
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Well, I guess what would be some of the key
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things you really miss about being in the classroom?
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What I really miss is actually knowing what is going on in a school,
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because the core business of the school
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is actually teaching and learning, and that's what teachers do.
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So teachers are actually the experts of what's happening in the school.
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And so that's something that is really, really important.
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And I try as often as I can to take a listen.
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If the economics teacher is away, for instance, I'm in there,
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just to keep in touch about
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actually what's going on.
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I think sometimes as school administrators, we get a little bit
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separated from the reality of what's happening in classrooms.
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And teachers are the experts,
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essentially, in a school.
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It's so interesting to hear you say that,
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because I think oftentimes teachers might say like, oh,
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I don't really have a lot of control of what happens here in the school, right?
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You know, feel like I've got control over my classroom
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and I'm right here, but it feels like the bigger decisions
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and that sort of stuff are kind of outside of my control.
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So it's interesting to hear, like yourself as a school leader saying, well,
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so much of this is like right in the classroom.
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What I, you know, take from that is like, we are all the school.
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And I think so often you'll hear people talk about it like it's some separate thing,
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you know, like, well, the school needs to make better decisions about this.
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But as soon as we kind of embrace the idea that, like, we like,
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we make better decisions about this sort of stuff, I am an owner of this as well.
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Then that can really make some more,
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some more positive change because as you say, like we're all part of it, right?
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And I think the best school decisions are made with teacher input.
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Absolutely.
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Because otherwise
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we don't necessarily see the consequences of what we're going to do.
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And I’m going to give an example.
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So I had this great idea: I want to introduce Kognity coaching.
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I got the committee together.
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This is cognitive coaching. What do you think?
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And this teacher said to me, you know I love it.
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It's a great idea, but we are in the middle of an MYP accreditation.
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We are grappling with personal projects, interdisciplinary projects,
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the personal project, you name it, though, grappling with it,
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writing plan is teaching through inquiry, this huge change.
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And I thought to myself I'm crazy.
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What am I doing?
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This is not a good time.
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It's not going to be successful.
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But it's interesting you bring that up because obviously
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I think we would always get caught up in like the practical day to day.
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Right? And there is the practical day to day.
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There's the personal projects.
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There's the community service projects in the MYP.
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There's all the DP stuff that kind of comes in with it as well.
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So, I think that's always going to be there.
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And I guess I'd,
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you know, we're going to be talking a little bit about leadership here.
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So when you talk about like leading in the school,
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something like cognitive coaching can be extremely powerful.
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Like everybody who takes on that coaching approach,
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it makes a difference in their relationships
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with their colleagues, makes a difference
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in their relationships with their students,
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it changes the way they teach.
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So how do you kind of like navigate the philosophy?
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Like if we embed this, it will make a big difference to everything else
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while also recognizing, yeah, I know we got stuff to do,
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but that's always going to be there.
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And if we don't do this important thing, then
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we're not going to see a massive change that we want to see.
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Right. Maybe not in a MYP accreditation period, but I can't imagine there's
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ever a time where the teachers are like, you know, yeah, I've got nothing to do.
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Yeah, let's let's do that.
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I think that listening to teachers is a really, really important part
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of being a leader, because you can't lead people who don't want to follow you.
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And so you need to build that trust and you need to build that relationship.
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I think that often in schools,
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there's too much change, change for change sake.
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And I think that..
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I think that leaders really need to keep in touch with their teachers
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to understand when they can push, when they need to say,
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okay, we're going to slow down, we're going to support you through this.
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And I think that change that is planned
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and well thought out is much more likely to be successful.
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And I think that,
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sometimes schools make a mistake. Have this great idea,
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a new administrator comes in, that got this great initiative.
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And then when that
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administrator leaves the the initiative disappears.
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Right.
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And I think that happens
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because implementation is the most difficult part of change.
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Getting people on board, getting people excited about moving forward
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and what it can look like.
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So yeah, I think that there has to be this,
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symbiotic relationship between school leaders and teachers.
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And I got to say I really believe they are the experts in the school,
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they are the ones that really know what's going on.
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So you've got to empathize with, like,
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what's going on in that particular time frame.
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So like okay, if you want to bring in some good change,
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you want to try something new in the school,
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like don't do it during IA season or exams or something like this.
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It's basically like if it doesn't happen before Christmas, like it's not happening.
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Right?
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Yeah. And I think too, you need to have like a 2 or 3 year plan, right?
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Like, you can't start a new school and think,
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oh, I'm going to start cognitive coaching next week.
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It's just not going to work.
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And I think that schools don't really..
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I think schools do have long term strategic plans,
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but I think that sometimes they see like a shining object on the beach,
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or we want to do this and we want to try and force this into the strategic plan.
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And I really think that good change
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is really well planned change.
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Yeah.
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And I think like taking the time with it, for me in my role
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when I understood
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like if I want to make some sort of change here, you really have to,
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as you say, plan it. But expect we would say
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3 to 5 years before it's like fully bought up and embedded.
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And I think even just that mindset shift,
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like I'm an achiever, I got to get stuff done.
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And I really want to like push through things all the time.
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And just that sort of mindset shift, this is going to take some time,
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so be intentional about it.
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Really like walk it through.
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I think made a big difference to the way
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that we approach, like all of our big projects.
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And it also made us
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a little bit more discerning about like, which project to do when.
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Which projects to when.
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I love that.
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I love that. Yeah.
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That's a really good one.
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John, have you put something in place in your school
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that's been really exciting?
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Well, I mean, it's interesting that you bring up the coaching aspect.
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It's something that, like we brought up sort of the idea of cognitive coaching
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about a year and a half ago within our extended SLT.
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And that was basically like, you know, working through
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some different coaching ideas, kind of working with coaching concepts.
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And now it's just like we're starting to roll out a little bit more into other
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members of staff and trying to, you know, get more people trained up in this idea.
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So it's interesting you brought that up right away
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because I was like, that's exactly what we're doing here.
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Because again, you see, it is such a powerful tool
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that enhances everything or every single thing you do.
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But yeah, it's again that project of like, we just need to take some time on this
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and recognize everybody is already kind of idling at 80.
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You know, like, we've already got a lot going on.
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So just like little bits, let's just a little bit drip this every so often.
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Remind people about it and then take the time that it needs.
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I think cognitive coaching is a really good example of something
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that needs time, because the training is the most important part.
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It's a really, really difficult skill, and it also requires
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a lot of trust because you're inviting other teachers into your classroom.
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They're going to critique you.. That's difficult in some schools
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to be able to create that culture of openness, of reflection,
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of tell me what you think, even if it's, you know,
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even if I don't necessarily want to hear it.
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And I love the fact that you're talking about taking years
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to develop cognitive coaching, because it's this whole new
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it really is a whole new school culture that you've got to envelop.
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I think that it's really interesting when you talk about that,
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because you've gone in two different directions
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when you were joining as a leader, and you started as a teacher
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and then kind of moved your way up and that you really already have the trust
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by in at the school,
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because you already know everybody and they have kind of senior progression.
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So they are hopefully and I'm assuming yes cheering for you
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as you kind of move up into this leadership position.
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But then for example, in other schools you've kind of just come in as none of
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you know me, but now I'm principal or now I'm the head of the school.
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And how have you treated that differently?
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I think that there's an advantage when you come in as a teacher,
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and then you move up, you understand the school culture.
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So, you understand what are the sacred cows.
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You understand that when you get into a staff meeting,
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what you can say in order to persuade people. You already know
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the skill set of the people around you, and you already know how to leverage that.
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So there's a lot of advantages.
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But then on the other hand, when you've being a teacher there,
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people kind of think, well, how are you an expert?
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How do you know anything about cognitive coaching, or whatever it is.
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So that's a challenge.
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So I think when you come in as principal, you come in as head of school.
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All of the people don't know who you are.
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You're a mystery.
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And yet you can come in looking like the expert.
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Fantastic. Yeah.
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And then, you know, put your foot in it on the first day or something like that.
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Sure.
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But I would imagine, like in that situation,
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you really have to kind of check yourself as that leader being like,
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I don't want to just come in and like reframe things immediately.
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I got to kind of get a lay of the land and figure things out first before I
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really start to bring out my initiatives of the things that I want to do.
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And I would guess there's probably got to be pressure from,
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for example, your board of directors or whoever is kind of like, yeah,
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we brought you here because we want to see some things,
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like how do you navigate that idea of, I want to push,
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I want to get some new stuff going on here,
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but I need to figure out what's going on on the ground.
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Like, it seems like a real tricky thing.
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Yeah, that's a great question.
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And this is my advice to any new administrator walking into a school,
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whether you're vice principal or principal or head of school
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or whatever, is to start with, an appreciative inquiry
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is to go around and search in the school
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for all the strengths, to search for the strengths
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of teachers, the strengths of systems, of operations, of HR,
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all those things.
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And then present that, present that to the board.
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This is who we are.
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This is what we're really great at.
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Present it to the teachers.
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To the parents.
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And then you get everybody on board, and then you use those strengths
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in order to be able to move the school forward.
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So you're saying
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this is a great school.
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I'm so glad to be here.
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This is all the reasons why, this is what I've uncovered about why
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this is the best school that, you know, I could possibly be in.
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And we're going to use those strengths.
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We're going to use all the things that we're really, really good at
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in order to move in this direction and then move forward with your strategic plan.
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Because you find out a lot about the school,
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you find out the strengths of the school,
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and you develop that relationship, that trust as well.
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So yeah, that would be my advice.
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That sort of that strengthening strengths concept.
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I mean, we see it in like triathlon athletes.
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We see it in all sorts of athletes.
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So it was just like, yeah, take that thing you're already doing relatively well
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and let's work on that quite a bit.
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And that doesn't mean like,
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oh, we're just going to completely ignore all the other gaps.
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But it just means
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like let's focus on this set for doing well for a little bit,
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and then other things will be able to kind of fill in the gaps there too.
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Well, usually skills to improve the things you're not very good at.
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Yeah, yeah.
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This episode's KogTip is
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submitted by Claudia Gonima from the Colegio Colombo Britanico.
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Claudia says: I love that I can ask my students to read in advance,
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and therefore have questions and they are ready to do activities
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in class regarding their readings.
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It helps me make the most out of the time I have for more collaboration.
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Thanks, Claudia.
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I think we're warmed up.
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Let's go into EURs.
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Yeah, that was a short warm up round.
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I think we're all good.
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No, this is fantastic.
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I'm so happy to have you here.
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And I think that you've done quite a few leadership sessions with us in the past.
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And I know that what we've gotten some feedback on in
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the past is you've had this great way of making it feel very,
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a practical approach, a very like, pragmatic way of leading,
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but also with a lot of heart and a lot of care.
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And I think that comes through, whenever you're talking about leadership.
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So I think we could do this all day.
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But we're not going to. We're going to jump into EURs.
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And so I want to get started
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by just giving a bit of a brief overview for maybe
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schools and teachers that haven't been working with this as much.
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Or maybe it's not really
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deliberate policy that they've set in their school, a bit one off.
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If you could give a bit of an overview of them in the different categories.
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Yeah.
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So you can use EURs in two ways.
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So first of all, when you get your IB results, you might
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see that a certain student is within 1 or 2 marks of a great boundary.
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If only they had 1 or 2 more marks they could move into the next grade.
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How fantastic.
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And what you can do is that you can talk to the parents
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and you can suggest that they get the IB paper remarked
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in EUR inquiry upon results.
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The second way in which a school can use
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EURs, and I'm interested, John, as the DP coordinator,
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I wonder if you do this at your school, actually,
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is that, you can actually buy back your exam papers from the IB,
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and what you can do is you can give those to teachers
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to help them improve their teaching and learning.
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And I think that is a really, really powerful way
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to improve teaching and learning.
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So this is what I suggest is that, if you're a teacher,
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if you're an economics teacher or a chemistry teacher,
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you look at your IB results and your IB results
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broken down according to components: paper one, paper two, paper three,
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the internal assessment. What you can do is
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you can have a look at your components and you can look at the weakest one.
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What was the weakest one?
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And then you can go to your IB coordinator in around August or September
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and say, can you please buy
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the EURs, the exam papers for paper to chemistry.
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And then what you can do
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is that you can go to your teaching team and you can say, we've got the papers.
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And so the papers that you get are graded and it's got the examiners comments.
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And I've had a lot of people say, well,
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I don't find the examiners comments particularly useful.
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And I hear that. Yeah, this is where I want to get into this
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with you as well.
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I just yeah, sometimes we'll get those papers back as well and we'll take a look.
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Now I'm also an examiner for the IB, for biology,
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and so I know like from the examiner side it's like put the tick marks where they
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are like associated with the mark scheme adding commentary if necessary.
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But you're not obligated to.
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And just sort of recognize that everything
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that you're putting on that paper can be viewed by the school.
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And then like when we pull those in and we take a look at them,
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sometimes you just see the tick marks and you don't even know,
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like where in the marks scheme does this relate to.
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So I'm interested to know like what are some of the better ways
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you can pull out usefulness from, for example, buying back the papers?
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That's a great question.
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So if you have a look at my slides, I'll give you an example.
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So let's say that, extended essays.
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So let's say that you buy back your extended essays
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and you have a look at your component grades.
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And so if you can see from the slide, you can see that
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there's a student that got almost full marks,
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and then the whole range right down to the bottom.
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So what you could do is in your team say, okay, we're going to look at criteria A.
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Examiner hasn't written marks that are particularly useful.
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Often as an examiner, what you do is you explain
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why something is in a mark scheme, why something is in a mock band,
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and you don't explain how the student can improve.
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And I think that's why as teachers, we feel a little bit frustrated.
21:28
But what it does tell you is what mark the kid got. So if you have a look
21:32
at the next slide, it talks about, what you could actually look for.
21:36
So I say you get to look at criteria A.
21:39
So what you're going to do is you're going to go through the mark band
21:43
and you're going to look at exactly what the student needed to do.
21:48
So I have a look for the purpose. Right?
21:51
How did the student demonstrate
21:52
their purpose and have a look at the kid that got the top mark.
21:56
So what you do is you go through the mark band
21:59
and you actually look for annotate the paper,
22:03
look for where the kid managed to state their purpose,
22:10
Yeah, what they're doing. You can see on the slide.
22:13
Yeah.
22:13
Well, I can see where this would work really well with, I think
22:16
especially like an extended essay
22:17
or the IAs, for example, you know, because you've got a little bit
22:20
more control as a teacher and you say, okay, here
22:22
the criteria that we're trying to assess, I need to know these things.
22:25
So you kind of know a little bit more.
22:26
It's like you don't really need to mark instructions because you were
22:29
given the criteria, so you could kind of work through it,
22:31
kind of backward in that respect.
22:33
Yeah, absolutely.
22:35
But you could do it with exam papers as well.
22:37
So for instance, in economics, I would definitely choose paper two.
22:41
I think that's the most challenging paper.
22:43
And paper two is broken up into different parts.
22:46
So part A is always definitions.
22:48
So what you do is you take all your exam papers
22:51
and you look at all the definitions from every kid.
22:53
Why did this kid get two? Why did this kid get one?
22:55
Why did this kid get zero? And understand exactly what the examiner is looking for.
23:01
And then have a look at the diagram question.
23:02
Have a look at the diagram question for every single kid.
23:06
Why did this kid get four marks?
23:08
Why this kid get two marks? And so on.
23:12
And what we've got is generalized mark band.
23:15
So it might not necessarily have the mark scheme, but we do have the mark band.
23:19
So we can actually have a look.
23:21
And this is what I suggest is that when you're able to actually
23:25
have a look at the student work and analyze
23:29
what does it look like to get full marks on this question,
23:35
and then go down the line and have a look at kids as they, you know,
23:39
as it desembles down into lower marks.
23:42
And then have that conversation.
23:44
What could this kid have done in order to improve?
23:48
How could we have moved this kid from five out of six on criteria A four
23:54
extend this out to six out of six.
23:56
And from that with your colleagues, talk about some different
24:00
teaching strategies that you could use in order to get there.
24:06
And I think that's a really powerful way because often
24:10
we focus on our teaching, we focus on what we're saying
24:13
in the classroom, how we explain something in the classroom.
24:17
And I think when we start by looking at the exam papers,
24:21
we're doing the exact opposite.
24:23
We're actually looking at student learning,
24:26
and we're saying, what's the outcome of all that teaching?
24:30
This is what we've created.
24:31
This is the learning.
24:33
And being able to look at all those exam papers
24:37
and comparing it to the the the criteria is a really powerful way
24:43
to understand how to help students improve.
24:48
I love it. I'm just sort of chuckling a little bit inside
24:50
because it's like as a teacher, sometimes you give the exams back to your students
24:54
and they just look at the results and they're like,
24:55
they throw it away and you're like, no, no, no,
24:57
take some time and learn from it and all this stuff.
24:59
And effectively what you just said is the same thing for teachers, right?
25:01
Like, sometimes we'll get the results back
25:03
and so often you'll hear like the immediate response
25:05
being like, well, I don't understand why they marked us down.
25:07
They were just really unfair this year.
25:09
And then that's kind of it.
25:10
And what I love what you're saying here is like,
25:12
invest the time to go through it and like what you just described,
25:16
like that's going to be a big amount of time, but you can see the learning
25:19
that's going to come from that and the ways that teaching can shift,
25:22
once you've taken the time to I'm going to look through this paper,
25:25
I'm going to compare it to the mark band,
25:26
I am going to take the time to really find out where those marks were associated.
25:31
So what I'm hearing is
25:33
like some time in that like October time or something like this,
25:37
when those come back, really take the time to reinvest in that cohort
25:40
and understand a little bit more about what went well, what didn't work so well.
25:45
And I think for many people,
25:46
like depending on the process of where they are
25:48
and their IAs, for example, or their exam prep,
25:50
they might think, oh, but this, you know, I've already done this, I can do this.
25:53
But it's like that continual process is going to benefit so many other students
25:57
down the road, right?
25:58
Absolutely.
25:59
And I think as teachers, we want to teach more effectively.
26:02
We want our kids to do well in the exam.
26:05
And if we can find a strategy to improve our exam
26:09
scores, I think that's something that we're all really excited about.
26:12
Yeah.
26:13
And I love the idea of also having the examples
26:16
that are from your own students, as opposed to just looking at
26:19
the ones that the IB gives everybody.
26:21
It's like then you actually have a bit more context and you understand
26:25
probably where the student was coming from when they wrote it
26:28
because you're like, yeah, I remember you.
26:29
You thought that way. That makes sense.
26:32
And so you can have definitely a stronger
26:35
learning of what you could do differently going forward.
26:39
So I do like that.
26:39
And I think that probably, you guys would know much better than me,
26:43
but usually when you're thinking about sending these papers
26:46
and you're thinking about the students of those actual papers,
26:51
not the future students, and really using that as professional
26:55
learning for your teachers, I think that's fantastic.
26:57
Do you do that in a standardized way, or is it a bit more teacher
27:03
initiated for you?
27:04
One thing that stuck with me, from what you just said, Courtney, is like,
27:07
you have to have a positionality of being a learner, like as a teacher
27:10
and I think so often, like, you care a ton about your kids.
27:13
And so therefore you mark it a certain way and you're like,
27:17
they have earned all this stuff. I watched this process.
27:20
I watched them grow through this. So like, they should get this mark.
27:22
And then when it comes back and it's been moderated down, you get defensive.
27:26
It's like there's a part it's not just you and your marking.
27:29
It's like, but you don't understand this person and what they've gone through.
27:32
And so, you know, when I read workshops on IA, for example,
27:36
I have teachers coming into these workshops just angry,
27:39
like they're just mad, you know?
27:42
And I get it, like, I've been in the same shoes,
27:44
because you care so much about the kids, you want them to do well,
27:48
so it's like you need justification.
27:50
What happened here.
27:51
But really what you're suggesting, and I think what we're discussing here
27:55
is, like, as teachers, we really need to take on that position of learner,
27:58
like when the results come in, like I'm
28:00
not going to necessarily change these results now.
28:03
You know, we may have done the EUR cat two right at the start
28:06
or the cat one EUR and just said, all right, get these remarked.
28:09
But once that's definitively marked we're not changing that.
28:11
So we have to take that position of what am I learning from this?
28:14
And I think it's almost like you got to check your ego at the door
28:17
for a moment and just come in and be like, what am I going to learn?
28:20
How can I improve?
28:21
And let me set the
28:22
what I know about this student aside for just a moment to understand, like,
28:25
how is this interpreted and where is my bias in place?
28:29
And how can I push my bias aside? Right?
28:31
Yeah, that's a really great point.
28:33
And you're looking at your own teaching.
28:35
Essentially, when you're looking at the exam papers,
28:37
you're seeing the results of your own teaching.
28:40
Did I explain this very well?
28:42
Did I explain to the kids how to answer it in
28:45
the exam, the exam skills that they need?
28:49
Those things are really important.
28:50
And how do you know if you're doing it correctly,
28:52
unless you actually look at the exam papers.
28:55
It's the evidence there that helps you out a ton.
28:57
Absolutely, absolutely.
29:00
And, Courtney, you asked a great question about,
29:02
is this something that could be done systematically?
29:05
So you could do it as an individual teacher.
29:08
You can go and say to your DP coordinator,
29:10
can you please buy the EURs for me?
29:13
Hopefully would DP coordinator would say yes.
29:16
And what if you're
29:16
the only teacher in your school, in your subject area, what do you do then?
29:21
So you could reach out to nearby schools.
29:25
Some schools like Indonesia have a really brilliant regional network called Dounia.
29:31
That's a really good thing to do.
29:34
Be really fun to do it,
29:36
you know, on up through Zoom or something like that.
29:39
Absolutely.
29:40
I mean, we've got one like in Europe, there's the Association
29:42
of Central European IB schools, for example,
29:44
and I know there's lots of other organizations like that,
29:47
where it's like a conglomerate of schools to do exactly what you just said.
29:50
Like where
29:51
oh, I'm the only global politics teacher
29:52
in my school, but I would love to talk with
29:54
some people about this and see how it works.
29:56
And so,
29:57
you know, hopefully, you know, for any listeners right
29:58
now, like you've got those networks and you're involved in them
30:01
and you can kind of connect
30:02
because that's a really great way to learn from the process.
30:05
You don't necessarily have to share your results right away,
30:07
but you can learn from the process and that can be a useful thing there too.
30:10
Absolutely.
30:12
So like, you know, from our standpoint with regard to the EURs,
30:15
like it's very much sort of student led, especially for the cat one like re marking
30:19
kind of thing.
30:19
And then it's basically just on the teachers
30:22
and the departments to say like oh we want these back.
30:25
You know, in my role as a coordinator,
30:26
and I know there are some schools who will just like blanket, we do it.
30:29
They'll just be like, right,
30:30
we're going to get all these remarks, we're going to
30:32
these EURs here, we're going to get all this stuff back.
30:34
And they just kind of set aside a big part of their budget for that.
30:37
Just say we're going to do those things.
30:39
In your opinion, which one's kind of like the most effective,
30:42
when we're talking about school improvement,
30:44
like let's say a school wants to improve not just their scores,
30:46
but they want to improve the whole diploma program itself.
30:49
Is it best to just kind of take that, like top down approach of like,
30:52
we're just going to do all this,
30:53
or is it best kind of build up that autonomy and say, like you as a teacher,
30:57
you have a little bit more control if you want this, if you don't,
31:00
recognizing the risk could be that they don't do it.
31:02
Yeah, I think that using the EURs
31:08
are really powerful way to improve teaching and learning. And I think that,
31:12
you know, if you're an administrator, DP coordinator,
31:16
and as a pedagogical leader, this is a really powerful tool.
31:20
And I'm sure that you probably have something
31:23
a similar kind of thing happening in your school.
31:25
But what you could do as the DP coordinator, or the vice principal,
31:29
or the principal, is to actually say, okay, DP coordinator,
31:35
please look at all the results
31:36
blanket by the component that's got the lowest score,
31:41
and then actually have a systematic process by which you do it.
31:44
And I think the most important thing to start off with is actually with training
31:48
and saying to teachers, this is why we do it, this is why we want to do it,
31:53
because we want to improve teaching and learning in our school.
31:57
And then talk about the process.
31:59
And I think that the next thing you want to do is
32:03
get teachers together in common subject areas
32:07
and actually get them starting off with creating norms, because as you
32:13
said, it's very, very difficult to look at your exam papers.
32:17
And then all of a sudden you've got all your colleagues looking over your shoulder
32:20
at your exam papers.
32:22
You're going to have some difficult conversations.
32:25
So the norms are
32:29
a really powerful way
32:30
to be able to establish a way in which people can talk to one another.
32:35
You know, always assume best intent.
32:37
I think that's my favorite norm.
32:39
So whenever someone says something like,
32:41
oh, but no, they meant it in a good way.
32:45
So I think that's really important.
32:46
So creating norms and then take those exam papers, look at them, question
32:53
by question, and analyze those exams and look for teaching strengths.
32:59
That's really, really important.
33:01
And teaching weaknesses as well.
33:04
So across all of these papers, where do students do the best.
33:09
Do they do the best in definitions, in evaluation?
33:12
Do they do the best in part G or paper too?
33:15
Do we have really good real world examples across all of our exam papers?
33:19
Do we not?
33:21
And then
33:23
get your teachers to create a Smart goal,
33:27
in order to be able to,
33:29
plan what they're going to improve.
33:32
And then the accountability is really important.
33:35
And you mentioned that.
33:36
How do you know when teachers
33:38
close that classroom door that that meeting is going to happen.
33:42
And, how can you create that accountability?
33:45
So you could say, okay,
33:48
you've created your Smart goal.
33:51
So we're going to ensure that 80% of our students get six out of six
33:56
on criteria A for the extended essay and ask them to share it in a Google doc.
34:03
And next head of department meeting you have a look at the Google doc
34:06
and have a look at all the Smart goals.
34:09
The next thing that I suggest is then set up a second to the meeting.
34:15
They've got this Smart goal.
34:17
They know what they need to do.
34:19
Ok, we're going to improve evaluation,
34:22
and then develop teaching strategies.
34:26
And in particular create a lesson plan.
34:29
Create a lesson plan.
34:31
And for that teaching strategy.
34:32
So for example let's say that you need to improve evaluation.
34:36
So Trump's got some pretty exciting tariffs going on right now.
34:39
Maybe you could design a lesson together evaluating those tariffs.
34:45
To what extent are they a good idea.
34:49
And I'm sure you've heard about this the Japanese lesson study.
34:52
So once you've created the lesson,
34:55
you ask one of the teachers in the team to teach the lesson,
35:00
the college colleagues watch the lesson and then afterwards they meet again
35:04
and they critique not the teacher, but they critique the lesson.
35:08
So to what extent did students
35:11
improve their understanding or improve their skill of evaluation
35:16
from this lesson.
35:18
And that's a really exciting discussion.
35:22
I was just because it's like that collaborative reflection. Right?
35:24
So it's not just reflecting on your own thing, but it's like
35:26
let me invite some other colleagues, some trusted people into this conversation
35:29
as well and reflect on the things that we were aiming for. Right?
35:32
Exactly, exactly.
35:34
It's quite different to cognitive coaching because that's all about
35:37
trying to get the teacher to reflect.
35:39
This is a little bit different because you're actually critiquing the
35:42
lesson plan and you're actually ignoring the skills of the teacher.
35:46
So it's actually something quite different.
35:48
And then, once you get some feedback on that, you could tweak the lesson.
35:54
And then another teacher in the group
35:57
teaches the lesson to their class, and then everybody watches it
36:01
and critiques. And then the accountability piece.
36:05
That's really, really important.
36:07
So again, DP coordinator, vice principal, could set up a Google sheet,
36:13
or a Google folder and submit your lesson plan in here.
36:17
Submit, you know, minutes from your meeting
36:19
where you discuss your lesson plan.
36:21
Maybe you could have,
36:23
if you have really strong groups,
36:26
you could invite them into
36:30
a school wide meeting
36:32
and have them present what they did.
36:35
I think what's really exciting is just talking about teaching
36:39
and learning and focusing on student work
36:44
and using that student work in order to be able to determine
36:48
teaching strategies and evaluating those strategies and tweaking them.
36:54
Something I really love about this,
36:55
in a different episode, we were talking about with the ATLs, the idea of
37:00
having a safe space for failing, and we were talking about it
37:04
a lot with for the students, how do you create a space
37:07
where they feel comfortable with failure and building that resilience,
37:10
and I think that this really puts it into the teacher space of
37:15
what Lance, our other guest was saying was,
37:17
there's this idea where you succeed, you fail well or you fail poorly.
37:21
And this is really about that failing well, place.
37:26
I'm comfortable saying my students
37:30
didn't do well on this part of the exam, but
37:33
it's going to be worth it because now I'm going to become a better teacher for it.
37:36
And I think that part of that has to come from the teacher.
37:38
But a lot of that also has to come from administration, where the administrators
37:42
and the school culture creates a space where you can fail well as a teacher
37:48
and come with the humility and with be able to put the ego aside.
37:51
That is difficult, especially when there's too much, or
37:55
I should say, so much pressure on grades and the teachers
37:59
feeling like the teacher grade equals my performance.
38:04
And being able to separate that and be able to say, yeah, they didn't
38:09
score as well as I thought I did, but I'm going to do something about it.
38:12
And this really gives them a way to do that
38:16
in a safe space, especially if the school
38:19
is celebrating that kind of learning for the teachers, too.
38:23
Yeah, and I think that's the key part.
38:24
Like as you were talking about okay, let's have the accountability piece.
38:27
Let's get some shared folders going on that sort of thing.
38:29
In the back of my head I was like, and make sure that that's not the end of it.
38:32
Like you've got, as you said, like put it in a
38:34
staff meeting or something like that, call it out.
38:36
And again,
38:36
come back to like, here are the strengths and let's talk about our strengths again.
38:40
You know, do something with it.
38:42
Don't just hold it.
38:42
Because of course that's going
38:43
to create a bunch of like uncertainty, like what's happening with all that work
38:47
I just did.
38:48
Okay. You're doing you're doing this process.
38:49
You're getting like EURs coming in
38:51
and you're thinking through the results themselves.
38:52
How are they working? How are they going to improve our teaching and learning?
38:55
But at the same time, you know, that's more on a year's time frame, right?
39:00
Like let's say I'm looking at the results of class 24,
39:02
for example, and I'm preparing for the class of 25.
39:05
But in all reality, they may have already gone through
39:06
something like their IAs or the extended essays are kind of done.
39:09
So really I'm kind of focusing on the class of 26,
39:11
you know, from a teacher lens.
39:13
It's like I can think about this a little bit wider,
39:15
but how then,
39:17
especially from a leadership role, how do you manage
39:18
these expectations that are coming in from the student
39:21
in that moment, from the parents in that moment?
39:23
They're looking at like, how have we done?
39:25
What's going to move forward? Like how do you kind of,
39:28
how do you balance this,
39:29
like, we're doing a long term improvement that will ultimately affect your child,
39:35
but, you know, like in the back, of your head, you're like,
39:37
this is going to be a longer term sort of thing,
39:39
and it may not directly affect the student who's graduating this year.
39:42
Parents need to have trust in the school, and they need to have trust
39:45
in the teachers.
39:46
And I think that if parents understand
39:51
that teachers are working on improving.. It's February right now.
39:56
And right now, if you're teaching the second year of IB,
40:00
you're getting your kids ready for exams, you're getting them ready
40:03
for those exam skills.
40:04
And I think that those EURs that you got in September would actually
40:08
be really helpful for those exam skills to actually prepare them.
40:13
So I think you can say to parents, yeah,
40:16
we're working really hard with these EURs
40:19
and they're definitely going to help your kids this year.
40:23
So it's investing the time
40:26
early that sort of September, October, putting together particular skills.
40:29
And then as you say, like, let's build a lesson plan around this.
40:32
Let's evaluate the lesson.
40:33
Let's kind of work through, like, how are we actually
40:36
working on this particular skills.
40:38
And then now once you get into this couple months before the exams, it's, okay,
40:42
now let's pinpoint, these are the specific skills
40:45
that we're good at, that we’re strong at,
40:47
and here are the ways where we kind of missed the mark
40:50
in other spaces where we can really improve that now.
40:52
Is that kind of a nice summary of what you were discussing?
40:55
That's a wonderful summary.
40:59
Are you an IB educator wanting
41:01
to improve your practice and needing a just a bit more support getting there?
41:05
Have you ever wanted to learn more about a specific aspect of the DP program, or
41:09
ask a question to an educational theorist about a specific IB aspect?
41:13
IB Unplugged is a place for you.
41:15
Simply visit kognity.com/ibunplugged to submit your question to us,
41:20
and have your question explored in more detail in an upcoming episode.
41:24
And now, back to the show.
41:27
We talked a lot about the category two parts
41:31
there with the teaching and learning, category one
41:34
is about the specific student.
41:36
Yeah.
41:37
Like a remark of their work.
41:39
When you're doing that at your school, Jen, do you have like a standardized way
41:44
or like a really good way of communicating this with parents?
41:48
Because I'd imagine that usually if there's a remark,
41:52
there's a upset student and therefore an upset parent,
41:57
in a lot of cases where they feel like they didn't
41:59
get the grade that they deserved.
42:01
And that's why you're you're sending it back.
42:03
Is there anything that you feel like
42:04
you've been handling really well in these dialogs at your school?
42:07
Yeah, I think that parent communication
42:10
is actually really important.
42:12
Parents need to have a really good idea of a realistic IB school.
42:18
And that for a school I think is quite difficult,
42:21
because kids take tests, teachers mark tests.
42:26
They've just completed the topic, marking the test,
42:30
and then they make all these semester grades, which they communicate to parents.
42:34
And then all of a sudden you have this very, very different situation where
42:39
these kids take these exams all at the same time,
42:42
based upon two years of work, something they've never thought about for 18 months.
42:47
And those grades based upon this high stress
42:51
exam situation, is supposed to be exactly the same,
42:54
of all these classroom experiences?
42:57
I mean, it's really, really difficult.
42:59
I think it takes a lot of skill for a teacher to be able to create
43:03
grades that align with what kids are going to do in their IB exams.
43:08
But it's so, so important.
43:11
Yeah, that predictor grade bit is just so impossible
43:15
in some cases, you know, like, how is this kid going to feel?
43:18
How are they going to perform at the moment?
43:20
Like how am I going to get a realistic view of this?
43:23
Yeah, it's a brutal one.
43:24
And as you said, like then you're managing that expectation of the parents as well.
43:27
They say, well they've always achieved success in your class,
43:30
if always G7s, so suddenly they pull a five.
43:32
What's what's going on here? What's going on? Yeah.
43:34
So I think that that communication has to be
43:38
very, very clear with parents.
43:40
And there's a couple of things as well.
43:43
I encourage teachers.. Not encourage,
43:45
struggle with encourage, teachers to communicate with parents.
43:49
So if a kid has a test and they get less than a C
43:52
or less than a fourt, they get a three on the test,
43:56
they need to email parents straight away, inform them.
43:59
And a really nice way to email parents
44:04
is where you say, this is where your kid is.
44:07
This is what we're going to do in order to improve.
44:11
And so that parents get that information straight away.
44:13
And I've seen DP coordinators as well.
44:17
What they do
44:18
is that, at the end of every assessment period, every term or every semester,
44:23
they'll go three manage back and they will invite parents in.
44:26
If kids have got an IB score lower than 24, or they've got a higher level
44:32
three or below or whatever, and start having those conversations.
44:36
So those conversations are happening before the IB schools come out.
44:41
The other thing is that
44:43
parents realize that you really care about their kid’s school
44:49
and you as a school, you're being super proactive
44:52
about trying to help them get the very best school that you can.
44:56
And that's a really important part
44:59
of your school culture for kids,
45:02
and for parents.
45:04
So then when it does happen
45:07
as it does, the IB school doesn't
45:12
align with what the parent expectations are, you going to
45:16
have a much more supportive parent body.
45:18
And that's really, really important. Because
45:22
it's our job as administrators to protect our teachers.
45:25
And it's our job to stand in the middle and have those difficult conversations.
45:30
I was just gonna say, it sounds like you're building up
45:32
like the trust though throughout that,
45:33
like when you do those little check ins all the way through.
45:37
And what I really liked about what you said is it's
45:39
not just communicating your, you know, your student or your child got a 3 or 4.
45:43
It's and here's what we're going to do.
45:45
And I think that's an element
45:46
that is sometimes missed in that like home communication.
45:49
So often when we communicate home we're just like
45:51
want to keep you in the loop so far.
45:53
Like your child's not meeting the requirements to pass the IB.
45:56
And then it's like, that’s it.
45:59
And the parents like, well, what am I supposed to do?
46:01
I don't know anything about DP chemistry.
46:04
Yeah.
46:04
So you gotta,
46:05
you know, following up with like here's the actionable things, here's
46:07
the specific stuff we're going to do with it.
46:08
And then just as you say, it builds confidence in the teacher.
46:11
It builds trust in the school,
46:13
and it builds trust in you as the educational professional.
46:16
So that yeah, when the results come in a little bit odd,
46:19
you know, it's a softer blow, I guess.
46:21
Absolutely.
46:23
So this is another thing. I've never done this at my school.
46:26
I'm wondering if you've done this at your school, John, but this is another,
46:30
a really interesting way to get that feedback loop.
46:34
And it's about
46:36
getting,
46:37
opening up that discussion between students and teachers.
46:42
So what you can do is you can have a staff meeting
46:46
and you can invite some students in,
46:49
and have three students sit at a table with eight teachers,
46:54
and there's a set of questions that the teachers can ask, such as,
46:59
tell me about,
47:01
tell me about a teaching strategy, or tell me about something
47:04
that happened in your classroom that really helped your learning.
47:07
Or tell me about
47:10
a situation where you really didn't understand a concept
47:15
and a teacher really helped you out.
47:17
Those sorts of questions.
47:21
I think that's a really interesting way
47:25
to get information out of kids and how they're feeling.
47:31
Where I've seen it done, what happens is, is that you ask for
47:34
student volunteers.
47:36
And then you train them, you tell them, you know,
47:39
we really want feedback from you.
47:41
We really want to hear from you.
47:44
So we're going to have a staff meeting.
47:45
Here are the questions that we're going to ask you.
47:48
Is there any questions that we shouldn't ask?
47:50
Are there any questions we should add on?
47:52
And then give kids an opportunity to practice how they would answer
47:56
those questions and then have the staff meeting and inform teachers.
48:01
Stick to the questions, because these kids are going to feel attacked.
48:05
If you, you know, start asking questions like, well,
48:08
why is my teaching no good?
48:12
We honestly do that at Kognity.
48:14
I've interviewed a lot of students actually about their experiences in Kognity.
48:18
I can say that I think it's really a testament to the diploma program.
48:24
They're so wise in their answers.
48:27
Oh, don’t give them that much credit.
48:28
I know, I am, they're so self-critical.
48:32
So in a positive way, like reflective they can really think about.
48:38
They'll tell you what parts of the platform they find value
48:41
and when and why, and they'll be like
48:45
even simple things like, I prefer doing this on Kognity,
48:49
because I read for a small amount of time, and then
48:53
by the time that I'm ready to check my phone
48:55
because I got bored, I have a video to watch instead.
48:58
There's these ideas of like, I know what I need and what I'm getting,
49:02
and I do think that they really have that ability to give feedback.
49:07
So, you know, when we think about, like, the conversation we've had,
49:11
which has been absolutely incredible, but let's say, like you're a listener
49:13
and you just want to kind of get like the last little bits
49:15
here, like, what are the key things that I can do right now?
49:18
Let's say I'm a leader in my school,
49:20
whether I'm a DP coordinator, I'm a middle leader, I'm the head of school.
49:23
What are some very simple, actionable ways that school leaders can really drive
49:27
that inspiration and that growth in a school
49:30
that they could put into action, like right away?
49:33
I definitely start with appreciative Inquiry.
49:36
Definitely look for the strengths of your school.
49:41
Look for
49:41
great things that are happening in classrooms,
49:45
things that are happening operationally.
49:47
What's happening in the lunchroom,
49:49
that's fantastic.
49:51
Is it afterschool programs that kids are really excited about?
49:55
Is it a growing program?
49:56
Is it kind of dying?
49:57
Kids are interested.
49:58
Look for the very best things that your school has and
50:04
this is the other thing,
50:05
I think it's really, really important to center schools
50:09
on this idea that teachers are the experts.
50:12
So why not get in touch with those teachers
50:16
who are doing something really fabulous and invite them to a head of departments
50:22
meeting, the last 15 minutes of every head of department
50:25
inviting a different skill specialist in the school,
50:30
maybe someone who's got a fantastic afterschool club.
50:33
What if kids want to come to your club?
50:35
What is it that you're doing in your club that's really successful?
50:39
Find a teacher where the kids rave about,
50:42
invite them into your meeting.
50:45
Why kids really enjoying your classroom?
50:47
What are you doing?
50:50
And then
50:50
take those ideas and distill them back to teachers.
50:54
And every once in a while, ended up in a in a school wide meeting,
50:59
invite people to come up and speak and share their best practice.
51:04
In this way, because quite often schools are top down, decisions are made.
51:09
And I think quite often teachers feel like,
51:14
you know, here's another initiative,
51:17
here's something else that's going on.
51:19
And I think the best schools that are passionate about changing,
51:24
teaching and learning are driven by, the best practices from teachers.
51:29
If you've already got fantastic teachers in your school, why not celebrate that?
51:34
Why not take those skills and
51:37
diffuse them amongst the rest of your staff?
51:41
And I think that schools, especially international schools, they are,
51:47
like a melting pot of incredible,
51:50
incredible practice and incredible skills.
51:55
Yeah.
51:55
And that's something we should celebrate.
51:57
Those international schools.
51:59
I like that, all right, appreciative inquiry.
52:01
Right? Let's go and see what's going on. And then let's trust our teachers.
52:04
They're the experts.
52:05
Let's give them some chances to kind of showcase
52:07
what makes things work really well and then distribute that across everybody.
52:11
What I love about that is pretty simple.
52:12
It's really actionable.
52:14
And of course, like if you're that administrator,
52:15
if you're that school leader, it's now it's carving the time for it.
52:18
You're always going to get those messages from parents.
52:21
You're always going to get that stuff from the board, and you're going
52:22
to have to manage the budget and that sort of thing.
52:24
And that's important, obviously.
52:26
And set it to specific timing so that you can prioritize this as well.
52:30
Right?
52:30
It's absolutely about building school culture.
52:33
School culture is what makes things happen.
52:36
And if you can build that positive school culture, where teachers
52:39
feel that they are the center of the school and they drive
52:44
changes in teaching and learning, you will have a fantastic school.
52:48
Great.
52:49
I mean, thank you so much, Jen.
52:50
This has been a fantastic conversation.
52:53
I think it is so great to have the balance between, okay, now
52:57
I have a lot of nice ideas of things that I can do, but also taking some time
53:01
to think about it. I kind of in a broader sense.
53:04
So it's been a pleasure, as always, to meet with you.
53:08
And, yeah, I hope we can talk again soon.
53:12
I loved this. Thanks so much.
53:14
Thanks, Jen. It was a lot of fun.
53:16
Really appreciate it.
53:17
And, yeah. Wish you well.
53:18
Thanks.
53:19
IB Unplugged is a Kognity podcast hosted by John Patton
53:23
and Courtney Marline, and produced by Katilina Gaffney.
53:26
Be sure to subscribe or follow and share with your fellow IB educators.
53:30
If you'd like to submit a topic, request, or a question, please do so
53:33
on kognity.com/ibunplugged.
53:36
Let's keep the conversation going
53:37
and support each other in teaching with confidence, creativity and joy.
53:41
See you next time.