IB In-School Workshops : Beneficial for your Teaching Community

IB Asia Pacific offers schools a number of different Professional Development options from which to choose. In-School workshops are one of the options which are growing in popularity in the Asia Pacific region.

We will help you make the most of your In-School Workshop and Professional Development needs. These workshops are an important option with many benefits for schools. They are three-day Regional workshops which have been reduced to 2 days for the in-school context and it is important for the co-ordinator to discuss the objectives and proposed outcomes with the workshop leader prior to the workshop in order to ensure that the workshop addresses specific school issues.

1. Develop common understanding in your faculty by:

Bringing staff together
Supporting professional learning communities
Supporting collaborative learning and planning – everyone hears the same message
Providing opportunities for pedagogical leaders to identify areas of strength in the faculty in order to improve the implementation of the programme.
Enhancing the role of the co-ordinator as a pedagogical leader.
Strengthening the school community - through analysis/reflection on current school situation and development of a common action plan
Promoting Action research
Identifying common goals with clear, agreed action plans
Priming and focussing the professional development for the school.
Building champions and facilitating shared responsibility and leadership for the action plan.

2. Address school specific issues

Helps drive strategic action plan
Focus on areas highlighted in the authorisation / evaluation process
Relevant to specific school context/environment
Focus on school specific student-learning needs
Supports differentiation
Broad selection of workshops available tailored to different stages of programme development and Programme Standards and Practices.

3. Cost-effective

Transferable PD with verifiable certificates
No need to fly teachers to other regions or pay accommodation costs
Can train a group of teachers simultaneously
Focussed on your schools needs
Can run more than one workshop at the same time to meet full PD needs to school.

4. Models IB classroom practice by:

Sharing understanding of particular aspects of the program.
Developing a community of learners, reflecting what is happening in the classroom.
Offering teachers an opportunity to practice and discuss a range of activities that can be applied to classroom practice
Adapting activities to schools’ resources and physical environment.
Reviewing and updated to be consistent with IB developments and publications
Modelling academic honesty through provision of copyrighted resources
Supporting a learning community in constructing their own understanding
Providing time to reflect and to plan action that is relevant to the school.
Considering international mindedness in unique school contexts
Respecting language richness in schools

5. Under the IB’s Quality Assurance Framework

Development of workshops

Internationally recognised and certificated workshops
Ongoing Research and Development are basis of workshops
Calls on latest thinking from university and IB experts.
Provision of copyrighted resources

IB Workshop Leader

Selection, training and ongoing IB PD ensure quality peer to peer IB professional development
IB operates a full selection and training programme funded by the IB.
Educator training by educator

IB Quality Assurance :

QA supported by a team of international analysts and statisticians
Huge data bank of information from around the world
Feeds back to Professional Development departments as part of ongoing review

6. New in 2012: Creative Solutions for Unique Requirements: Building on relationships between IB regional offices and schools

Small school policy - support for small school
Context related workshops - e.g. Girls schools, Faith Based schools, Environmental issues, Well-being, Global context.
Workshops over different timeframes including after school hours.
Can offer more than one workshop at the same time
Can offer any workshop in-school in catalog http://www.ibo.org/events/documents/IB_WorkshopCatalog_web.pdf