Planning the inquiry

s 1. What is our purpose? Class/grade: IV Age group: 8 to 10 years

To inquire into the following:

School: Hillside Academy School code: 300536
Trandisciplinary theme
Title: Advertisement and Media.
Theme: How we express ourselves PYP planner
a) central idea: Teacher(s): Anita Almeida, Mrs.Sarita, Mr. Rao, Mr. Robin, Mr. Ram Mohan,
Mr.sanjeev, Ms.Rashi
Words and images influence the beliefs of the people and
encourage them to make choices Date: 21st June 31st July

Summative assessment task(s): Proposed duration: number of hours43 over number of 6 weeks
What are the possible ways of assessing students understanding of the central
idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for? 2. What do we want to learn?
Oral presentations.
What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection,
Children are divided into groups. perspective, and responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?

Children go on a survey in school and at home to find out the favourite
advertisement of their friends and family members.
Students worked in groups, created their own advertisements and
presented it in the assembly. They were assessed by the teacher by using
a rubric.
Perspective,
Reflection
Related key concepts (Opinion, Interpretation)
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?
Conveying messages through words and images
Impact of advertisements.
Making right choices.
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
In what way do people express feelings?

Can you think of ways to communicate other than speaking, or writing?

What impact does an advertisement have on us?

Provocations: Models of different means of communication are brought to the

class to motivate the children.

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Planning the inquiry
3. How might we know what we have learned?
This column should be used in conjunction with How best might we learn?
What are the possible ways of assessing students prior knowledge and skills?
What evidence will we look for?
Students brain storm on the central idea on how words and images influence
them to make choices
Students will inquire about different media used to convey messages.
4. How best might we learn?
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to encourage the
students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving questions?
Teacher provides the context for inquiry.
Children brain storm on different the different ways to express ourselves, different forms of
expression, inquiring from books, home internet, T.V, radio and so on..They observe and listen
to songs, poems, stories , dance .
Resource parent Mr. Neeraj Gupta (Avi Guptas Father) Spoke on advertisement and
media. Students are explored to a video chat to learn about the advanced technology in
communications.

Students are encouraged to watch different advertisements and reflect its impact They research on news papers in groups and list out the different types of news published
in it. They read the main headlines in the newspaper for a period of time and sort out the
. news as national, international, local, entertainment and sports.

Field trip to ABN News channel to strengthened the inquiry. They practically learned how
the shooting about news takes place, how editing is done and also dubbing and so
on.They worked on a log sheet base on watching television. They concluded that TV is
a knowledge box as well as an idiot box. Perspective is highlighted. Children are able to
identify the pros and cons of watching TV. We gave scenes from the TV ads which are
similar to real life situations to compare the consequences in both the cases.

What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the
development of the attributes of the learner profile?
Skills: Communication skill: Discussing the news headlines in the class. Research skill: Finding
answers for the questions and collecting amazing facts of mass media. Profiles: Knowledgeable-
Learning about different means of communication and the impact of advertisement.
Inquirer: Finding solution for the open-ended tasks and answers for wonder questions.
Attitudes: Appreciation: They appreciated the work of their friends when they invented new model
of a mobile phones, new ads
Confidence: They gain confidence when they communicate about the inquiry.

5. What resources need to be gathered?

What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available?

Models of mobiles, postbox, televisions, telephones, puppets, radio, newspapers, inland letters and envelops.
Visits: Studio, library, encyclopedias, internet, Manipal Animated series based on advertisement and media
People: Subject teachers (Art, Craft, P.E, Hindi, Telugu, And Computers), Resource parent (Mr. Neeraj Gupta) Field trip: ABN News channel.
Books: Communicative English, Internet Science and social.
www.starfall.com

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Reflecting on the inquiry

6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose? 7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?

Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students
understanding of the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the
planning and teaching of the inquiry should be included.
This is a great unit. All the students and their parents are involved in this
inquiry. Observations made by the students in finding the changes in
communication from past to present. They have learned the process of
different ways of communication like posting letters, video chatting, talking
over a telephone. They were confident in communicating with others. They
could differentiate mass media from other media.
Although the students appeared to understand different media and decide
their preferred media, they struggled with a deeper understanding of
responsibility of media.
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
develop an understanding of the concepts identified in What do we want to
learn?
Demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary
skills?
develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
In each case, explain your selection.
Students discuss and made their own presentation to the whole class on the
amount of waste around their homes.

Concepts:
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a
Perspective:: Students choose any one means of communication, describes
more accurate picture of each students understanding of the central idea.
it and write the uses of it.
Introduce the assessment task and the rubric much earlier in the unit.
Skills:
Giving more opportunities to explore the vocabulary of media.
Maintain anecdotes, which give an accurate picture of their understanding. Communication skill: Brainstorming sessions.
Research skill: Finding answers for the wonder questions and
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea
collecting amazing facts of mass media.
and the transdisciplinary theme?
Children showed tremendous curiosity in learning the amazing facts of means of
communication. They enjoyed sending mails to their friends and realized that computers Profiles:
play an important role in communication. They also started writing letters to their friends. Knowledgeable: Learning about different means of communication.
The students connected their learning to their real life situations, which showed a Inquirer: Finding solution for the open-ended tasks and answers for
connection between the central idea and the Tran disciplinary theme. wonder questions.

Attitudes:
Appreciation: They appreciated the work of their friends when they

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Reflecting on the inquiry

8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning? 9. Teacher notes

Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any
that were incorporated into the teaching and learning.
Activities
Children wanted to put up a show on educational program in any one of the
television channel.
Students asked questions about fax machine and working of satellites.
Why is fax machine connected to a telephone?
What is the role of satellites in communication?
This is a very interesting unit. There is scope for the children to
learn more about advertisement and media. They enjoyed
making different means of communication and video chat.
Inventing a new model of mobile was a creative approach to the
advanced technology.
Art: They drew the pictures of means of communications in different styles.
They tried to create their own communicative device in a very creative
manner.

At this point teachers should go back to box 2 What do we want to learn? IT: Teachers oversaw students using computers to type work for
and highlight the teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in presentation (word processing skills), research on internet, creating power
driving the inquiries.
point.

In what way do people express feelings?

Language: Writing paragraphs related to the unit and highlighting different

Can you think of ways to communicate other than speaking, or writing?
types of nouns, writing letters, increasing vocabulary in different expressive
disciplines, Oral explanations during teacher, peer and group discussions
What impact does an advertisement have on us?

Visit to the ABN News channel aroused interest in all the children. They
Craft: Children made a model of mobile and television in their craft class as
could visualize how the shooting of news exactly takes place; editing,
a part of their inquiry.
dubbing etc..which made the children developed their curiosity.
Music and drama Created own jingles and dramatized their new ads
How do you get news from a distant place?

International Baccalaureate Organization 2007