The Learner Profile in ActionDenver, November 2006

Judith Fabian

Head of Programme Development

The continuum of international education:

• Programme standards and practices October 2005

• IB learner profile March 2006

• The knowledge society requires critical and creative thinkers

• Belief in the development of the whole child

• The need to educate for a better world

A growing consensus on the importance of values in education:

PYP schools 298

MYP schools 508

Diploma schools 1469

The learner profile in the standards and practices:

Standard A1 Philosophy; practice 2

•“The school is committed to developing in students the qualities, attitudes and characteristics described in the IB learner profile”

 

 

•Standard C1 Curriculum; practice 6

“The curriculum promotes all the attributes of the IB learner profile”

•Standard C4 Curriculum; PYP practice 14

“Data, including evidence of development in terms of the IB learner profile, is reported to all participants in the learning process: students, parents, teachers and school administrators, and other schools at time of transfer.”

• Return to ideals• Development of intellectual character

in students• Coherence of educational experience• Teacher recruitment and appraisal• Structure for professional

development

The learner profile: opportunities

• ‘buy-in’ from everyone• Diploma programme: ideals and

values plus content and skills• assessment

The learner profile: challenges

“My premise is that this culture and we as members of it have yielded too easily to what is doable and practical….In the process we have sacrificed the pursuit of what is in our hearts. We find ourselves giving in to our doubts, and settling for what we know how to do, or can learn to do, instead of pursuing what matters most to us and living with the adventure and anxiety this requires.”

Peter Block “The Answer to How is Yes”

“Teachers are not deliverers but developers of learning. Those who focus on teaching techniques and curriculum standards and do not also engage teachers in the greater social and moral questions of their time promote a diminished view of teaching and teacher’s professionalism that has no place in a sophisticated knowledge society.”

Andy Hargreaves “Teaching in a Knowledge Society”

The IB learner profile: the lived curriculum