At the IB Americas conference in July, this time in the cosmopolitan hub of Toronto, Canada, we invited educators to take part in our interactive research. The prompt that we asked teachers to respond to was: ‘How can a school cultivate a positive learning experience?’
Teachers had the opportunity to take two balls, one green and one red. With the green ball, they cast their vote on what their school was doing well. With the red ball, they voted on where there was most room for improvement. Each teacher had just one vote for each, so they had to think carefully about their choices.
What was most evident from this activity is how varied experiences are across the continent and the IB curriculum. We spoke to PYP, MYP and DP educators – teachers, coordinators, principals – and multiple educators from the same schools, who often voted on completely different areas. Over 100 teachers shared their insights – and this is a snapshot of what we learned.
Providing access to extracurricular activities and enrichment opportunities
23% of educators gave their green vote to ‘Providing access to extracurricular activities and enrichment opportunities’, making this the most popular vote. Many teachers cited their extensive program of after-school activities and the positive correlation with academic and personal development. “They’re learning the importance of perseverance and teamwork in working towards a common goal when they take advantage of these opportunities”, one US-based teacher told us. “I’m glad these have started up again since the pandemic, as they’re something our students really value and benefit from”.
Promoting a culture of respect and empathy
We spoke to a PYP teacher who cast her green vote to promoting a culture of respect and empathy. She told us how the faculty worked hard to embed this in everything they do at the school, in the spirit of the IB learner profile. They model empathy for their students and also encourage active listening to build empathetic relationships.
Other schools are struggling with this in the wake of the pandemic. A teacher from an IBDP program in Brazil told us that through the disruption of COVID-19, students especially suffered with the isolation. “They’ve lost all of their social skills,” he told us. This has led to a school culture where they are trying to rebuild a culture of respect and empathy with adolescents who are still suffering the negative effects of the pandemic.
Promoting connectedness and community
The importance of school connectedness has been well documented, with students who feel more connected to school being more likely to engage in positive health behaviors and more likely to perform better academically. Educators who gave their green vote to this option cited collaborative school initiatives, like school improvement projects, to be powerful in helping to build a sense of community.
Providing academic support and resources
Providing academic support and resources was often cited as a challenge across IB schools, particularly those teaching the Diploma programme.
“We have the funding for academic support and resources – and some of it is in place already – but the challenge is in the follow-through, getting the right support to the teachers and students who need it,” one IBDP teacher in the US told us.
New IB schools also struggle with getting the necessary academic supports in place. A teacher in Brazil told us that since they’d just started the IB programme, it was taking a while to figure out how best to allocate budget. A DP Co-ordinator in Mexico had a similar story – while their teachers did attend the IB workshops, they felt that more internal training and knowledge sharing within the school would better help support new IB teachers.
However, adversity can bring opportunity – two teachers in Brazil teach the IBDP in Portuguese, for which there are no published resources. Despite this challenge, they both voted that they school was strongest in providing academic support and resources due to the strong bank of materials and support they had created and shared internally.
Celebrating student achievements
One IBDP teacher in Canada said her school was doing best when it came to celebrating student achievement. “We call out student achievement in our school newsletters and celebrations or events at the school,” she said. “We also shine a spotlight on individual students and have them share their stories to model leadership and inspire other students”.
Providing opportunities for student voice and choice
Giving students the chance to express their values, opinions and perspective helps to create a truly student-centered learning environment, with numerous benefits across the school community. While lots of teachers felt their school was doing well in this regard, this was also the most common challenge that emerged from the research, receiving 21% of the red votes.
Several attendees mentioned how their school was behind the idea in principle, but that the execution posed a challenge: how could they meaningfully provide this opportunity to all students, not just the most confident ones most likely to express themselves? One teacher told us that their student council had been a popular way of creating a democratic school culture, but only a handful of students were being given the opportunity to speak up.
Educators who felt this was an area of strength for their school said that they had integrated this idea both formally and informally throughout all areas of school life. They invited students to participate in school surveys, enabled them to help shape class projects, and facilitated student-led blogs to help them share their voice with the wider school community.
Here are the full results from the interactive research.
Thank you to every teacher who spoke to us in Toronto. We very much appreciate you sharing your insights. Thank you to IB Americas #IBGC2023 for hosting the conference!
Interested in seeing other research insights from IB educators in the Americas? Take a look at our blog post and results from the 2022 conference, on the biggest priorities for IB schools.
