Hi,
Has anyone signed for IB online workshops ? Should I go for it if i have never worked in a IB school ? Is it better than IB training provided by the school ?
Thanks
IB online workshops
Re: IB online workshops
[quote="ann"]Hi,
Has anyone signed for IB online workshops ? Should I go for it if i have never worked in a IB school ? Is it better than IB training provided by the school ?
Thanks[/quote]
I have participated in both kinds of workshop and I prefer the online ones, especially when I was first learning about the MYP (ignore the introduction workshops.Do something like planning a unit workshop). I like the relaxed pace, and the lack of having to deal with the know-it-alls who always attend the in-person workshops. If you take the online ~3-6 week workshop seriously you will get much more out of it and learn much more than a two-and-a-half day in person workshop.
Has anyone signed for IB online workshops ? Should I go for it if i have never worked in a IB school ? Is it better than IB training provided by the school ?
Thanks[/quote]
I have participated in both kinds of workshop and I prefer the online ones, especially when I was first learning about the MYP (ignore the introduction workshops.Do something like planning a unit workshop). I like the relaxed pace, and the lack of having to deal with the know-it-alls who always attend the in-person workshops. If you take the online ~3-6 week workshop seriously you will get much more out of it and learn much more than a two-and-a-half day in person workshop.
I took the Intro to PYP course on line this summer, and am very glad I did. Though I do not work at a PYP school, I am recruiting this year and thought it would be a good idea to get an overall idea of what it is all about, just in case I interview for positions using the PYP. I thought the course was good, the participants were helpful, the course load reasonable, and I learned a lot. I would recommend it.
Reply
The rule is no amount of training equals any amount of experience. Doing a workshop with no experience isnt going to hurt you, but its not going to help you either.
Level 1 workshops or the "Introduction" workshops are just a review of the basic IB philosophy, and pedagogy into inquiry and student centered teaching. The superficial coverage you get in a level 1 workshop is probably going to repeat what you already know or were exposed to in your teacher training. Reviewing the IB OCC documents for your subject and the IBO website will give you the same content.
Level 2 Workshops focus on methodology and marking. Level 3 workshops focus on assessment and integration, mostly for coordinators and admins.
Depending on what your school offers, a onsite, school specific workshop is better then a general/generic workshop, especially in MYP, where variations of MYP implementation vary greatly from school to school. The issue is the timeline. While onsite training would be the most appropriate to the school your at, most schools do training over the summer, and not before new teachers start, so they have already "taught" their subject by the time they are trained. Secondly, as above if your hired at an IB school, you will get OCC access and reviewing the materials their is equivalent to what youd get out of a level 1 workshop, making a level 2 workshop more appropriate. Third, is resources, a school has a lot of training needs not just "IB" training and depending how big the incoming faculty is, it may be very unrealistic to train all the different subject in DIP.
As for which delivery format is better, I advocate the F2F training, and it has nothing to do with training. There really isnt anything in a workshop that isnt available on the OCC or one of the other IB resource centers (there are separate resource centers for coordinators such as IBIS, etc). Anyone in those roles has access to those resources and workshops just tend to be a taught approach to delivering that information. You can get the same expertise through self study, though you dont get those valuable certificates.
F2F workshops give you the much more valuable opportunity of NETWORKING with IB teachers and admins who may be in a position to getting you "in" with schools you would not otherwise be competitive for. You never know when a teacher this year is going to move up to admin next year and be in a position to offer you a job. You dont get that level of networking over a computer with online training.
The IB has been experimenting with some IB offered online self certification programs. The new MYP online rollout was "successful" in this regard and some "information only" seminars Itunes University have been discussed as well as similar resources available through the OCC. Currently a general IB introduction webinar is in the works to give new IB teachers without prior experience an introduction to the IB philosophy and how to use and access the OCC, with a brief introduction to delivery and marking. This will not satisfy a schools authorization requirements but will produce a certificate that administrators can use internally for PD purposes.
Level 1 workshops or the "Introduction" workshops are just a review of the basic IB philosophy, and pedagogy into inquiry and student centered teaching. The superficial coverage you get in a level 1 workshop is probably going to repeat what you already know or were exposed to in your teacher training. Reviewing the IB OCC documents for your subject and the IBO website will give you the same content.
Level 2 Workshops focus on methodology and marking. Level 3 workshops focus on assessment and integration, mostly for coordinators and admins.
Depending on what your school offers, a onsite, school specific workshop is better then a general/generic workshop, especially in MYP, where variations of MYP implementation vary greatly from school to school. The issue is the timeline. While onsite training would be the most appropriate to the school your at, most schools do training over the summer, and not before new teachers start, so they have already "taught" their subject by the time they are trained. Secondly, as above if your hired at an IB school, you will get OCC access and reviewing the materials their is equivalent to what youd get out of a level 1 workshop, making a level 2 workshop more appropriate. Third, is resources, a school has a lot of training needs not just "IB" training and depending how big the incoming faculty is, it may be very unrealistic to train all the different subject in DIP.
As for which delivery format is better, I advocate the F2F training, and it has nothing to do with training. There really isnt anything in a workshop that isnt available on the OCC or one of the other IB resource centers (there are separate resource centers for coordinators such as IBIS, etc). Anyone in those roles has access to those resources and workshops just tend to be a taught approach to delivering that information. You can get the same expertise through self study, though you dont get those valuable certificates.
F2F workshops give you the much more valuable opportunity of NETWORKING with IB teachers and admins who may be in a position to getting you "in" with schools you would not otherwise be competitive for. You never know when a teacher this year is going to move up to admin next year and be in a position to offer you a job. You dont get that level of networking over a computer with online training.
The IB has been experimenting with some IB offered online self certification programs. The new MYP online rollout was "successful" in this regard and some "information only" seminars Itunes University have been discussed as well as similar resources available through the OCC. Currently a general IB introduction webinar is in the works to give new IB teachers without prior experience an introduction to the IB philosophy and how to use and access the OCC, with a brief introduction to delivery and marking. This will not satisfy a schools authorization requirements but will produce a certificate that administrators can use internally for PD purposes.