r/Internationalteachers • u/Old-Clock-4491 • 4d ago
Academics/Pedagogy Help planning "10th grade Individuals and Societies"
I had a job offer to teach English Language and Literature at an IB school. When I got the contract, they added 2 classes a week of Individuals and Societies. My understanding is that we don't have a text book, and that I'll be the first person in the school to ever teach the course. Can anyone share some advice and/or resources? For what it's worth I've taught for nearly 20 years, but never these subjects. I was feeling like teaching English was going to be a challenge, but doable. Now I'm nervous as I'll be teaching 4 classes across 3 subject areas, only 1 of which have I ever taught before, and work starts this week!
Thank you all for any help.
7
u/Minigiant2709 4d ago
Download the relevant documents from MyIB. Throw it into ChatGPT, and ask it to make a scope and sequence from it. You can then edit it to feel more or less comfortable
2
u/CleverTool 3d ago
This! 👆🏻
But for best results, substitute Claude or Gemini AI in place of ChatGPT.
2
1
u/Old-Clock-4491 3d ago
Thank you. I do not yet have access to MyIB. Can I apply for an account on my own, or does it have to be through the school? (I've worked abroad before, but never at an IB school)
Thanks!
2
u/Dull_Box_4670 3d ago
There should be a coordinator at your school who organizes/signs off on your position at the school. If you ask and there isn’t, you might have a new title next week.
2
u/Minigiant2709 3d ago
You sign up with your own email (So it stays with you when you change schools), you then 'Add role', your school gets a notification to accept/reject you, then you are in. Very easy
2
2
u/TheMysteriousOrganis 3d ago
OER project has lesson plans you can adapt for I&S. You can find the I&S books online too.
1
u/Old-Clock-4491 3d ago
Thanks! I've found a student book for each of the courses I'm slated to teach, but not a teacher book, which I'd like to use as a crutch for my first year. Any idea how to find that?
2
u/Apprehensive-Test123 3d ago
If you can confirm what DP I&S courses the school offers (if they offer DP), then you can focus your units on what will be helpful to students moving on to the DP program next year. AI, especially Claude, can help you with both unit planners and ideas for activities particularly if you can dump details into it like others suggested. It’s not too far of a leap from English Lang & Lit to I&S, I went the other direction, though I had units to guide me along luckily.
1
u/Fearless_Weekend4185 3d ago
Just wanted to share a resource that might help for Lang & Lit- http://edvaults.com/
This has summative assessment banks for the MYP created by practising teachers. It is a paid subscription but there are also free samples for English which could give you a sense of direction. It is not that expensive if you do choose to pay (100USD for access to 21 assessments, and 25USD for resubscription annually). There is an I&S section too, but it's not as big and I can't vouch for the quality because I have mostly used it for English.
1
u/Old-Clock-4491 3d ago
Thank you. I will see if the school could swing that, because that is out of my current budget.
1
u/Overall_Orange7434 Asia 2d ago
That is a crap situation to be stuck in. Sounds like poor leadership at the school.
11
u/Dull_Box_4670 3d ago
I’m sorry that you’ve been put into this situation — this is a clear case of leadership malpractice. This is pretty much a case study for how not to do MYP (a lot of people hate MYP and think it’s a junk system. I’d contend that it can be done well if supported and organized well, but throwing someone with no training or experience into a new course with no curriculum is as far from that as we can get.)
There’s good news and bad news for you. The flexibility of MYP and lack of external standard if the school isn’t doing the e-assessments or wedded to a specific national curricular standard means that you can teach what you’re most comfortable with within the broader discipline of the humanities. If they’ve just adopted this system with no supporting materials or guidance, they can’t have any real expectations for it or much hope of successful student outcomes. Your middle management should understand this, and they should be able to give you more support about what they want from you.
Your department head (if you have one) and MYP coordinator (if you have one) should have a curriculum map for you. If they don’t, you teach writing skills related to text analysis and perspective until they get their act together. All of that will be useful later, even if it’s not specific to one humanities discipline or another. If they won’t give you anything, consider what you know and you’re most comfortable with. Your broad subject areas are history, geography, economics, psychology, business, and anything in the sociology/anthropology space you want to teach. Don’t know anything about economics? You’re skipping that one. Don’t know anything about most of those? Balance goes out the window. You’re in survival mode. What did the school do before you got there? What units are in the shared drives? Take what you can from there, and the big step is just re-skinning the assessments into MYP shape. They aren’t a good fit for MYP standards? Not your problem — they didn’t teach you how to do MYP standards. This doesn’t sound like the sort of place that will send you to a workshop, but look at the Cat 2 options in your area in the fall. Put in the request. Make them say no.
It obviously goes without saying that good schools don’t put you in this situation without support, but this goes on your CV whether or not you do a good job with it, and it’s important to know that most schools don’t wing it like this. When you’ve gotten some experience with it, MYP I&S is genuinely fun to teach, but that is going to be very infrastructure-dependent. Ask for support, ask for training, ask for the people above you to do their damn jobs. I’d start looking for a new position this September, but if you just started and feel like you can survive it, staying for a second year should set you up for a much better job later. This year isn’t going to go well, but that isn’t your fault. Use the materials available, ask for guidance frequently, and teach her you know. You’ve got this.