The International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Program (MYP) is designed for early adolescents aged 11-16 years. This was adopted by the IB in 1994. Here, teaching and learning happen through concept and inquiry approach.
Students of the IB MYP build on the conceptual understanding and skills they developed during the IB Primary Years Program (PYP) and extend disciplinary and interdisciplinary understanding. It combines the use of large scale (macro) concepts and small scale (micro) concepts within a subject and transmits understanding across subjects. The MYP calls these as key and related concepts. This challenges the student intellectually that helps support deeper knowledge of topics and ideas and facilitates higher order thinking. Students build on the ability to make suitable connections with the real world and think out of the box both critically and creatively.
The IB MYP coursework is flexible enough to accommodate most national or regional program requirements. This prepares students to face the academic challenges of the IB Diploma Program (DP) and other national and international courses of study.
The IB MYP Curriculum
In the concept and inquiry based curriculum of MYP, teaching and learning are organized through eight subject groups:
| Language Acquisition | Mathematics |
|---|---|
| Language and Literature | Arts |
| Individuals and Societies | Physical and Health Education |
| Sciences | Design |
Students should learn at least two languages as it considers that communication is crucial to the development of student’s intercultural understanding and assertion of one’s identity.
A community project is part of the IB MYP program that is the conclusion part of the curriculum. Students may either complete the community project individually or work in small groups.
Why the IB MYP pedagogy matters?
- Learning involves a blend of life-long communication, research, self-management, communication and group effort.
- Education is at its best when learning experiences are connected to the world the students live in.
- Students develop critical thinking skills; explore global challenges in turn becoming open minded to newer contexts.
- Students learn to serve the community through the MYP community project and get to connect what they learnt in the classroom to the real world.
- Through analyzing issues, their mind opens to novel thinking and considering new perspectives.
- It is not for rote learning but learn for understanding.
- It trains them to organize, concentrate, meet deadlines, face challenges, persist and think optimistically.
- Students get to examine knowledge holistically, using concepts as a tool to inquire into issues and ideas of personal, local and global significance.
- Students feel empowered and develop talents that set a solid ground for their higher education.
- It helps the students to appreciate their own history and culture along with the values and traditions of other cultures that leads them on to exploring global issues and ideas.
- As the learning is interdisciplinary across all subject groups, students actually learn how to learn that lays the foundation for independent learning and simultaneously encourages the application of their knowledge and skill set in unfamiliar contexts.
In the IB MYP program, learners improve upon the conceptual understanding they developed in the Primary Year program.
The 16 key concepts for the MYP are:
| Aesthetics | Change | Communication | Communities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connections | Creativity | Culture | Development |
| Form | Global Interactions | Identity | Logic |
| Perspective | Relationships | Time, Space & Place | Systems |
MYP e Assessment
This is a highly reliable and innovative evaluation model that is recognized for IB World Schools. For schools registered for eAssessment in the MYP, the IB evaluates student’s work in two ways: ePortfolios of assignments together with a mandatory ePortfolio for the personal project and on-screen examinations, with each exam lasting two hours.
The maximum overall score for the IB MYP certificate is 56. A grade from 1-7 will be assigned to each required eAssessment. To be eligible to receive the IB MYP Certificate, learners must score a total of at least 28 points, with a grade of ‘3’ or higher in each eAssessment module. Students receive IB MYP course results for each completed module. Participation in community services as mandated by the school may need to be completed by the students.
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