PYP Assessment Meet-Up | Toddle Learn

Cindy Blackburn, Jessica Vance, Levi Allison and Trevor MacKenzie

< 1 min read

Session 1

Making assessments visible in the early years

With Jessica Vance

How do we assess our earliest learners while maintaining agency and a sense of play? Join Jessica Vance to explore how your personal beliefs about assessments can be used as provocation in making learning visible in your PYP classroom. Uncover how thinking routines create practical opportunities to bring inquiry to life.

Session 2

Developing self-assessors in single subjects

With Levi Allison

Single subject educators work with hundreds of students throughout multiple years of their journey within PYP and have a unique opportunity to see the development of skills over time. Join Levi Allison, as he shares his work as a music teacher and how he supports his students’ journey from self-assessing to self-adjusting.

Session 3

Designing student-centered assessment

With Trevor MacKenzie

Join Trevor MacKenzie to explore ways to co-design and co-construct assessment tools, frameworks, and experiences with our students. Discover strategies to create assessment capable learners who can self-assess with clarity, competence, and confidence!

Session 4

Designing success criteria: The key to powerful assessments

With Cindy Blackburn

Creating clear success criteria before a unit begins provides clarity on what students will know, understand, and be able to do. It leads to stronger assessment, goal setting, and teaching in the classroom. Join Cindy Blackburn as she models a 3-step process that will help ground you in your curriculum and become more intentional in your practice.

Speakers

Cindy Blackburn

Director of Learning and Engagement, Toddle

Jessica Vance

Enrichment & Environment Coordinator, Laurel Mountain Elementary

Levi Allison

PYP Music Educator and Podcaster

Trevor MacKenzie

Inquiry Author and Award Winning English Teacher

Disclaimer - This event is organised independently of and not endorsed by the IB. Toddle’s events and webinars are organised to enable an exchange of practices and ideas within the educator community and are not a replacement for official IB workshops. Views and opinions expressed by the speakers are their personal views and should not be construed as official guidance by the IB. Please seek assistance from your school’s IB coordinator and/or refer to official IB documents before implementing shared ideas and strategies in your classroom.

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Back

Cindy Blackburn

Cindy has a Masters of Education in Teacher Leadership and has worked as an PYP educator and coordinator internationally for the past ten years. She currently works as the Director of learning and engagement at Toddle and specializes in developing resources to support teachers and leaders in honing their practice and understandings, to make the PYP simple, actionable, and above all else, joyous.

Jessica Vance

Jessica Vance is an enrichment and environment coordinator with a thorough teaching and leadership background (former IB PYP Educator & PYP Coordinator). Her passion for student centered learning and collaboration stems from the students themselves, finding inspiration in their natural curiosity as they engage in learning experiences inside and outside the classroom. Jessica believes in the power of leading with a lens of inquiry and provides coaching sessions that help educators collaborate, reflect, and grow as inquiry practitioners. In her book, 'Leading with a Lens of Inquiry', scheduled to release in May, she outlines the ways in which we need to support and facilitate teachers in the same ways in which we want them to engage with their students.

Levi Allison

Levi Allison is the PYP Music teacher at Chadwick International School in Korea. Having previously taught in Kuwait and China, he is originally from the United States calling Kansas his home. Levi holds a BSc in Music education and MSc's in both Administrative Leadership and Curriculum and Instruction. He is a visiting team member for WASC accreditation and a Google certified educator. He moderates the popular #PYPChat on Twitter, and hosts a podcast 'Recess Duty' that highlights educator stories from around the world.

Trevor MacKenzie

Trevor MacKenzie is an experienced teacher, author, keynote speaker and inquiry consultant who has worked in schools throughout Australia, Asia, North America, South Africa and Europe. Trevor’s passion is in supporting schools in implementing inquiry-based learning practices. Trevor’s graduate research focused on identifying and removing the barriers to implementing inquiry-based learning in the K-12 setting. He is an inquiry practitioner currently working as a teacher with the Greater Victoria School District in Victoria, Canada. He has two publications: Dive into Inquiry and Inquiry Mindset, both published by Elevate Books Edu. He has vast experience supporting public schools, international schools, and International Baccalaureate programmes (PYP/MYP/DP) in implementing inquiry-based learning.

Assessment

PYP Assessments Meet-Up

Whether you’re a new teacher or an experienced one, you know the importance of assessments in informing classroom practices and identifying gaps and next steps. However, being a PYP teacher means walking a tightrope between assessing knowledge and checking for conceptual understanding. It can be confusing and overwhelming to always know what to assess and how to assess it.
The PYP Assessments Meet-Up is designed to help you navigate the big questions including “How do we meaningfully assess in the early years and single subjects'', “How do we design authentic student-centered assessments”, “How do we grow assessment-capability”. Our goal is to provide you with actionable strategies that will help you and your students become assessment capable.

Making assessments visible in the early years
With Jessica Vance | 12 pm GMT, 5:30 pm IST
How do we assess our earliest learners while maintaining agency and a sense of play? Join Jessica Vance to explore how your personal beliefs about assessments can be used as provocation in making learning visible in your PYP classroom. Uncover how thinking routines create practical opportunities to bring inquiry to life.
In this session, you will:
1. Gain a deeper understanding of visible thinking routines that supports both students and inquiry teachers
2. Evaluate the role of thinking routines as structures for assessment throughout the learning process
Developing self-assessors in single subjects
With Levi Allison | 1 pm GMT, 6:30 pm IST
Single subject educators work with hundreds of students throughout multiple years of their journey within PYP and have a unique opportunity to see the development of skills over time. Join Levi Allison, as he shares his work as a music teacher and how he supports his students’ journey from self-assessing to self-adjusting.
In this session, you will:
1. Get strategies to help students become assessment-capable
2. Discover how you can use the time you have with students to build critical thinking, planning, and reflection skills
Designing authentic assessments with Toddle
Join Team Toddle as we explore how you can make the most of the Toddle platform for assessments. Discover how you can plan intentional assessments, make the most of Toddle Workbook and other in-built tools, and bring assessments, evidence and reporting together in this short walkthrough.
In this session, you will:
1. Explore strategies to monitor learning using Toddle
2. Design self-assessments and success criteria on Toddle
3. Understand how to Document your learning journey with Toddle
4. Dive into reporting authentically through PTMs, SLCs and visual Report Cards on Toddle
Designing student-centered assessment
With Trevor MacKenzie | 2:15 pm GMT, 7:45 pm IST
Join Trevor MacKenzie to explore ways to co-design and co-construct assessment tools, frameworks, and experiences with our students. Discover strategies to create assessment capable learners who can self-assess with clarity, competence, and confidence!
In this session, you will:
1. Create a strong culture of inquiry by nurturing student agency
2. Discover authentic ways to partner with students when constructing assessments
3. Explore strategies to develop assessment capable learners who self assess with confidence
Designing success criteria: The key to powerful assessments
With Cindy Blackburn | 3:15 pm GMT, 8:45 pm IST
Creating clear success criteria before a unit begins provides clarity on what students will know, understand, and be able to do. It leads to stronger assessment, goal setting, and teaching in the classroom. Join Cindy Blackburn as she models a 3-step process that will help ground you in your curriculum and become more intentional in your practice.
In this session, you will:
1. Define what success criteria is
2. Explore a 3 step process for crafting strong success criteria
3. Articulate next steps for using success criteria in your classroom to supercharge your practice