Creating IB learner profile attribute posters with young children, who have a couple of years experience in the program.

Young children who have been in the Primary Years Program for a couple of years probably are familiar with the attributes of the IB learner profile. However, as teachers of these students create attribute posters with them, it is important to take the opportunity to help the children develop a deeper understanding of these important 10 attributes of an internationally minded person.

One first grade teacher set up a learning opportunity that allowed her students to construct a more robust interpretation of the attributes of the learner profile.

First, the teacher told the students that they were going to be looking at the IB learner profile attributes through the conceptual lens of FORM as they asked themselves, "What does it look like?"

Small groups of two to three students received a book or two and a piece of paper with one learner profile attribute written on it. (For a list of picture books that support different learner profile attributes and attitudes in PYP curriculum, check out the PYPLIBRARY wiki space.)

Students were tasked with having to look through their books and use their background knowledge to develop a working definition of the learner profile attribute that they were assigned.

The teacher checked in with groups to check for understanding, to write down the students' definition, and then to prompt them to draw pictures of their work.

Finally, students shared their working definitions and pictures with their classmates.

These students, who created the poster for Reflective shared:

"Student 1: Being reflecting looks like thinking about the past or thinking about your acts.

Student 2: Being reflecting has three different ways to be reflecting. You can be reflecting about how you help others. And when you’re thinking, you’re being reflecting. Like when Alton was sitting there, he was being reflecting because he was like, “hmmm let me think.” And he was being reflecting.

Student 3: I do that a lot, but I didn’t even know that."

By creating the IB Learner Profile attribute posters in this way, the teacher guaranteed the students were developing an understanding of each attribute as they collaboratively worked.

Have you successfully made PYP posters with young children who have a couple of years experience in the program in a different way than the teacher in this story? Please, share your idea with others by commenting on this post.