Student Guidelines

Student Guidelines

The exhibition holds a place of special importance in the PYP, and you will be working on it for some time.

Participating in the exhibition will demonstrate your learning in the PYP. The exhibition will involve others (for example, you may work in a small group or become involved with an organization outside the school), and your participation and your work will be assessed. Your teacher will assess your planning and learning, including your reflections, the methods you use, the way you link your exhibition to the transdisciplinary themes and any forms of action that you engage in as a result. Your teacher or mentor will share with you the criteria for this assessment.

The development of the exhibition in your school may include the following.

Discussing possible real-life issues or problems to be investigated

2. Posing questions that help to define the central idea and to decide upon the lines of inquiry
3. Planning the exhibition
4. Gathering the necessary material
5. Recording and reflecting
6. Presenting the exhibition

1. Discussing possible real-life issues or problems to be investigated

With other members of your learning community, take some time to reflect on the transdisciplinary themes and the inquiries that you have been involved with over the past few years. This could result in discussions, about issues or problems you have noticed in your school or local area, which could lead to an in-depth inquiry. These issues could be directly connected to your school or local area, and they may also be relevant to children in other parts of the world. You should talk with your teacher about your ideas and questions to see if they could become the basis for your exhibition. Your teacher and the other students may have ideas too, and you should give all the ideas careful consideration before making a final decision.

2. Posing questions that help to define the central idea and to decide upon the lines of inquiry

When the issue or problem has been selected, you will need to have a basic understanding of the issue andbe able to explain why it is important in order to investigate it in more depth. Some ideas for exploring the issue include the following.

• Discuss your ideas with different people, both inside and outside school.
• Visit a local site.
• Identify and look at available books and resources.
• Consider how the issue connects to the transdisciplinary themes.

These explorations could help you to form a better understanding of the issue and to develop a central idea to explain the significance of your inquiry. Thinking about the PYP concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective, responsibility and reflection) that are related to this issue could help you construct questions to guide your inquiries. It is useful to identify the lines of inquiry you will follow in order to explore your questions and develop your understanding of the central idea. The central idea, lines of inquiry and questions will help you to stay focused during this investigation and help you find out about your exhibition issue.

This may be the first time you have been involved in such a detailed investigation. It is important that you (and your group) have a discussion with your teacher and/or mentor to see if your ideas are realistic and achievable.

3. Planning the exhibition

Now that you have decided on the purpose and scope of your inquiry, you can plan the next part of the process. You should write down ideas for how you will explore and develop your understanding of your central idea and questions within the defined lines of inquiry. In your group, ask questions such as:

Where do we find the materials and resources we need? Who might have useful information? What kind of experiences might inform our inquiries? Do we need to carry out any experiments? Do we need to prepare a questionnaire or survey? What kind of technology will we need to have access to? Choose sources and resource materials carefully; by looking at a variety of different sources, you can improve the quality of your exhibition. Other sources can also help you: a reference book might have a useful bibliography; the person you interview might have a further suggestion for your inquiries; an experiment might lead to other investigations. When you have found a source of information, it is important to consider the possible bias of this information and how useful it is going to be.

4. Gathering the necessary material

Always write down the source of your material. This information will vary according to the type of source consulted.

• A printed text: record the author(s), title, publisher and date of publication
• A website: record the website address (for example, http://www.un.org/Pubs/CyberSchoolBus/index.html)
• An interview: record the name, address, role of the person and the date of the interview
• An experiment: record the equipment and method used, the results and conclusions
• A work of art: record the title, artist and reference (museum, recording) if appropriate

5. Recording and reflecting

You will need to reflect on your exhibition in a constructive way. Making regular entries in a journal of all your ideas, decisions and actions to record your progress as you work on the exhibition can clearly show the work you have been engaged in as well as how your understanding of the issue is developing. It should be filled in regularly to show you how your exhibition is progressing. A journal can also be used to show your mentor the progress being made. These reflections should be supported by recorded evidence of the process. This evidence could include photographic and video evidence, interview notes, feedback and comments from your peers, teachers and/or mentors and parents.

6. Presenting the exhibition

Towards the end of the exhibition, you will need to think carefully about how you wish to present the results of your inquiries. You must always consider your presentation from other people’s perspectives.

• Be informed about the material you choose to present. You will need to be able to answer any questions about it confidently.
• Discuss the presentation with your teacher and/or your mentor before you start working on it.
• Use diagrams, drawings and/or photographs to add to the clarity of the presentation.
• Look at the examples of exhibitions that other students have done in your school in the past, in particular the formats they have used to present their ideas.
• Make sure your presentation is clear, informative and appropriate for a range of audiences.
• And, finally, you should celebrate your learning.