International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years... thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oof. I taught at an IBMYP school for a few years. It is a TON of work from the teacher side of things if you are doing it authentically. All assessments have to be redone, all assignments rubric based, multiple interdisciplinary projects every quarter.

From the kid side of things, it probably didn’t seem that different, as I’m not sure they were all that aware of how/what/why things happened.

I now am at a different IBMYP school and they do none of the above, just post the character traits on the wall and go about their traditional lessons.

This is interesting. Obviously as a parent I have even less understanding of what’s going on than my kid but I appreciate the info

DP.. at our MYP teachers do give out IB scores, so on some of their major assignments they get two grade -- one traditional and one based on IB rubrics.

The scores don't hold any real weight, though, as far as I know.

I stated above that kids in 10th grade have to complete their MYP project and do a writeup about what they learned about "learning" while working on the project.

[Anonymous]

On 7th grade (FCPS), the kids had to do a “passion project” and present it to the community. Now at high school, there are required service hours with reflections + a big “personal project” in 10th grade that is run through the English departments. If they also pass all their assessments, they earn the IB MYP certificate.

[Anonymous]

*In

[Anonymous]

I teach at an ib school that seems to be ib only for branding purposes. It’s hecka annoying on my side without being particularly enriching for kids.

[Anonymous]

I’m a teacher in an MYP program and made sure my children attend a school that is not MYP. The PP are correct but in our school the grading focus is on the whole child and 4 categories (criterion). There is a lot of project based learning. It sounds nice on paper and without getting too detailed in MYP jargon, the issue is that academic skills are lost. The focus is not on mastering content knowledge and this can hurt them in high school, especially math and science, depending on the way MYP is implemented.

[Anonymous]

It really depends. At some schools in the US, MYP is just an appendage to the normal state guidelines & it’s no big deal - the teachers just have to reclassify and modify some of the assignments. But if it is implemented fully, it can be really interesting in the beginning, but it does become really tough by the end.

We are overseas, where a lot of our local privates use IB. My DS is the equivalent of a sophomore in the US system, that is the last year of IB MYP. For him, it is a really tough year. The personal project requires not only making a deeply-researched project in & of itself, but also a formal report that is limited to 3000 words, plus 10 pages of appendices, full citations and all. His journal for it is 75 pages long. This is on top of an avalanche of e-portfolio submissions for the ‘soft’ classes (PE, design, and two different foreign languages) due at the end of this term. Then he will begin prep for final sit-down exams in English, Humanities, Physics, Chemistry & Maths - all slated over two weeks in May. Plus community service.

Watching his work load this year has left me horrified. It is so much more work than I did over the course of my entire 4 years of HS in the US, back when I was a kid. I wish I’d had access to a softer program for him, tbh.