Grasping MYP Assessments

A couple of weeks ago I attended a Zoom session facilitated by the South Australia Middle Years Programme Coordinators Network. The session was based around the creation/development of conceptual assessment tasks in the the IB programme. As previously posted, I am on a significant learning journey at the moment, teaching within an IB framework. Over the last three weeks I have created three new assessment tasks, so this session was timely for me as I reflect on these recent tasks.

The biggest takeaway was the GRASPS acronym as shown below. This will help me to structure future assessment tasks that I create and also to relate specifically back to the key and related concepts. I am starting to understand these a lot more now and have been getting help around how to embed key and related concepts into units I develop, but still need to ensure these are included in assessment tasks. Finally, GRASPS will help with how to relate everything back to the statement of inquiry - also an area I need to develop further.

The second takeaway was related to the unit plan and how this can directly impact on the final assignment (side note - I am unsure why, but the words assessment and assignment seem to be used interchangeably!). The below points were new to me, but make a lot of sense. I've tried over the last few years to title units and develop units based around learning objectives, rather than topics. I particularly get frustrated when PE teachers name and refer to units purely based on sports! Sports may be the practical medium, but generally aren't the purpose of the unit! I now understand that unit titles as inquiry questions directly gives flexibility to explore the key and related concepts. These unit questions should be created in a way to hook learners and set them up to be involved in an exploratory inquiry! The presenters also suggested the questions are based off of real life events, to relate to global contexts too.

For the last 20 minutes of the session, we were grouped into our curriculum areas to have a discussion. I was grouped with two other teachers who were both from the same school. This breakout discussion made me realise 1) how much I have learnt over the last few months and 2) how much I love the inquiry based model MYP offers. These two teachers were involved in the session because their school is shifting to the MYP IB framework next year, so they were looking for ideas and greater understanding. I was proud that I could actually discuss, explain and use correct terminology for my experiences of what MYP IB looks like in action to date (particularly in a PE setting)!

I'm looking forward to being involved in more of these sessions and discussions, and also implementing these two major takeaways over the coming months.