Following my recent completion of the IPC course, Bottom Line Nine, I’ve typed up these notes below.  Having spent the last six years working for International Primary Curriculum (IPC) schools, this course has helped me reflect on and consolidate my own understanding of the International Primary Curriculum.  Hopefully, these notes can also serve as a reference for others about what the IPC is, how it works and what’s involved in the accreditation process.

A Brief History of the IPC

What is the IPC?

Our 2018 IPC Curriculum Map

How is the IPC implemented?

The IPC Learning Process

Planning an IPC Learning Unit

IPC Accreditation

Our IPC Action Plan

A Brief History of the IPC

Developed in the late 1990s by the consultancy, Fieldwork Education for Shell’s international schools worldwide, the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) quickly became popular with other  schools looking for a curriculum that would be suitable for their diverse cohorts of international children. By using the IPC, international schools around the world have been able to deliver lessons according to a commonly agreed set of learning principles and objectives.  There are now almost 2000 IPC schools across 90 countries.

What is the IPC?

Designed for children aged 5 to 11 years old, the IPC takes a thematic approach in which subjects are brought together under one topic.  For example, younger students might study topics such as Food, Shopping or Transport, while older students might cover topics such as Celebrations, Climate Control or Space Explores.  In total, there are currently about 130 of these topics, also known as ‘learning units’, to choose from – all of which are designed to appeal to children’s interests and help them to learn more about the world around them.  Each learning unit then brings in learning goals from other subjects such as literacy, numeracy, science and history.  Below is our IPC curriculum map for 2018, which shows all the topics students will study during this coming academic year:

[embeddoc url=”https://technologyforlearners.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/IPC-Curriculum-Map_20186.xlsx”]

The concept of theme-based learning is not new, as it first appeared in the 1970s.  What the IPC has done, however, is to take this basic concept and modernise it to reflect findings from neuroscientists and other educationalists.  An emphasis on how subject disciplines are interdependent allows students to see the connections between subjects and how they are linked to a big idea.  In this way, the IPC is intended to provide both depth and breadth to students’ learning.

The ethos of IPC schools as ‘learning-focused’ is underpinned by findings from neuroscience, in terms of the reinforcement of existing neurons and the creation of new neurons. As a result, the IPC views learning as both a process of consolidating existing learning and, secondly, as the development of new learning.   

The IPC’s learning outcomes are based on developing knowledge, skills and understanding – the differences between each need to be clearly communicated to the children, as shown in the display below.  This is because a key feature of the IPC is its emphasis on the fact that knowledge is only valuable when it used to supplement skills and understanding for any given task.

The IPC reinforces a lifelong view of learning by viewing the development of knowledge, skills and understanding as ongoing throughout an individual’s lifetime.  Key questions are used to prompt teachers to reflect, e.g. ‘What kinds of children are we trying to develop, and how can we prepare students for the 21st century?’

How is the IPC implemented?

The learning goals are the foundation on which the International Primary Curriculum is built.  They set out clearly what children should learn at school: the big ideas, the qualities we want them to develop, the key skills and the essential knowledge.

The IPC provides students with subject goals, personal learning goals, and uniquely, international learning goals, and these are defined for each age phase:

– Milepost 1 (5 to 7 years)

– Milepost 2 (7 to 9 years)

– Milepost 3 (9 to 11 years)

The mileposts are one of the key organisational features of the IPC.  As the Milepost 3 Coordinator, I work specifically with the curriculum and teachers that pertain to this age band.  The reason behind organising learning across a two or three-year age span is that if we are to help children to develop skills as well as knowledge and understanding, then we need to recognise that this takes time to learn.

Subject Goals

Subject goals cover the knowledge (facts and information students are expected to learn), skills (practical abilities students need to be able to exhibit) and understanding (deeper awareness of key concepts that develop over time) of children relating to the subjects they are learning. There are subject learning goals for Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, ICT & Computing, Technology, History, Geography, Music, Physical Education, Art and Society.

Personal Goals

Personal goals underpin the individual qualities and dispositions that the IPC believes children will find essential in the 21st century. There are 8 IPC Personal Goals – enquiry, resilience, morality, communication, thoughtfulness, cooperation, respect and adaptability. Opportunities to experience and practice these are built into the learning tasks within each unit of work.

International Learning Goals

From the perspective of the IPC, if we are to be serious about helping our learners to develop a mindset that will allow them to think and act globally, then we as a school need to be specific about what international-mindedness means and how it can be achieved.  International learning goals are unique to the IPC  and help young children begin the move towards an increasingly sophisticated national, international and intercultural perspective.  This move can be thought of as a journey from ‘self’ to ‘other’.  Each thematic IPC unit includes an international aspect, to help develop a sense of ‘international mindedness’.

The IPC Learning Process

Though vital, the learning goals only address what children should learn and not how they should learn.  This is why there is a clear process of learning developed in the IPC, from Entry Point to Exit Point, which intends for children to become engaged, active and collaborative learners rather than just passive receivers of information.  If structured as intended, each unit follows the same process of learning, in order to ensure that children’s learning experiences are as stimulating as possible:

Learning Targets > Entry point > Knowledge Harvest > Explaining the Theme > Research & Recording Tasks > Exit Point 

There is another reason why the IPC learning units are structured in this way, and it’s because of key findings from neuroscience research.  For example:

■ Neuronal constellations, the existing neuronal clusters in the brain to which new learning is added or existing learning consolidated, (IPC link – The Knowledge Harvest).

■ The behaviour of neurons in the brain and the importance of connections, (IPC link – Explaining The Theme).

■ The way learners take in information, and experience learning differently in a way that is appropriate to them, (IPC link – Researching).

■ Reflecting, or the way the brain processes complex information over time, (IPC link – Reviewing, leading to assessment for learning).

■ The links between stress and learning and the importance of ‘high challenge, low stress’ or ‘relaxed alertness,’ (IPC link – Rigorous learning).

Planning an IPC Learning Unit

IPC Accreditation

Following directly from Criterion 2, the expectation is that schools should have a wide range of classroom practices and approaches to make the realisation of its shared vision a reality.

One of our next steps as a school for example, is to have good learning policy in place, which can really help teachers get to grips with ‘how we do things here’.  This needs to be part of our induction process.

Criterion 4: International Mindedness

It is a basic principle of the IPC that it is not possible to use the IPC without implementing those elements related to the development of international mindedness.

According to the IPC, internationally-minded students should have:

■ Knowledge and understanding beyond that related to their own nationality

■ An understanding of the independence and interdependence of peoples, countries and cultures

■ Both a national and international perspective

■ The skills and mindset to be global citizens who make an active, positive contribution to society

■ An increasing sense of their own identity alongside developing a sense of others’ and their identities. These characteristics should be reflected in the whole curriculum and in all other aspects of school life.

Criterion 5: The significance and development of knowledge, skills and understanding

The IPC is built on the principle that knowledge, skills and understanding develop together, with each different type of learning including and transcending the other. However, each does have its own distinct characteristics and it can be very powerful ‘to signpost’ to children what kind of learning they are experiencing and what the implications of this are in the classroom.

Based on a number of surveys on the skills required by graduates undertaken by Microsoft, Target Jobs, the BBC, Prospects, NACE and AGR and other organisations, this is a list of skills put together by Fieldwork Education, which were most often deemed important:

1. Verbal Communication: Able to express your ideas clearly and confidently in speech
2. Teamwork: Work confidently within a group
3. Commercial Awareness: Understand the commercial realities affecting the organization
4. Analysing & Investigating: Gather information systematically to establish facts & principles. Problem solving.
5. Initiative/Self Motivation: Able to act on initiative, identify opportunities & proactive in putting forward ideas & solutions
6. Drive: Determination to get things done. Make things happen & constantly looking for better ways of doing things
7. Written Communication: Able to express yourself clearly in writing
8. Planning & Organising: Able to plan activities & carry them through effectively
9. Flexibility: Adapt successfully to changing situations & environments
10. Time Management: Manage time effectively, prioritising tasks and able to work to deadlines

All of these skills can be linked in one way or another to the IPC Personal Goals.

Criterion 6: Rigorous children’s learning and teachers’ high expectations of it

The IPC makes clear that there should be rigorous learning experiences, which motivate children to learn more deeply, while also giving them a sense of personal accomplishment when they overcome a learning challenge.  For teachers, this means that they should simply bring rigour into classroom.

Criterion 7: Implementation of the learning process of the IPC

It is important that learners do not just experience the structure and process of the IPC (e.g. Entry Point, Knowledge Harvest, etc.), but also that they understand why they are learning in this way. The Brainwave (Art of Learning) units for Mileposts 1, 2 and 3 guide teachers and learners through the philosophy, pedagogy and process of the IPC.  In our case, we will begin the academic year with a whole school emphasis on the ‘Art of Learning’, helping students to understand how their brains work in relation to learning.

Criterion 8: Implementation of themes through independent yet interdependent subjects

In the Holiday Show IPC unit for example, multiple perspectives are included such as historical, geographical, scientific, technological and international perspectives and each of these independent subjects are taught and learnt interdependently through this theme. As far as possible, teachers need to ensure that children are introduced to both the separate subjects of the curriculum in a way that also brings the subjects together to develop a broader perspective.

Criterion 9: Assessment that improves learning

The IPC Learning Goals support both ‘assessment for learning’, whether assessing for knowledge, skills or understanding and ‘assessment for reporting’ because we believe both are important.

■ Assessment for ‘learning’ is important because it provides the feedback loop through which children can engage with the information they need to improve their own learning.

■ Assessment for ‘reporting’ is important because learners, teachers, leaders and the community have the right to know how well children are learning compared with other similar children in school or elsewhere, or how well children have learned at the end of the year or a period of time in school. The IPC Learning Goals, distinguish between three types of learning; knowledge, skills and understanding, and believe that all three need to be assessed appropriately in order to get a rounded picture of children’s learning.

■ Knowledge – the ‘know about’ learning goals – can be assessed during, or at the end of each subject, or at the end of the unit.

■ Skills – the ‘be able to’ learning goals – can be observed and assessed whilst the children are actively doing them; before, during or after some subjects in the unit.

■ Understanding – the ‘understand’ learning goals – can be evaluated by a judgement of observations carried out throughout the unit. The IPC Assessment for Learning Programme supports teachers in assessing, and children in self-assessing, their progress with key skills from the IPC Learning Goals. The programme is broken down into three parts:

[embeddoc url=”https://technologyforlearners.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/TBS-Botafogo-IPC-Review-and-Action-Plan-2018.xlsx”]

Minecraft is what is known as a ‘sandbox’ or ‘open world’ video game in which players roam and create within a virtual world.  Players walk around, jump, dig and punch things with their hand as they build, mine or farm resources.  By allowing users to build and explore as they choose, Minecraft can be used as an immersive learning platform to extend and enrich the curriculum.  For most educators the use of Minecraft might seem like an intimidating idea, especially since many students are experts with this platform!  Nevertheless, the skills and knowledge that students can bring to Minecraft should be seen as benefit.

In all the lessons that I have taught using Minecraft for example, students are very engaged and work collaboratively on the tasks set.  However, no matter what their skill level might be, it’s important to communicate some ground rules beforehand related to digital citizenship, i.e. about behaving appropriately in a digital space.  Just as students would follow rules about how to behave in the real world, they should understand that similar rules apply in their Minecraft world.  They should not, for instance, damage one another’s building efforts, nor should they communicate online (using Minecraft’s chat function) in a way that is inappropriate.

Fortunately, since 2011, MinecraftEdu has been developed specifically for use in the classroom context.  The MinecraftEdu platform retains the key elements of the original Minecraft while including additional features that facilitate its use in the classroom.  Key additional features allow the teacher to control what students are doing in the Minecraft world.  Students can be muted or frozen, for example.  In so doing, MinecraftEdu platform can be used to teach a range of skills and subjects from maths to humanities and social sciences.

Below, I have attached a PDF of the lesson plans that can be used to teach students about building an environmentally friendly city, which we used for our IPC unit on Climate Control.  These lesson plans can easily be adapted for literacy, to help spark students’ imagination.  For example, following Mr P’s lesson ideas, we also got our students designing Kensuke’s Kingdom using Minecraft.  Once students had completed their collaborative virtual kingdom, they were asked to take screenshots and upload these screenshots to their digital portfolios.  This is particularly useful for promoting students’ creative writing skills, as they can then be asked to write a description of the world they have created.

[embeddoc url=”https://technologyforlearners.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Class-4-Building-an-Environmentally-Friendly-City-Minecraft.pdf”]

Flipped learning is a pedagogical model in which the teacher delivery during in-class time is flipped with the homework elements of a course.  As a type of blended learning technique, students can watch relevant videos at home, which have been prepared by the teacher, while using their in-class time to focus on exercises, projects or discussions.

My own transition to a flipped learning classroom has been a gradual, organic process.  Although I still believe there is a place for the traditional (“sage-on-the- stage”) teaching approach, I’ve come to recognise the many advantages of a flipped learning model.   Sharing relevant tutorial videos with students and colleagues, both from my own YouTube channel and links elsewhere on the Web, enables me to spend more time as a facilitator of learning.  This simply means that learners spend less time passively listening at the beginning of the lesson and more time engaged in activities to develop their skills.  By doing away with the traditional classroom, which is very teacher centred, it also means that I have extra time to provide valuable one-on-one assistance to students who need it the most.

According to Eric Sheninger (2016), author of Uncommon Learning, there are two main components associated with the flipped learning approach:

1.  Students watch lectures and consume other forms of content outside of school at their own pace whilst communicating with peers and teachers using online learning tools.  In my opinion, this point about students working at their own pace cannot be understated.  The ability for students to pause, rewind and fast-forward a tutorial video means that they are in a much better situation to assimilate new learning.

2.  Students apply what they have learnt during in class time with assistance from the teacher.  As there is more time freed up during the lesson itself, there are more opportunities for small-group work and one-to-one contact with lower-performing students.

In order to make the lesson time itself more engaging while integrating formative assessment, there are many web-based tools that can complement the students’ main in class activities:

– Poll Everywhere

– Plickers

– Kahoot

– TodaysMeet

In addition, there are also some fantastic tools out there for students themselves to become authors, teachers and collaborators, working together to teach content to each other.  Some of the best of these tools include:

– Adobe Voice 

– VideoScribe

– Explain Everything

– Quizlet 

– Google Slides 

As well as giving my students opportunities to use these tools, I have used each one of these applications myself as a medium in which to share information with students for them to learn at their own pace.  As Sheninher himself states though, ‘pedagogy always trumps technology’.  For digital learning to be implemented effectively, we should focus on pedagogy first and technology second.  When integrating technology, we need to remember that it is less about the tool and more about what students can do with the tools handed to them.

That being said, with all these web-based tools and other digital applications available, it makes sense that a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or 1:1 technology initiative can radically enhance the flipped learning model.  By providing students with access to their own device, it can bring out the best of what flipped learning has to offer.  According to Sheninger (2016, pp. 117),

The flipped classroom is an excellent first step in making students’ in-class experiences more active, more student centred, and more meaningful. Combining the best aspects of the flipped classroom with the power of 1:1 technology would allow for an even more radical reshaping of the classroom. School should become a place where students can learn at their own individual paces, become active creators instead of solely passive content recipients, and learn in an environment that they “own”, which adjusts rapidly to meet their learning needs and interests.      

Explain Everything is an iPad app for making teaching videos quickly and easily.  The interface consists of a blank canvas,  annotation tools and a record/pause/play button.  As soon as you hit the record button, the application screencasts the notes and drawings that you make on the canvas whilst recording your audio narration.  If a mistake is made or you want to change something about your screencast, it’s easy to go back and rewrite what you’ve recorded.

For teachers, the application can be used to record beforehand the explanation of a difficult concept – the combination of readymade sound, images and animated notes put together in a concise video serves to capture students’ attention and can be used for flipped learning.

Below are some examples of how I’ve used this application to create short tutorial videos on the topic of binary, decimal and hexadecimal conversions:

Even more useful still, is to have students make their own videos.  This enables you, the teacher, to quickly identify any misconceptions that a student has about a particular topic.  As an assessment tool, asking students to make their own tutorial videos can be invaluable for giving you a clear insight into their knowledge, skills and understanding.  At the same time, students become much more involved in their own learning process by making a tutorial video.

Quizlet is a web application that enables users to easily make digital flashcards.  Although it was originally conceived to help with memorisation, the application helps students learn any subject and can be used as part of the teacher’s toolkit for formative assessment.  For teachers, the tool is particularly effective during the introductory stage of a lesson to recap on key terms, or during the plenary, to check and consolidate students’ understanding.  The weblink to the flashcard set can also be shared with students without them needing to have an account with Quizlet themselves.

Once the flashcards have been made (with terms on one side and definitions on the other), Quizlet provides users with several study modes:

Flash Cards 

Gravity

Learn 

Spell

Match 

Concluding thoughts…

Students who use the application as a study aid are the main users of Quizlet.  However, the usefulness of this tool for teachers should not be underestimated.  The ease with which teachers can create digital flashcards, share these with students and use the tool to assess students’ understanding makes this an application well worth using in the classroom.

Assessment is any method used to appraise the knowledge, skills or understanding that a student possesses.  By providing constructive feedback to students on their work, assessment is fundamental to the teaching and learning process because it can show teachers (and their students) what areas of students’ performance needs to be improved.

Unfortunately, assessment of ICT, the predecessor to computing, has not been effective at achieving this end for most schools.  One of the main criticisms made by Ofsted about ICT in England for example, has been in the area of assessment.  In 2011 it was judged as no better than satisfactory in 61% of their sample.  In my view, there are three systemic challenges to the assessment of computing:

1. Until recently, the assessment framework itself has been based on ‘levels’, which have been fairly abstract and not always easy to interpret.
2. Many schools do not have an organised system of digital portfolios set up in which students’ work in ICT/computing can be consistently recorded and easily accessible.
3. Traditionally, schools have applied an assessment model based on the learners’ grasp of discrete bits of information rather than how they use that information in context to solve complex problems. This is particularly true of the former ICT curriculum, which focussed more on students acquiring a set of skills rather than on knowledge and understanding.

The shake up provided by the new computing curriculum offers an opportunity to put this right.  In the process of adapting to this new curriculum, I have been developing an integrated assessment, digital portfolio and digital badge model using Google Apps for Education to help address these systemic challenges.

1. The Assessment Framework

The expert panel, commissioned to review the national curriculum stated that all assessment should be linked directly to the content of the programmes of study.  This means that the computing programme of study should be broken down into a series of statements in which to inform the learning objectives of lessons.

The text below, which is derived directly from the 2014 national curriculum programme of study for computing, shows these statements.  Its organisation makes it easier to form judgements about students’ achievement of and progress towards the statutory attainment targets.  And it’s this assessment framework, which forms the basis of everything else that follows.

[item title=”National Curriculum Assessment Framework for Computing”]

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This is a framework for assessing attainment in computing based on the work by senior computing lecturers, Miles Berry and Pete Kemp at the University of Roehampton.  Taking a pragmatic approach, they’ve grouped the statements into ‘bands’ from 1 to 8: this numbering could be used in place of the old levels, if schools are committed to using the old system of tracking progress.  I’ve also included in this framework relevant standards (in purple) provided by The International Society for Technology in Education.   

2. Digital Portfolios

The next step is to ensure that a system of digital portfolios is in place.  A portfolio is just a purposeful collection of student work, which can provide direct indicators of a student’s learning experiences.  Digital portfolios are particularly useful because they can serve as an administrative tool to manage and organise work created with different applications, which can then be shared on the web for the whole community to see.

As Woodward (2000) points out, the value of portfolios is thoroughly researched and their use in education is well documented.  By demonstrating the development of knowledge, skills and understanding over time, digital portfolios make valuable assessment and learning tools.  To ensure deep learning though, it’s not enough for students to simply showcase a series of digital artefacts they have created.  It’s also important that students reflect on the work they have produced, and this can be done by simply getting them to write about what they have learnt.  This helps to reinforce students’ knowledge and understanding, which complement the skills they demonstrate through the creation of digital artefacts.  In order to get students into the habit of developing decent digital portfolios, I’d recommend that the process is started early – the last couple of years of primary school is a good time to start.

Project work lends itself particularly well to this process of building up a digital portfolio.  A link to a game created in Scratch for example, with some commentary and reflection about the process of making the game, would provide evidence of a number of attainment targets.  Over the course of the key stage, a diverse portfolio of evidence of student learning should emerge, which meets all the curriculum requirements.  At any time, it also provides teachers with a snapshot of which attainment targets a student has met, and which still require more evidence. I therefore recommend that a list of links to students’ digital portfolios be placed on the same spreadsheet as that used for assessment of students’ attainment.

3. Assessment of knowledge, skills and understanding

In order to motivate students and at the same time provide assessment for learning opportunities, digital badges should be linked to the system of digital portfolios.  A digital badge (embedded into the digital portfolio) is just a mini-credential, providing students with a validated indicator of accomplishment in a particular area.

Students earn digital badges according to the areas of learning they demonstrate across the statutory attainment targets of the computing curriculum.  Below are the badge designs and descriptions, which I have adapted from the ones provided by makewav.es.  Different digital badges are awarded across the three themes of the computing curriculum: computer science, digital literacy and information technology.  Within each of the themes I have ordered the badges according to the level of achievement they represent.

[item title=”Badge Information”]

[embeddoc url=”https://technologyforlearners.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/BadgeInformation.pdf”]

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It’s important from the outset that this badge information is shared with students in a straightforward language that can be easily understood .  I would even say that the badge information itself should be embedded into the students’ digital portfolios, so that students can clearly identify what knowledge, skills and understanding they need to demonstrate in order to earn a particular badge.

Linking Assessment with Digital Portfolios & Badges

Assessment of students’ attainment feeds into the digital badge system quite easily, with badges for each of the attainment targets linked to relevant evidence on a student’s digital portfolio.  If a school already has Google Apps for Education, which is free, it makes sense to make full use of this google ecosystem to integrate the assessment of students’ attainment with digital badges and digital portfolios.  I have created this integrated assessment model in order to automatically issue digital badges to students upon having had their attainment graded by the teacher.  It means that students do not need another set of login information to access their digital badges and portfolios, and schools do not need to pay for premium services.

Below is an example of an assessment template that I would use to archive links to students’ digital portfolios, grade students’ work and issue students with digital badges. As the video explains underneath, this template is linked to a student badge assesment template, which is shared with students via Google Classroom for them to embed into their digital portfolios. When the assessment template is filled out, I use the Google Add-on, autoCrat, to merge the ‘Comments & Badge Display’ sheet of this assessment template with a “Badge code email template”. In this way, students automatically receive an email with the badge codes that they have been assigned. They then enter these badge codes onto their student badge templates, which automatically populate digital badge images onto their digital portfolios.

As well as addressing the systemic challenges of assessment, my intention with this has been to make the process of assessment easier for teachers to do and more effective in its outcomes for teaching and learning.  This assessment model is highly automated, freeing up time for teachers to focus on properly appraising students’ knowledge, skills and understanding across the curriculum.  For students, the digital portfolio and badge system allows them to reflect on and keep track of what they’ve learnt, informing targets for what comes next.  It gives parents a much more meaningful picture of what a child has learnt, and what they still need to study.  Finally, it allows school leadership and the inspectorate to more accurately track year on year progress of students.

Concluding thoughts…

First and foremost, assessment should be directly linked to the content of the curriculum. The statements that make up the assessment framework can then feed into digital badge information, which is best shared with students.  Students should then keep up a digital portfolio of evidence to showcase and reflect on their learning.  These digital portfolios need to be easily accessible by teachers, so that accurate assessments of students’ knowledge, skills and understanding is made possible.

References:

Woodward, H. (2000). Portfolios: Narratives for learning. Journal of In-Service Education Vol 26 No 2 p. 329 -347.

1. Classroom management – As shown in the photos, Post-it notes are an ideal size to mark out seating arrangements. For younger children (8 years and below), I use them on the carpet (for the introductory part of a lesson, plenary or story time) and on the floor outside the classroom to indicate where children should sit when lining up. This simply saves time, as children know straightaway where to sit. The Post-it notes do inevitably wear away after a few weeks (even after taping them into place), but students will remember the seating arrangement well before then.

2. Assessment – At my school we regularly use Post-it notes for what the International Primary Curriculum calls a “Knowledge Harvest”. We ask students to use Post-it notes to write down what they already know and what they want to learn about a topic. The information provided can be useful for lesson planning. It also means that we can create a mind-map at the beginning of a new topic and add to it throughout the unit, demonstrating to the students how their learning is progressing. I often use Post-it notes in literacy lessons for example, so that students can write new words that they learn and to help them practise spellings. We then have what I call a “mobile working wall” for students to share new vocabulary with the rest of the class.

3. Storyboards – On the subject of literacy, Post-it notes can really help with students’ creative writing. By being able to easily move their ideas around on paper, Post-it notes provide an effective way to structure the plan of a story. This is something that we do with students at the planning stage for story writing.

4. Reminders – I have an ongoing to do list that builds up throughout the week. I use Post-it notes to keep track of all my commitments and then stick them on my computer monitor, so that I won’t forget. I use the same logic with my lesson plans. For each lesson I write a series of prompts for myself on a single Post-it, which helps remind me of the key activities and learning outcomes that I want for a particular lesson.

5. Digital Post-it notes – It’s no surprise that the benefits of Post-it notes have been transferred to a digital format. My go to iPad app is iCardSort, which I used a lot when I was studying for my Masters. It’s a fantastic way to get all your ideas out in one place, and it’s an easy way to colour code revision material. This makes the app particularly useful for “concept mapping”, a way of organising information to facilitate learning.

The “technology” perspective:

Post-it notes are an example of what Mishra & Koelher (2006) would call a “transparent technology” because they blend into the learning environment in such a way that they are no longer even considered a technology. To the extent that Post-it notes can be embedded seamlessly into the daily practice of teaching and learning, the tool helps teachers to deliver more effective lessons and facilitates more productive learning on the part of students.

Reference:

Mishra and J. Koelher. 2006. Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge.