Learning that starts from questions
In IB programmes students are asked to investigate rather than absorb. A unit begins with a question or an idea worth understanding, and the facts are learnt in the course of pursuing it. Students ask questions, look for evidence, test ideas and connect what they find to the wider world.
That does not mean content is optional. It means content is in the service of understanding, and the aim is that students can use what they know in a situation they have not met.
Concepts connect the facts
IB frameworks encourage students to build conceptual understanding: the big ideas, such as change, systems or perspective, that link one topic to another. A student who understands how systems work can move from ecology to economics without starting again.
Each programme has its own way of doing this, through transdisciplinary themes in the PYP, key and related concepts and global contexts in the MYP, and the subject guides and theory of knowledge in the Diploma.
Reflection and growth
Reflection is the habit of asking what was learned, how, and what to do next. It is built into the programmes deliberately, from the learner profile's reflective attribute to CAS and the extended essay's reflection sessions.
A portfolio can make that growth visible over time: not a collection of best work, but a record of how a student's thinking has changed.
Approaches to learning
IB students are taught skills as well as content. The approaches to learning, grouped into categories such as thinking, research, communication, social and self-management skills, are developed deliberately across subjects, so that a student who learns to research in science can research in history. The MYP version is explained in ATL skills in the MYP.
Where skodle fits
This section names our own product, so weigh it accordingly. IB learning is about teaching and students, and it does not need software.
What software can do is make the learning record usable. skodle connects curriculum, assessment, student portfolios and reporting, so a reflection or a piece of work sits against the student, alongside marks and comments, instead of in separate files. Students and staff post photos, video, notes and audio to a portfolio that a child's family can see and comment on, and IB portfolio evidence and reflections go through a teacher's review, with the status shown to families. The IB Engine carries this across the programmes.
The limits. skodle does not create the reflection, judge its quality or infer learning from activity; those are the student's and teacher's. A portfolio post is visible to that child's family as soon as it is made, there is no per-post share switch, and it records and connects what people enter. It does not carry the official IB route for registration and coursework submission.
What it looks like in each programme
The vocabulary is shared but the shape differs. The IB's documentation is the authority on each programme; in outline:
- PYP: children inquire into a central idea through units of inquiry, ask their own questions, take action and complete an exhibition in the final year
- MYP: students work through subject groups linked by key concepts and global contexts, are assessed against criteria and carry out a personal project
- DP: students study six subjects, and the core asks them to research (the extended essay), question how knowledge works (theory of knowledge) and take part in creativity, activity and service
- CP: students combine at least two Diploma courses with a career-related study and a core that includes a reflective project
Technology should reduce documentation
The purpose of school software is not to add paperwork. IB learning already asks a lot of teachers in reflection and evidence, so a tool is worth having if it makes evidence a by-product of teaching, and not worth having if it adds a second place to write everything down.
What families see
When reflection and evidence are kept against the student, a report can show growth over a term instead of a single number. Families often understand IB learning fastest through a child's own work and reflection, not through a description of the curriculum.
Going further
The teacher's side of this is in what is IB teaching, and the ten attributes that frame the learner are in the IB learner profile.
