MYP unit planning, implementing and reflecting

It is very rarely for the teachers new to the MYP are not feeling overwhelmed when being introduced to the MYP unit planning process. The MYP unit planner provides a framework and help teachers to design a unit of work step by step following the inquiry cycle: inquiry, action, and reflection. It might seem clear to the experienced teachers to fill in these boxes, but it certainly can become discouraging for the new MYP teachers or even for the teachers who have taught the programme several years. There are also some teachers who think MYP unit plans are just for documentation. I think MYP unit plan is for the sake of documentation is only when you want it to be. There is no reason why the MYP unit plan can’t become a planning tool if we have a better understanding of all the elements of the MYP unit plan.

I often think it is important for us, teachers, to remember that “good teaching is good teaching”. We can change our attitude to understand the MYP unit plan and gain a different perspective. Before interacting with the MYP unit planner, it is helpful to list what elements we normally take into consideration when designing a unit of work. We can observe that lots of the elements are clearly the same, such as identifying the content, creating student learning tasks, teaching students skills, designing assessment tasks and so on. By examining the MYP unit planner, it is also a good opportunity to discuss how the MYP planning process is the same and different from traditional unit planning. The MYP provides a framework work to keep us on track and teachers certainly should take our time to understanding the MYP unit planning, implementing and reflecting process. 

In order to support teachers in understanding the MYP unit planning, implementing and reflecting process, I created some guiding questions to help us reflect on each key element along the way.   ​

• Lavina, Aloha. “Cartographers? Wayfinders?” THE LEARNER’S TOOLBOX, 15 Apr. 2018, myptoolbox.com/2018/04/15/cartographers-wayfinders/.
• Taylor, Stephen. “ Curriculum as a Compass?” WAYFINDER LEARNING LAB, 19 Mar. 2018, sjtylr.net/2018/03/19/curriculumcompass/.
• Kras, A. (2018), Modern Infographic Process Template. [image] Available at: https://creativemarket.com/AndrewKras/334464-Modern-Infographic-Process-Template [Assessed 9 Jan. 2018].