One of the things I really wanted to improve in the last academic year was my departments approach to MYP criterion B – Investigation. In order to do so I set about creating inquiry templates to support our students to develop their approach to this criterion and to improve the teacher’s understanding and application of materials to support.
Criterion B: Investigating Students develop systematic research skills and processes associated with disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Students develop successful strategies for investigating independently and in collaboration with others. International Baccalaureate
In order to achieve this, I looked into ways to develop investigation in the Individuals and Societies. Since my research proved challenging, I set about exploring the individual elements of criterion B which were:
creating research questions
formulating an action plan
collecting and recording relevant information
reflection
My research led me to develop inquiry planning sheets which initially looked something like this for both individual and group investigation.
Feedback from students had been positive however they highlighted some areas for improvement. Their feedback led to the creation of two versions, one for individual inquiry and one for group inquiry as well as increased guidance.
Individual
Group
As you can see, the template suggests that teachers ought to remove elements of the scaffold as students become more independent in their approach to Criterion B.
My research also led to the creation of an improved summative assessment instruction template:
Template
Example
I decided to keep the summative assessment feedback sheets as they were:
We are yet to reach a summative task, however feedback on the new and improved inquiry planning sheets have been positive.
If you’d like access to the templates, click here.
Feedback from MYP teachers very much welcomed.