Oak Park District 97 and International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme
Oak Park District 97 is strongly committed to the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (IB MYP). We believe the IB mission statement and curricular framework provide a solid foundation for supporting and fostering District 97’s vision to create a positive learning environment for all students that is equitable, inclusive, and focused on the whole child. The work, commitment and partnership of all stakeholders in our community is vital to helping all of our students experience and achieve the following goals of becoming:
- Known, nurtured, and celebrated LEARNERS
- Empowered and passionate SCHOLARS
- Confident and persistent ACHIEVERS
- Creative CRITICAL THINKERS and GLOBAL CITIZENS
The IB Learner Profile is integral to teaching and learning in the IB MYP. It represents the qualities of effective learners, internationally-minded students and holistic individuals. As IB learners, students strive to be:
Inquirers - develop a natural curiosity and skills for inquiry and research
Knowledgeable - use what is learned across a range of disciplines to develop and expand conceptual understandings and knowledge of local and global issues and ideas
Thinkers - apply creative, critical thinking skills to analyze and articulate reasoned, ethical decisions
Communicators - listen, speak, write and collaborate clearly in an appropriate style and language that expresses ideas and perspectives carefully, confidently, and in a principled manner
Principled - act with integrity, honesty, fairness, compassion and respect for the rights of people everywhere and take responsibility for own actions and accompanying consequences
Open-minded - appreciate and value personal perspectives, cultures and histories and that of others
Caring - express empathy, compassion and respect towards the needs and feelings of others when speaking, listening and writing as well as show a personal commitment to service and making a positive difference in the world
Risk-takers - approach academic experiences and challenges with courage, openness and resiliency
Balanced - understand the balance of intellectual, physical and emotional selves in daily life as well as acknowledge the interdependence with others and the world
Reflective - consider own ideas and learning experiences in relation to the world
District 97 and MYP Curriculum
District 97 believes that every child can learn and should have meaningful access to the curriculum driven by the Illinois Learning Standards and composed of the IB MYP’s 8 subject groups. All middle school students are expected to participate as fully as possible in the IB MYP, an inclusive, holistic framework designed to meet the needs of all learners. Inclusion is the ongoing process and practice of increasing access to curriculum for all students by identifying and removing barriers while designing for learner variability. According to IB, learner variability embraces all students and does not exclude on the grounds of strengths, challenges, age, social status, language, gender, race, ethnicity or sexuality. In the process of planning for learning, there are three interrelated curricular components (written, taught, assessed) to develop, implement and monitor.
- A formal, comprehensive, school-wide set of documents (unit planners and scope & sequences) that describes what will be taught in each subject to each age group. Curriculum development centers on four major elements: key concepts and related concepts, global contexts, approaches to learning (ATL) skills and subject-group objectives. From these elements, unit planners and subject-group scope and sequences are developed through vertical and horizontal articulation. In the written curriculum, teachers can plan for service activities that are engaging and relevant to students.
- An emphasis on the construction of meaning so that students’ learning is purposeful and connects to their personal models of how the world works and their own values. When planning for learning, it is important to ascertain students’ prior knowledge so as to provide experiences that give them opportunities to test and revise their models, to make connections between previous and current perceptions, and to construct meaning through structured inquiry and conceptual development that is across and beyond subject-groups.
- A process of collecting, analyzing, and reporting information on student learning that reflects what students know and can do, and informs ongoing teaching and learning. Integrated with the written and taught curriculum, the assessed curriculum is considered throughout the processes involved in monitoring student progress, planning for learning, developing assessment tasks (formative and summative) that provide feedback and evaluating students’ level of proficiency in each subject-group's criterion. There are assessment criteria assigned for each subject-group as shown in the table.
| course | criterion a | criterion b | criterion c | criterion d |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language and Literature | Analyzing | Organizing | Producing Text | Using language |
| Language Acquisition | Listening | Reading | Speaking | Writing |
| Individuals and Societies | Knowing and understanding | Investigating | Communicating | Thinking critically |
| Sciences | Knowing and understanding | Inquiring and designing | Processing and evaluating | Reflecting on the impacts of science |
| Mathematics | Knowing and understanding | Investigating patterns | Communicating | Applying mathematics in real-life contexts |
| Arts | Knowing and understanding | Developing skills | Thinking creatively | Responding |
| Physical and Health Education | Knowing and understanding | Planning for performance | Applying and performing | Reflecting and improving performance |
| Design | Inquiring and analyzing | Developing ideas | Creating the solution | Evaluating |
| Community Project | Investigating | Planning | Taking action | Reflecting |
| Interdisciplinary | Integrating knowledge and understanding | Learning in context | Communicating | Reflecting |