5月20日至21日，北京王府外国语小学双语部五年级的学生用盛大的学习毕业展示结束了他们小学阶段最后一个探究课的总结评估任务。在国际报告厅和乒羽中心，孩子们向校内师生、来访外校师生和家长们展示了他们的学习成果，这是他们作为PYP学生主办过的最大规模展览。
PYP毕业展是学生理解并运用探究课五大要素（知识、概念、技能、学习者目标和行动）的机会。学生从引导式探究转向独立探究，选择自己感兴趣的话题、概念，设计自己的探究单元。我们可以把这看作他们在PYP中的毕业任务，正如学生朱昭赫所说，“毕业展是对之前所有总结评估的总结性评估。”
筹备了八周的毕业展从介绍PYP展览开始，回顾了探究周期图、行动周期图和PYP的五大基本要素。展览围绕着“共享地球”这一跨学科主题展开。我们深入研究了以下内容：
•在与他人和其他生物分享有限资源的斗争中的权利和责任；
•社区内部及社区之间的关系；
•获得平等机会；
•和平与解决冲突。
与其他探究单元不同的是，本单元完全由学生自主设计。在第二周，学生选择他们感兴趣的话题，并相应地分组，大约三个学生组成一个小组。
他们对地区和全球性的问题表现出强烈兴趣——种族主义、性别不平等、无家可归、饥饿、战争与和平、全球变暖、水污染、能源危机、濒危动物和人口过剩。孩子们花了一周的时间来构建研究计划，形成关键问题、概念、探究路线和中心思想。
由于孩子们年龄较小，12名志愿教师组成了一支毕业展导师团队，他们在7周时间里分别指导各个小组。特别感谢这些可爱的导师们，他们做出了远超于要求的贡献。
导师给学生提出建设性的问题，提供有价值的资源，并给予了正向反馈来指导和激励他们，用一颗关爱的心倾听，帮助学生做出自己的决定。
一旦确定了想要具体研究的问题，孩子们就开始了研究和行动。按照自己的时间表，孩子们花了好几个小时在搜集资料上。
许多孩子通过互联网搜查资料，也有的在图书馆、家里查找书籍，或者买了更多的新书。有些孩子通过采访和调查来获取更多的信息，还有的在周末和父母一起去博物馆实地考察。
在查找资料的过程中，他们时刻被提醒着要深入挖掘，区分可靠的信息来源和非可靠来源。在搜集到了足够的资料以后，孩子们需要做的是对他们的信息进行分类整理。“什么重要，什么不重要？这符合我的探究路线吗？我能从我的发现中看到什么规律？信息之间如何比较？”
荣格曾经说过：“是行动让你成为你自己，言而不行无法做到这点。”孩子们因学习而采取的行动让我们感到十分自豪。
侯睿涵同学就种族主义的话题，在父亲就职的公司进行了演讲；赵天麒和蒋凯迪同学给叙利亚的战争受害者写了一封信，他们还让来访者加入他们的行动计划，为叙利亚的儿童写信或者捐赠文具用品；韩丞瑞同学同学穿上了裙子，证明了他对于性别平等的态度，他和队友王思语、姚玥伊一起为参观者热情地介绍性别平等的问题；廉旖桐、杨文问和梁诗雨同学鼓励参观者向世界自然基金会捐款。还有一些小组鼓励参观者在请愿书上签名，或者分发宣传单……现场可以感受到孩子们的积极热情和不遗余力。
现场展示的形式多种多样，孩子们通过艺术媒介、技术媒介和书面作品来展示他们的研究成果。孩子的制作超出了我们的预期，他们制作了真人大小的模型、迷你影院、木偶剧、大幅世界地图、统计图表、科学实验、电视机模型等。
为了与参观者进行现场互动，孩子们甚至复制了一个带有签证中心的机场。他们的努力给来访者留下了深刻的印象。
尽管过程很辛苦，毕业展对于孩子们而言是意义非凡的。孩子们从来访者那里得到了很多积极的反馈，也学到了很多。
毕业展有很多值得我们学习的地方，他们声音洪亮，一点也不害羞；
这次参观令我发现，其他学校也有很多有才华的人和有潜力的人；
出游参观教会了我如何做展示，如何变得更加心胸开阔；
我明白了犯错误是不可避免的，但是更重要的是如何改错使之更好；
出游参观很有趣，因为接下来我们要进行很多类似的展示；
我喜欢这次参观的体验，因为我发现了很多善良的人，这让我感到很满足。
很欣慰能够在毕业展中看到孩子们的成长，学校充分锻炼了孩子的实践能力；
毕业展中孩子的准备十分充分，通过毕业展的主题展示，家长看到了孩子批判性的思维，孩子们自己对世界和自身的了解也正在增加；
孩子自主探究的能力让我惊喜，感谢学校和老师的付出；
王府学校十分重视孩子的技能培养，这是当代社会竞争中尤为需要的；
孩子对探究式新颖的学习环境十分喜欢，期待孩子们升入初中以后也能继续发挥探究精神，快乐生活，快乐学习。
在本周的探究课上，孩子们对整个毕业展之路进行了回顾和反思。有的孩子认为整个毕业展的高光时刻是自己自信地向参观者介绍主题内容；有的孩子对本组的团队合作十分满意；有的孩子表示没有进行针对性的出游十分遗憾……
孩子们表示，如果毕业展再来一次，他们会更有经验，会更加注重时间管理，继续深入探究。
作为教师，我们为学生们探究主题的热情及深入探究的决心而深深地打动。
明年即将举办毕业展的准五年级学生，希望我们示范了一个还不错的开头，祝愿你们一切顺利，等着你们来超越！
What the PYPX Is and Why We Have Them
Last Thursday and Friday on the 20th and 21st May 2021, we saw our Grade 5 students wrap up their culminating task with a grand celebration of their learning. In the biggest exhibition they have ever had to partake in as a PYP student, the children presented their learning to members of the entire school, visitor schools and their parents at the International Conference Hall and the Ping Pong Centre. All PYP exhibitions are an opportunity for students to demonstrate engagement with the five essential elements of the programme. This is when students move from guided inquiry to independent inquiry, where they choose their own topic of interest, questions, concepts and design their own unit of inquiry. We can think of this as their graduating task in the PYP and, as one of our students John put it, “the summative assessment of all summative assessments.”
Our eight week journey started with an introduction to the PYP Exhibition and a review of the Inquiry Cycle, Action Cycle and the PYP Essential Elements – knowledge, concepts, skills, learner profile and action. The exhibition centred around the transdisciplinary theme Sharing the Planet. We delved into deep provocations for each of its four descriptors:
· rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things;
· communities and the relationships within and between them;
· access to equal opportunities;
· peace and conflict resolution.
Unlike other Units of Inquiry which models guided inquiry, this unit was entirely designed by the students. In week 2, students chose their topics of interest and were grouped accordingly with about three students to a group. They showed admirable interest in strong causes, both local and global – Racism, Gender Inequality, Homelessness, Hunger, War and Peace, Global Warming, Water Pollution, Energy Crisis, Endangered Animals and Overpopulation. They then spent the rest of the week framing their inquiry to form their key questions, concepts, lines of inquiry and central idea.
As our students are still quite young, assistance was still provided through our team of twelve volunteer teachers who mentored a group each through the rest of the seven weeks. A special mention must be given to the mentors who went well beyond what was asked of them. Indeed, they were with our students so much, guiding and prompting them with questions and resources, suggestions and feedback, listened with a caring heart and helped students make their own decisions.
As soon as they knew what they wanted to research, the only next step was to conduct their research! Following their own timelines here onwards, the children spent hours pouring over different sources. While plenty used the internet to their advantage, some also looked up books in the library, their homes or bought more new books. Some went the extra mile and gathered primary sources of information by conducting interviews and surveys while others went on field trips to museums with their parents over the weekends. They were reminded to dig deep and to distinguish credible sources from weak ones. Once they thought they had gathered enough information, it was a process too to sort their information. They had to ask themselves, “What’s important and what’s not? Does this match my Line of Inquiry? What patterns can I see across my findings? How do they compare and contrast? How can I categorise my notes?” To take their learning further, the teachers organised a field trip to the UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) office in Sanlitun. They provided excellent information for each group and their topics.
Carl Gustav Jung once said, “you are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” The actions our children took as a result of their learning made us very proud. Grace delivered a speech to her father’s employers on the effects of racism. Kevin and Alex wrote a letter to the war victims of Syria. They also got their visitors to join their cause and write letters and/or donate stationery supplies. Tiger H proved a strong point on gender roles by dressing up in a skirt and pants, driving crowds his way as he and his team mates Tracy and Julie enthusiastically spoke on gender equality. Olivia, Wendy and Helen encouraged their visitors to donate to WWF. A few groups encouraged their visitors to sign petitions or show their support with prints and many others turned into activists who went around raising awareness on their cause leading up to the event.
The children were required to present their research through an art medium, a technological one and a written piece. Any visitor at the Exhibition could see that most have exceeded our expectations, by creating massive to life-size models, including a mini cinema room, a puppet show, massive world maps, statistical charts, science experiments, a television set, interactive sessions with their guests and with one group even replicating an airport with a visa centre. The children were clearly driven to make an excellent impression and impressed the crowd was.
We are sure we speak for everyone, teachers and students, that the Exhibition has been an incredibly rewarding experience. As hard work as it was, it was all worth it in the end. We received plenty of positive feedback from our visitors and learned lots ourselves.
Here are some of the feedback our kind visitors had left us: “There are many things worth learning in their school. For example, they have loud voices and are not shy at all.” “I think I had a great experience on the field trip. The field trip made me find out that there are so much talented people and people with many potentials in other schools too. The field trip taught me how to display things and how to be open-minded. I learned that it’s okay to make mistakes and how to correct those mistakes to make it better. The field trip was fun because there were some very good competitions we had to do. Finally, I loved to have the field trip and it was awesome and had some good-hearted people.”
Parents also said that in the graduation exhibition to see the growth of children, they are very pleased: through the graduation exhibition, the school has grasped the focus of cultivating children’s practical ability；children are well prepared in the graduation exhibition. Through the theme exhibition of the graduation exhibition, I can see children’s critical thinking, and children’s understanding of the world and themselves is also increasing；I’m surprised by my child’s ability to explore independently；Our school attaches great importance to the cultivation of children’s skills, which is particularly needed in the contemporary social competition; My kid like inquiry learning environment very much;We hope that children can continue to hold the spirit of inquiry, live and study happily after they enter junior high school.
In this week’s inquiry class, the children reviewed and reflected on the whole journey of the graduation exhibition. Some children think that the highlight of the whole graduation exhibition is to confidently introduce the theme to the visitors; Some children are very satisfied with the team work of this group; Some children said it was a pity that they didn’t have a targeted field trip… The children said that if the graduation exhibition was held again, they would have more experience and pay more attention to time management and in-depth exploration.
As a teacher, I found myself inspired by my students’enthusiasm in their topics and decided to study them further.
To the future Grade 5 students who will be doing their Exhibition next year, we wish you all the best and hope we have set a decent standard for you to exceed!
