Jason Graham & Susiati Widiningsih

The International Baccalaureate Organisation Primary Years Programme is an international educational framework for international schools. The IBO is a non-profit organisation and has long been established as a provider of quality education and promoters of lifelong learning. There are over 2300 IBO schools worldwide ranging from candidate status to fully authorised schools. Some schools offer all 3 programmes: Primary Years  Programme (ages 3-12) Middle Years Programme (ages 11 - 16 ) and the  Diploma Programme (ages 16-19).

 The PYP is driven by the Curriculum Framework  which consists of 5 elements and 6 themes that a learner can go through in  the inquiry process.

Finally, there are 3 'key questions' surrounding the PYP. They are:

1. What do we want to learn?

2.  How will we learn it?

3.  How will we know what we have learnt? (Assessment)

The Learner Profile encompasses how IB learners strive to be internationally minded people and global citizens.

I believe the benefits of the PYP include:

• flexible yet relevant learning experiences 
•  inquiry based
• continuum of education - easy transition between IB schools worldwide

 Permission granted by IBO to provide links to pubicly accessible web pages - July 2008.

Inquiry based learning takes place best by being confronted with real life problems that are relevant and interesting to the learner and trying to figure out ways to solve them. We all do this naturally, especially children. However, inquiry itself is really only one part of learning, it is the reflection of the learning process that is also an important part of learning.

Learning is much more than the ROTE memorisation of useless facts and figures (especially these days with the Internet) and we are often asked to solve a problem or a task in real life and not merely recall facts. Thinking back on my grade school education in Canada (not THAT long ago...okay late 70's early 80's) I do remember a very traditional way of being taught with desks in rows and teacher leading the instructional 'chalk and talk' while students copied down information, little discussion was facilitated and we handed in the worksheet at the end for a grade. If you had a good memory, you got a good grade.

                                                                                             Inquiry Based Learning Vs. 'Old School' Education

This of course is not an exhaustive list.

However, some argue against Inquiry Based Learning. Some point out that inquiry-based learning (Source Wikipedia):

• cannot be used to teach learners complicated theories and ideas ^{citation needed]}

• fails to teach students essential facts and knowledge.^{[citation needed]}

• some  teachers are uncomfortable teaching using this technique.^{[citation needed]}

So how can I 'make' an Inquiry Based Classroom?

 Click on the link above to find out.