Planning the inquiry

1. What is our purpose? Class/grade: 4th Age group: 9-10 year olds
To inquire into the following:
School: Abdul Kadir Molla International School School code:
 transdisciplinary theme
How we organize ourselves Teacher(s): M. Shuvra S. Roy. Ms. Farzana Jalal
PYP planner
An inquiry into
 the interconnectedness of human-made systems and communities; Date: 24 Sept – 1 April 2019
 the structure and function of organizations;
 societal decision-making;
 economic activities and their impact on humankind and the environment.

 central idea 2. What do we want to learn?

Digital media changes the way in which people
access information and connect to each other.
Summative assessment task(s):
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the central
idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?
Understandings
 People connect and communicate with each other in a variety of ways.
 People today have access to lots of information / we are in the
information age
 Everyone has a digital footprint, taking responsibility for their web
presence,
 Digital media can be organized (cloud computing)
 Not everything that you read/see on the interweb is real, there are ways
we can check for validity and truth
Students fill in the placemat of understanding where they record their learning.
Students make a Weebly page and apply the skills taught in class ( access raz-kids,
mahtletics, write a blog, create a weebly page, upload pictures, etc. )
Principled: digital citizenship
Communicator: connecting with others to communicate, developing a positive web presence by
sharing and commenting on blogs, social media etc
Open-Minded: responding respectfully to others despite differing opinions
What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection,
perspective, responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?
Change: how digital media has changed
Connection: how technology connects us to each other.
Responsibility – responsible digital citizenship
Related Concepts: Networks, ethics, communication
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?
 How connecting with others is changing
 How digital media is used or organized
 Evaluating information
 Our responsibility in virtual environments
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
How have people connected to each other in the past and now?
Who do they communicate and connect with? How?
How do we know that what we see is real / valid / true?
Photos or real objects - phones, old TV’s, letters, encyclopedias, postcards, – how
are these connected to people and communication.

Integrity – linked with principled

Creativity – creating their own blogs

© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007

Planning the inquiry
3. How might we know what we have learned?
This column should be used in conjunction with “How best might we learn?”
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and
skills? What evidence will we look for?
How are students currently communicating with people? Do they use digital
media. What digital media are they familiar with? (facebook, emails, twitter,
skype, diigo, delicious, tango etc) What devices do they have themselves?
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the
lines of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?
Students responded to their class Twitter feed page. They were able to show
respect and essential classroom agreements and understand the concept of
digital footprints.
Students made posters to illustrate how new digital media is used in various
sectors to increase connectivity. This allowed them to understand that
technology helps to connect in more than one way.
Table diagram- Ways of connecting in the past and today.
Students looked at a fake website: Dog Island. Students were guided in
recognizing a website that provides fake information.
5. What resources need to be gathered?
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art,
computer software, etc, will be available?
Personal ipads
- Websites
- Class Twitter feed
- IT lab
- Few books in the library
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community
be used to facilitate the inquiry?
4. How best might we learn?
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students
to encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving
questions?
- Asking parents/grandparents how they used to keep in contact
/communicate with everyone else.
- Students fill in a table to compare and contrast.
- Showed school’s drive connectivity system and server. Teacher shared
how AKMIS connects with employees all around the school.
- Students made posters to illustrate how new digital media is used in
various sectors to increase connectivity.
- Students recorded video of presentation and stored in school’s system.
- Students created their class Twitter feed page.
- Matt gave a lesson on digital footprint
- Students commented on peers’ presentation.
What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for
the development of the attributes of the learner profile?
Principled: digital citizenship
Communicator: connecting with others to communicate
Open-Minded: responding respectfully to others despite differing opinions
Integrity – linked with principled
Creativity – creating their own blogs
Principled: Students commented on each others’ Weebly and responded to class
blogs.
Communicator: Students communicated by writing letters and emails as well as
using their Weebly to share their learning and reflections
Creativity- Students personalized and created their own Weebly page
Reflecting on the inquiry
6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?
Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students’
understanding of the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in
the planning and teaching of the inquiry should be included.
We feel this unit was not very inquiry based. We feel it was very guided and gave
students structured things.
Wonder about the central idea and the “digital media”. It feels we were referring
more to technology than digital media itself. We looked at the definition of Digital
media and it is not related to the lines of inquiry. It only focuses on the way
information is stored. We think the word “Technology” should replace it.
We lack resources (netbooks) to fully integrate it in class.
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a
more accurate picture of each student’s understanding of the central idea.
Make it more creative and open to students’ inquiries or preferences.
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea
and the transdisciplinary theme?
- Students gave feedback on how digital media and help us organize
information (Google account, Googledrive, Microsoft account, Onedrive,
organization’s personal server).
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
 develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to
learn?”
Change:
 Students interviewed family members: How did you communicate in the
past?
Connection:
 Students connected that information and created a venn diagram where they
were able to compare and contrast ways in which people communicated in
the past and today.
Responsibility:
 Students learned on how to comment on class blogs and the importance of
digital footprint online.
 Demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary
skills?
 Student’s are able to recognize the use of digital media and their role to
maintain a healthy balanced life despite the availability of technology around
them. Realizing fake news, to maintain privacy while using internet and also to
stop cyber bullying has been vital parts they have learnt.
Reflecting on the inquiry

8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning? 9. Teacher notes

Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight Come up with more ways for addressing Open mindedness
any that were incorporated into the teaching and learning.
Reword the central idea; specially the term digital media. Maybe replace it for
How do we get internet? technology and lines of inquiry ( students had a very difficult time understanding
the term digital footprint)
How can information travel so fast?
Begin teaching the skills to create a blog page since the beginning of the year so
How did people communicate in the past? students have the skills learnt by the time we teach this unit.
What is digital footprint?

At this point teachers should go back to box 2 “What do we want to learn?” and
highlight the teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the
inquiries.
What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?
Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability
to reflect, to choose and to act.
Students brought in their information about devices to use in school ( iphones,
ipad, laptops)
Students sent each other emails and messages in the form of cheats in class.
Students used Twitter feed to talk with each other.

© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007