PYP Early Years series: Episode 2 - Concept based learning

[Music] Hi, my name is Suiti and I'm a PYP curriculum manager at the International Baccalaureate, which is for the early years. Welcome to the IB Voices podcast. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Anna Van Dam and Catherine O'Connell to passionate and experienced early years educator to hear their thoughts around concept based learning in the early years and to share some of the tensions educators may feel when working conceptually with young learners. I'd like to start with a quote from the early years in the PYP to frame our conversation today. The IB has identified play as the primary driver for inquiry as it reflects the holistic and authentic way in which children explore, grow and learn. Play offers learners the opportunity to learn through multiple sensory experiences which other forms of learning might not. Three play learners draw on their existing knowledge and understanding of concepts to explore, think, test, and extend their ideas about the world around them. Focusing on conceptual understanding helps learners to make connections to real life experiences, recognising classified patterns, make generalisations, predictions and connections across their learning and transfer and apply understandings. So to begin our conversation today, educators and others can feel the concepts and conceptual understanding are quite complex for young learners so can you describe what concept based learning looks like in your context? What are some of the ways children express their concepts understanding? And what would I see in here if I walked into one of your questions? Anna, I'd like to offer that to you first. Sure, it's a big question, Kevah, Sue, about a nice one. I guess it would be logical to start with this idea that we write units and that the units of course are conceptually based. But one of the things that we do in our school is that when we look at these units that we also document sort of emerging lines of inquiry and emerging concepts, so although we have identified concepts before we start, we also acknowledge that through that inquiry new things may arise. But I think one of the big things for us really is that we document children's learning during the play and that we really see players inquiry and ways a way of making sense of that through those interactions with materials with each other, with spaces, we identify that of underlying concepts. So for example, when children are treating these ramps and on the opinion concept may be acceleration, but of course it's also about you know what is this and how does it work. So form a function come into play very often doesn't it? So when we meet we bring our documentation and we discuss this. So we look at our photos, we look at our videos, we look at our anecdotal notes, and we talk about the children's learning and through that we really aim to link the children's investigations to certain concepts. So for example we've got this group of children are really interested in how things flow and we see this outside with water, we see it inside with sand. So we're thinking this is definitely again about how does it work, there's also something sensory about this exploration, but also about causation as the children are also thinking about ways that they can manipulate the flow of the water and so on. So what we do then is is that we use a concept map, so we kind of map out these concepts with an online tool called Myro where we make connections visible between certain concepts. And it really helps us with having this overview and having a look of how things are connected and how things evolve. But overall I'd say to find it that conceptually or can be quite challenging and I've noticed often teachers talk about the children's play often is in what they're doing and it is more difficult and perhaps also subjective, right? It to identify those concepts. But I think it's having those rich conversations and building that trust among educators that is so important that we're really to discuss what we think we're seeing and what our perspective is. So what we often do is is that we use a thinking routine called I see I think I wonder as a way of discussing the documentation that we share with each other. Thanks Ella. Just a little bit, what about you? Yeah, I agree with everything inside and that if we start from a point of belief that children are conceptual thinkers and that they're testing concepts and wondering about concepts all the time, then our job is a little bit different than being a traditional teacher. It's being a conceptual guide and it's not really what we have to do maybe. But I want to provoke you to think about what you have to stop doing. And a lot of times as teachers we love to tell kids things. And I think if we can stop telling and start asking, we're on our way to being conceptually based. And not just looking for how our children conveying the knowledge and what they know, but how are they trying to make, I love what Anne said about making sense of the world. How are they trying to make sense? What concepts are they exploring? So what has happened recently in my classroom, with my co-teacher, we're doing who we are unit and our central idea is relationships affect well-being. And over the course of the unit we have collected sticky notes because we're online, they're virtual sticky notes. And with the kids we clumped the sticky notes from reading a book, Wilfred, you know, Mem Fox's book Wilfred McGordon Partridge, McDonald, I'm getting the name wrong here. And from all the activities we collected the sticky notes, brought out the concepts and then did hexagonal thinking, putting the concepts on hexagons and having the kids talk about how they might connect. And I think that is a creative way to get the older kids in the early years talking about concepts. Well, I'm liking that. What I'm hearing from Anna is the way that the educators are looking and connecting those concepts and what I'm hearing from you Catherine is the way that the children are doing it as well. Anna, sorry. Yeah, and I think that is important, right? That we build over time and children's understanding of what concepts are. So I think it all starts with kind of connects with that question, if you want, would I see in here, I walked into one of your classrooms kind of the conversations that we have with children where we we use the concepts. So for example, we might say things like, oh, you're thinking about responsibility or you're thinking about roles or oh, you're creating a system. And I think it's in that language that we've noticed that children, by the use of that language, we've noticed that children start using that language as well. So we often reflect at the end of a playtime and in the beginning we often have conversations around what are you inquiring into, what are you thinking about. But as the year progresses, we've noticed that children start using language as I'm making a connection between or I've been thinking about families or I've been thinking about so the children in their language start to show the fact that they do understand concepts. Sometimes it's that modeling that you need to do first before they they understand what that is. And can I add to that, Anna? I often think of it as naming, noticing and exploring. But those three things can happen in any order. But if we are truly the conceptual guide, then we can be talking about the concepts we're thinking of. And that modeling does help children internalize it. And then they're able to more concretely talk about the concepts. And they realize that they're conceptual thinkers because you are validating the concepts that they are bringing out in a unit. And it's a documentation that helps with that as well. I also find that there is that sort of ethical piece of documentation where we have to check in with children. Like this is what I think about your thinking. What is it? What you think about your thinking? And it's nice when you bring the documentation to the children in a meeting and talk about and identify some of those concepts that they can talk with you about what they think. They're thinking about, which is powerful, I think. I'm loving the riches of this conversation, but I would like to just explore another another question with you as well, which are we sort of started touching on already. Some of the tensions that educators can feel in their role in concept-based inquiry. So, you know, who am I as a teacher? You know, where do I fit within that learning system? The different roles I have to take on. So, um, Kate, perhaps you'd like to respond to that? Sure, because documentation, observation, being a conceptually driven inquiry-based teacher requires the educators are vulnerable, and it requires that they are a co-learner with their students, which is different from the way that we learned as kids. And it requires that we suspend judgment. A lot of us are really good at coming in and seeing what's going on and going, I know exactly what this is, and I'm going to do this, but we have to suspend that judgment, and instead of deciding what's going to happen or what has happened, offer a deep curiosity, and ask questions. So my advice to teachers are when they're feeling that tension is, I know exactly where this needs to go, stop yourself, and ask a question. So it's a journey that requires that you are completely open-minded. I love that deep curiosity, and that being vulnerable, and that can be really hard, actually. Anna, what's your thoughts? Yeah, well, first of all, I love it too. It's a beautiful phrase. Well, I often think that when we move towards a more child-centered curriculum, that's actually a really complex process, and it requires some really complex cognitive processes that are involved in that process, I guess. And perhaps, I've mentioned it before, I think it really starts with really seeing and believing the child to be a competent person. So that means that we really have to go back to our own image of the child, our own constructors who children are, what their rights are, what their responsibilities are. So yeah, do we see children as learners, as thinkers, as constructors of meaning? Do we see them as inquiries through play? And I think that that's really a personal journey, but that's where it all starts. And I think, when we start seeing the child as competent, then I think we're perhaps less of a tendency to tell, and we have more of a tendency to start listening. And we start engaging in really focused observations of children in different situations, and then different encounters, and that we have to document those thoughts and ideas. And that's where we get to the documentation. We have to make this visible. Basic, it provides then future possibilities for us to either reject a certain idea or build on it or further explore it with the children. And I think it's also an opportunity to then think, okay, if this is what's going on, how can I connect that back to some of the learning goals that we've set for children? How does this connect with the skills, with the IB learner profile, perhaps very specific learning goals, but instead of laying that out all in the beginning and being in control, you're going with the children. And of course, you've got that big picture and you know where you want to go, but you're more responsive to what's going on and where the child's at in their thinking, where the group of children is at with their thinking. So I think when we start listening and documenting, having conversations with other educators about their point of view, thinking about the best way to support these theories, these curiosities, these destinations, then we can start thinking about, okay, what kind of situations can we set up that help children to either deepen or extend or even perhaps confront some of their own ideas? Right, so it's a very different way of going about something. I find often teachers and I know this is well intended, but we want to sort of be in control. And we want to make sure what we do everything and that we cover everything and we like to have a plan. But I think when we start looking at the children and follow their thinking, then we stay more connected with them and then the inquiry process becomes just so much more powerful, I think. - But I think it's really, I'm not quite sure what the word is, I'm looking for here. It's very powerful to hear two such experienced educators acknowledging that vulnerability that we feel. And hopefully that's liberating for people who are listening, but it's okay to feel vulnerable when you're engaging in this concept-based inquiry with your learners. And that that idea of that listening is so important, that Sunday back in the asking of the questions and always holding in our mind the image of the child is that competent and capable learner. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts around concept-based learning and exploring some of those tensions that educators might feel. Thank you for listening, and be sure to check more episodes of IB Voices on Spotify and Apple Podcast. Join us next time for more insights from our students, teachers, educators and more.