International Baccalaureate Reflective Activity 3
There can be many links made between the progressive trends of the International Baccalaureate (IB) to the teaching and learning within Curriculum for Excellence (CfE).
Child-centred learning and student choice are progressive learning trends which I have seen being practiced within the teaching and learning of CfE. Whilst on placement, teaching and learning was a collaborative experience between the teacher and the student instead of only teacher-lead learning. This was done through discussion which links to inquiry-based learning, where the students can develop skills such as problem solving and collaborative skills. I also observed student choice through a lot of reflection and feedback from the students, about what they enjoyed learning about or what they found more difficult. Moving forward, the teacher and school can take these into account when curriculum planning, which will in turn increase engagement levels throughout students and classrooms.
Education of the whole child is a focus of CfE and is highlighted through the four capacities and SHANARRI documents. Successful learners, Confident individuals Responsible citizens and Effective contributors are the four capacities of CfE, each capacity reflects on the whole child’s education and not just academic learning and development, but social, emotional and physical learning and development also. SHANARRI highlights the importance of the health and wellbeing of children and provides practitioners across Scotland to identify children who need extra support and how to help children receive that support. Practitioners are provided with materials such as the SHANARRI ‘Wellbeing wheel’ and ‘My world triangle’ to help them support children’s social and emotional development.
Transdisciplinary learning can be seen in CfE through Interdisciplinary learning, both involve learning content relevant to two or more disciplinaries. This could involve overlapping of mathematics and science to develop problem solving skills, or expressive arts and health and wellbeing to create a wellbeing plate. This is highly effective to student’s learning as it shows the links not only between disciplinaries but also the links to the real world which shows the students the relevance of their learning.
