January 29, 2019:
Consolidating First Steps

Establishing Design Principles for Professional Learning
and a Collaborative Plan for the Remaining Semester:

Design principles and indicators to monitor and evaluate effective professional learning over the 3.5 years
Document covering the BCIA pre-existing PL plan and how IC can support and add value

Making the most of the semester to start 2019-20 with greater focus and intention
Document outlining the three-year plan to meet four elements of SDG Education at BCIS


Examining Inquiry and Service Learning Connections
and Opportunities for Immediate Programmatic Impact

Consolidating service to action, inquiry cycles, and the BCIS mission


Action Research and Self-Assessment for Sustainable Education

Analyzing pre-existing work from acclaimed colleagues will help guide choices for developing meta-language and indicators of student learning.


Example of an excellent pre-existing self-assessment on education for sustainable development

Education Scotland:
Whole school and community approach to learning for sustainability (LfS) Self-evaluation and improvement framework

Global Citizenship Monitor Issue 1


Student-centered programs that can be integrated into identified pre-existing areas or new possibilities


Building Internal Capacity and Excitement for
Professional Learning leadership opportunities

While there are innovative PBL programs such as Moonshot Academy and Futures Academy in Beijing, both do not have a fully developed approach to teaching SDGs and embedding deep service learning.

Our Goal: Establish a newsletter series, blog, and professional learning center facilitated by BCIS educators and experts to be Beijing leaders and facilitators in Sustainable Education:

Year 1: Local Conference
Year 2: Regional Conference
Year 3: Global Conference


A unified and happy team

A unified and happy team


BCIS teachers can connect with over 400 international teachers in developing global PLCs around sustainable education.


Global educators are talking about the mission and vision of BCIS.

 

 

January 22, 2019:
School-Wide “Empathy to Impact”


An important piece of the visioning looked at where great things were already happening and where to infuse SDG targets for early adoption and small wins. A next step was to look at Year Zero and think about what to do with the ten days of work in this remaining semester before moving into the official Year One. Using backwards mapping principles and best practices in professional learning, we looked at Years Three and Years Zero as the baselines.

From there, we identified the roll out of the vision and mission for staff, devisions, students, and parents, including student-led workshops for parents similar to the 17 Skills for 17 Goals initiative. Finally, we identified the distinct deliverables for the remainder of the school year and identifying the “whys” for each of the actions.

The first ten days of an initiative are key in getting all community members on board with a common vocabulary and excitement.


In the afternoon, we set up numerous whiteboard tables to begin digging into the areas of opportunity specifically in the MYP, DP, and Ideate programs. One hope and then discovery was finding a solid link between the IB CAS language, the PYP inquiry cycle, MYP service to action in order to attain a common language and facilitators’ approach under a BCIS / IC “Empathy to Impact” cycle.

Adding “empathize” to the IB CAS service learning cycle and linking it with language from the PYP inquiry cycle made great sense. We also looked at very simple language for young learners and EAL learners: “Care, Aware, Able, Act” as a means for the students and community to fully act and reflect upon the BCIS mission: To challenge and empower students to be compassionate and inspired people, who act for the good of all and for the sustainable development of the world.

Here, we consolidated some of our discussions to search for a common language school wide for service learning, action, inquiry, and TeachSDGs.

 

 

January 15, 2019:
Three-Year Visioning

A blue sky day in Beijing to kickstart the exciting partnership:

The BCIS mission provides a near perfect foundation for the innovative endeavor.

The Inspire Citizens’ mission empowers teachers through research-based practices in professional learning, wellness, and service learning.


A diverse and thoughtful team of BCIS PYP, MYP, DP, and Ideate coordinators
led the SDG school-wide visioning, facilitated by Inspire Citizens.

The initial team
(clockwise from top left):
Aaron Moniz, Katie Petch, Yooah Nguyen, David Nguyen, Kate Mancarella, Steve Sostak, Tanya Farrol, Megan Eddington


Here, the different divisional coordinators take part in a needs analysis, answering the questions:

“What is our why?”

“What are our initial indicators of success?”

”What elements could represent the mission of our partnership?”

“How can Inspire Citizens most level-up what BCIS does well
and where do you most need our support?”

After a great session, the three-year vision for the partnership was mapped to be shared with the administration team on January 22, 2019.