Exhibition

The time has come for College View's first ever IB exhibition! Exhibition is a culminating part of each child's experience with the IB Primary Years Program. It is a student driven unit of inquiry. Students will research topics of their choosing and will develop a plan to take action as a result of their learning.

We have been implementing the Primary Years Program since College View opened it's doors in 2011. It is an expectation that students in an IB school will participate in exhibition the year after their school has been authorized. The thinking behind this is to give students ample experience with the program before they delve into a student driven unit of inquiry.

Students will work in groups of 3-4 and will be paired with a mentor. The role of the mentor is to act as a guide and a resource during the exhibition process. Mentors will meet with their groups on a weekly basis throughout the exhibition process.

As a class, the 5th graders brainstormed topics that could be studied under the IB transdisciplinary theme "Who We Are". Students used this list to choose the topic they wanted to study. Mentors were given this same list of topics and were asked to indicate areas they would be interested in mentoring. Both students and mentors have been notified of their group members/topics and are ready to begin their work!

Each IB unit is driven by a Central Idea. While the 5th graders are familiar with central ideas, they have never written one. I met with them yesterday to help them understand the key components of a central idea, which are:

• One concise statement
• Connects to transdisciplinary theme
• True statement
• Globally transferrable
• Not value laden
• Timeless
• Conceptual

This exhibition group is analyzing central ideas to determine if  they are well written

Students worked in their exhibition groups to analyze central ideas to determine if they were well written. Then they began to draft their own central ideas. This is where the really tough work began. We want the students to write a central idea that meets the criteria listed above and that is broad enough to cover all the topics they will be studying. The conversations students had were amazing. I heard students debating about whether or not something was a topic or a concept, if things were  really true and if they were true here, were they true everywhere in the world? The adults in the room weren't giving any answers (heck, sometimes we didn't have the answers), but were encouraging the conversations and asking guiding questions.

After this productive struggle, 5th grade teacher, Jordan Preston called the class back together to discuss some of the concepts the groups had discussed. She gave them a formula that helped shape those concepts into a central idea.

The key to writing a central idea: Concept + Verb + Concept

This helped students tremendously. Some of our preliminary ideas include;

• People can make a difference by taking action.
• People's choices affect their health.
• People can make good choices.
• Money affects human life.
• People can make a difference in the world.
• Taking action impacts a person's life.

This is just a start. We will continue work together to develop a central idea that will drive the students towards meaningful action.