Join us for our annual Fall Symposium

Create professional collaborations that can continue locally!

Monday, November 25, 2024 (tentative agenda)

7:45am Registration

8:00am - Welcome

8:30am - Sessions Begin

11:45am - Lunch

12:30pm - Sessions Resume

2:45pm - Symposium Concludes with Reflection

3:00pm - IBSOM Board Mtg (all welcome to attend)

Cost: $200 per participant

Registration Deadline: November 15, 2024

COVID-19 Guidelines:

Guidelines for IB professional development workshop host schools:

• Participants/school staff must not attend the workshops should they fall ill before the event.

• Participants/school staff must respect national/state/local/venue COVID-19 guidelines during their attendance of the PD event.

• Participants/school staff must remove themselves, and immediately inform the workshop leader and on-site school/district coordinator, if they fall ill during the event.

• Please see the event website as well for more information and guidelines pertaining to COVID-19.

CLICK HERE to register for this workshop.

Does your school struggle with balancing state and district requirements with the PYP philosophy? Attend this session to see the connections between global best practices, the PYP requirements, and your state standards. In this session we will explore the work of John Hattie with Visible Learning and explore how to craft our curriculum and schedule our learning to BE a PYP school rather than a school that “does PYP”. As a part of this process participants will explore how to create a programme development plan (PDP) based on reviewing and refining the programme of inquiry and associated planners. Bring a team and leave with the beginnings of a PDP. Attendants should bring or have access to the school’s programme of inquiry and sample planners.

About the workshop leader: Robin is the founder and lead consultant of Let Them Learn LLC. Her educational experience encompasses a variety of roles in education including; teacher, literacy specialist, curriculum director, curriculum development, IB Primary Years Programme coordinator, IBEN workshop leader, site visitor/evaluator, and consultant. Robin has a Bachelor of Science degree in Special Education for the Hearing Impaired, earned a Master's Degree in Early Childhood Development, and an Education Specialist's Degree in School Administration. Robin has taught a variety of primary year levels, served in several school leadership positions, and led university-level classes. She has designed professional development in a variety of contexts including leadership, literacy, social-emotional education, learning diversity and inclusion, inquiry, transdisciplinary learning, curriculum design, and assessment. Robin is a certified consultant and workshop leader for Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction through the H. Lynn Erickson Institute.​

CLICK HERE to register for this workshop.

Are you looking to work smarter, not harder? AI tools can be your assistant in developing instructional resources. These tools have blended in with society and in this session educators can learn to leverage them for more engaging and effective classroom instruction. This session will cover best practices for integrating AI into lessons, guiding students on ethical use, and preventing over-reliance. Through hands-on activities and a customized flowchart, teachers will explore how AI can enhance creativity, streamline lesson planning, and create personalized learning experiences for diverse student needs.

About the Workshop Leaders: Melissa Gordon is Career and Technical Education (CTE) teacher at Huron High School. She specializes in teaching accounting, personal finance, and business management. Recognized as a Distinguished Educator by NextGen Personal Finance, she was introduced to ChatGPT by her students when it first launched. Last school year, she co-lead the Ann Arbor Public Schools AI Study Group with Jennifer Colby to explore the ethical, pedagogical, and creative dimensions of using AI technology in school. She has completed the Artificial Intelligence Explorations for Educators course by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and holds certifications as an educator for Diffit, Magic School, and SchoolAI. Her favorite AI tool is SchoolAI.

Jennifer Colby is a Teacher Librarian at Huron High School. Starting her career immediately before the school's IB consideration phase in 2014, she is responsible for creating, implementing, and improving library services support for the MYP Personal Project, DP Extended Essay, CP Reflective Essay, and other IB course work in collaboration with teachers and IB coordinators. Last year she co-lead the Ann Arbor Public Schools AI Study Group with Melissa Gordon to explore the ethical, pedagogical, and creative dimensions of using AI technology in school.

CLICK HERE to register for this workshop.

DP coordinators, do you want to support your Group 1: IB Lang & Lit and IB Lit teachers in gaining more confidence in managing a curriculum that is more internationally minded while still covering the required 7 course concepts, 5 global issues, 3 areas of exploration, myriad literary and/or non-literary works, plus help their students properly prepare for Paper 1, and Paper 2, and the IO??

It’s a lot. It really is. But also it doesn’t have to overwhelm you. This training will provide you with the opportunity to break down the assessments by criterion to differentiate between markbands. Teachers will have a chance to collaborate with colleagues and norm their marking to the standards. You will participate in activities to help you reimagine the curriculum with different people that may help you manage the course concepts, areas of exploration, and global issues so that your students learn to explore and make their own connections to various texts.

About the Workshop Leader: Wendy Carlisle is a Language/Literature teacher and CAS coordinator at Plymouth High School. She is an IBEN member who leads workshops both CAS and Lang/Lit. She also is an examiner and has examined papers 1 and 2 and the IO since 2019.

CLICK HERE to register for this workshop.

Attention - DP Coordinators and Subject Area Teachers

Do you have teachers ready to improve their understanding of how to help their students succeed on their IB assessments? Do you struggle to differentiate professional development for your experienced and new IB teachers? Do you want to help teachers successfully stage and support students during the IA process?

As a DPC, I also struggle to do this work in a whole school PD setting, usually in a 45-minute block that occurs once a month. Deep work takes time, space, and support.

This training will focus on developing teachers’ understanding of IB assessment philosophy and developing their self-efficacy and agency in helping their students succeed. Together, we will:

• Have fun, pursue excellence, and develop agency, while engaging in a community of IB educators.

• Explore the aims and outcomes of IB assessment in the Diploma Programme and individual DP courses.

• Conduct an analysis of rubrics/mark bands and their alignment with the assessment tasks.

• Discover the quantitative and qualitative elements of rubrics and their impact on marking.

• Identify the unique skills needed for our Internal Assessments and identify how and when we will develop those skills using backward planning.

• Leave feeling empowered to make intentional changes that will improve student learning and success on assessments; both internal and external.

About the Workshop Leader: Casey Swanson serves as an IB DP coordinator and Psychology/TOK teacher at Plymouth High School. He is an active IBEN member leading workshops in Coordination, Leading the Learning, and Psychology. He has served as an examiner for internal and external exams. In addition, he supports schools as a consultant and as a team member on school visits to candidate schools.