“Enhancing the MYP” Beta Trial: 4 Changes Mathematics Teachers should be excited about

What is the “Enhancing the MYP” Beta Trial?

It is a review of the MYP which involves schools implementing and giving feedback on different elements, to inform holistic changes. General information can be found on this site and a webinar series with further information can be watched here. 

Why the change?

Generally, the change is meant to empower educators to be more innovative by integrating the MYP elements dynamically. Previously, the unit plan was seen as a checkbox activity where each element had to be filled in using a formula:

e.g.

Statement of inquiry = one key concept + two related concepts + global exploration

ATL statement = in order to (objective) students must be able to (ATL skill).

This led to planners that were algorithmically filled in and abandoned during the teaching stage because they were not authentically reflecting what was happening in the classroom.

What is changing?

Therefore, the changes aim to shift the focus to the planning process rather than the product (the unit planner), and offer guidance rather than requirements. During the (around) 2-year trial, participating schools have the opportunity to explore this new flexible framework to see which elements of the MYP are authentically relevant to each unit. The main areas under consideration are the concepts, global contexts, approaches to learning and community engagement. 

Again, do refer to the links (site/webinar) for more detailed info, but for now we will look at what this might practically look like when planning maths units.

What might this look like in MYP Mathematics?

1. The Statement of Inquiry can now shift to being an inquiry statement or an inquiry question. This by itself maybe isn’t a huge change, but what is interesting is that it no longer needs to include a global context or exploration. This means that a statistics unit won’t need to be focused on looking at data in only one context - this could allow more space for students to pursue different inquiries of interest (one student may want to inquire into their health routines while another may care about global economics). Secondly, there are some units that you may not want to attach to a “real-world” context (e.g. rational functions and algebraic fractions) and feel students would gain more just focusing on the conceptual understanding.

2. A shift in concepts. There will no longer be key and related concepts, all specified concepts for mathematics will be considered equal. These specified concepts consist of the old key and related concepts, but also some from other subjects such as aesthetics and culture. There is also flexibility with how many are used, again allowing the unit planning process to be authentic and meaningful. Linking with the first point, this hopefully means that our statements of inquiry will be a lot more student-friendly.

3. Specific guidance for what teaching for conceptual understanding looks like. Previously schools likely had to look externally for professional development on this, or add an additional “concept-based” curriculum to support their teachers. Now there are thorough strategies with descriptions and examples shared. They even refer to some of the graphic organisers we spoke about in this post. A quick scan through reveals that most, if not all, of the strategies can be used in the mathematics classroom. Maybe a more detailed blog post on this in the future!

4. Refined approaches to learning. The 5 categories (communication, social, thinking, research and self-management) will remain, in line with the other programmes, but the clusters (e.g. media literacy, affective) do not need to be used anymore. There is also flexibility in how these skills are developed in the students with less focus on implicit (modelling and nurturing) vs explicit (teaching and practise) development. The flexibility extends to how this is documented. This is particularly helpful for the responsive educators among us (hopefully all of us) who may teach an ATL skill when the need arises (e.g collaboration skills when you see multiple approaches being used or research skills when a student wants to take a concept further) but may not consider this in the initial unit planning stage. This highlights why the planner needs to be a dynamic document which can be added to and adapted at any point.

There are a lot more changes and resources to explore such as example inquiry questions, the shift from service as action to community engagement, and FAQs, so even if your school is not a part of a trial do check out the information on the links shared (site/webinar) and start thinking about what changes you can be excited for.