Planning the inquiry

1. What is our purpose?

Class/grade:

1a) To inquire into the following:

School: Domuschola International School

transdisciplinary theme

Title:

Who We Are

Teacher(s): Ginalyn, Bea, Brenn, Carmina,Dean

An inquiry into the nature of the self; beliefs and values; personal, physical,
mental, social and spiritual health; human relationships including families, friends,
communities, and cultures; rights and responsibilities; what it means to be
human.

Date: August 4-Sept 12

Age group:
School code: 7800

Human Growth and Development

Proposed duration: 6 weeks

central idea
Complex factors affect human growth and development.

1b) Summative assessment task(s):

2. What do we want to learn?

What are the possible ways of assessing students understanding of the central
idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?

What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective,
responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?

GOAL: to come up with a suggested plan to eradicate problems on malnutrition, hygienerelated diseases and water-related diseases

Focus Key Concepts: Function, Responsibility, Change

Related Concepts: system, lifestyle, growth, development

ROLE: doctors
AUDIENCE: Different grade levels

What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?

SCENARIO: You are a doctor attending an international medical convention

where you have to talk about the plan (apply), to eradicate problems of

- How our bodies grow and develop

students that contribute to slow human growth and development.

- Internal and external factors affecting human growth and development

You are going to take the story of a kid with an ailment (related to malnutrition,

- Our responsibilities to our own growth and development

hygiene-related diseases and water-related diseases). Tell the story of this child, what he
has gone through, the opportunities he missed because of his situation. Let the audience
imagine and empathize if they were in his situation. Present your plans to the audience.
Explain(explain) how will your plans improve his quality of life.

What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?

- What makes us grow?

PRODUCT: A presentation/ booklet that contains a balanced plan that would lead to
healthy human growth and development.

- How do our bodies grow and develop?

- What are the different factors affecting growth and development?
- How do these factors define who we are?
- What are our responsibilities toward our own growth and development?

International Baccalaureate Organization 2011

Planning the inquiry

3. How might we know what we have learned?

4. How best might we learn?

This column should be used in conjunction with How best might we learn?
What are the possible ways of assessing students prior knowledge and skills?
What evidence will we look for?
Students draw the human body with its parts. They identify the factors that affect
the development and growth of their body. An explanation is attached to their
illustration.

What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to encourage the students to engage
with the inquiries and address the driving questions?

What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the
lines of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?
Lines of
Inquiry
How do our
bodies grow
and develop

What will be
assessed?
Students'
understanding that
human growth and
development is
dependent on how
our body systems
work.

Internal and
external
factors
affecting
human
growth and
development
Our
responsibiliti
es to our
growth and
development

Students'
understanding that
our growth and
development can be
affected by different
factors.

Students'
understanding that a
balanced lifestyle is
essential to growth
and development.

How will evidence be collected?

Students develop an interactive game that
includes how the various parts of the
human body system work together
contributing to its growth and development.
They may consider taking the concept of
snakes and ladders that includes
information about how each part fulfills its
role in the process of growth and
development.
Students create a table that shows the
different factors affecting human growth
and development. They may also come up
with infographics capturing all the factors.
An explanation of the infographics will also
be included.
Students prepare a pamphlet that contains
the things that we need to do for our bodies
to grow and develop properly. They explain
the contents or the gist in front of the class
with enthusiasm.

Tuning-In
Who Am I? Students sketch the parts of the human body system and draw or write down something that personally reflects
who you are as a person (e.g. heart = mother, brain = reader, etc...). Explanation must contain the factors that contribute/
influence the symbols that they chose. Prepare a list of the parts with the corresponding symbols. They explain the symbols
and their relevance in a form of writing a letter.
Think, Puzzle, Explore What do you think you know about these questions? What questions or puzzles do you have
about this topic? How might you explore the puzzles we have around this topic?
CHALK TALK Looking at the topic or question written on the chart paper:
What ideas come to mind when you consider this idea, question, or problem? What connections can you make to the
response of others? What questions arise as you think about the ideas and consider the responses and comments of
others?
Gallery Walk/Rocket Writing The classroom has different pictures of the major body organs posted around the room,
students go around the classroom and write down what they know about a specific organ and the issues or problems that
this organ may have. Reflective journal be accomplished on how do these issues affect human growth and development?
Did You Know That...Class reads books about human body. They will do speed booking but in the form of did you know
that... statements.
Body Facts Students keep a notebook with them where they jot down amazing facts about the body. They share facts to
the class every meeting.

What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the development of the attributes of the
learner profile?
A. Transdisciplinary Skills
Thinking Skills: ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE - Students acquire knowledge about the different factors affecting
human growth and development; COMPREHENSION - students grasp meaning from the materials that the class will be
using
Social Skills: ACCEPTING RESPONIBILITY - Students take the responsibility of taking good care of themselves;
RESPECTING OTHERS - Students listen and recognize others point of view about becoming healthy and balanced.
Research Skills: FORMULATING QUESTIONS - Students formulate questions relevant to the unit; COLLECTING DATA Students interview, research or read to collect data about the unit.
B. Learner Profile: BALANCED - Students create a plan on how to be balanced in their way of living to become healthier;
INQUIRER- Students inquire on the different factors that contribute to human growth and development.

5. What resources need to be gathered?

What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available?
People

Medical and health people

Places

St. Lukes Hospital

Fitness centers

Literature

Angel in the Waters by Regina Doman

Other books related to Human Body and Growth and Development

Audio-Visual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSQLMmHZCgY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9n0Nfh-G2c

How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry?

Posters about the human body will be displayed

books related to the unit will also be used
Experts will be invited to give a talk about the factors that affect human growth and development

International Baccalaureate Organization 2011

Reflecting on the inquiry

6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?

Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students understanding
of the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the planning and
teaching of the inquiry should be included.
The students were able to realize that there were a lot of factors to be considered
for humans to grow and develop. Initially, they were only able to identify the
physical factors like food, exercise, rest and hygiene; but at the end of the unit they
were able to point out the various factors like the society, race, sex, heredity and
others.
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more
accurate picture of each students understanding of the central idea.
Since the engagements were planned well, the class didnt lose much time finding
out about the different factors that affect human growth and development. The
assessment tasks given were appropriate to assess the understanding of the
students about the central idea.
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and
the transdisciplinary theme?
The students were able to understand that human beings need to be balanced
physically, cognitively, socially, spiritually to grow and develop. They were also able
to gain understanding that everyone has the responsibility toward growth and
development, and that biological factors such as heredity, gender and race are also
contributors to growth and development.

7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?

What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
develop an understanding of the concepts identified in What do we want to
learn?
The engagements that we had about the human body made the students
understand the concept of change. They understood that all human being go
through different changes as they grow and develop brought about by different
factors.
They also learned the concept of function when they dealt with society as one of
the factors influencing growth and development when the HR Personnel came to
discuss about the influence of society to their lives. They also recognized the
function of the environment as a contributing factor to their growth and development
when they went to the garbage dump area in Payatas Quezon CIty.
Towards the end of the finding out, the class realized that everybody has the
responsibility to ensure that they, and others, grow and develop properly.
demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?
Thinking Skills: As the students find out through the field trip, interviewing
resource speakers, reading the articles suggested to them, and analyzing the
photographs, they were able to acquire the knowledge about the factors that
contribute to growth and development. They were also able to develop the thinking
skills when the students had to come up with their conceptual understanding of the
unit.
Social Skills: The group engagements in the different stations that they had, like
watching video and sharing their ideas about what they watched, the picture
analyses, gave them opportunity to accept responsibility and respect other people.
Research Skills: The students developed their research skills specifically
formulating questions and collecting data when they went for a field trip and also
when they interviewed our resource speakers to find out the factors affecting human
growth and development.
develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
In each case, explain your selection.
Inquirer: students became inquirers when they observed the effects of the
environment as one of the factors of growing and developing.
Open-minded: students became more open-minded as they learned the different
factors affecting growth and development.

International Baccalaureate Organization 2011

Reflecting on the inquiry

8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?

9. Teacher notes

Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that
were incorporated into the teaching and learning.

It was helpful that the teachers involved in planning already tried to limit the factors that the
students need to inquire into. The class did not waste time during finding out since the
speakers and the place they visited during their field trip offered the information they wanted
to find out.

Who is responsible for our growth and development?

Why do we need to grow and develop?
What should we eat to be healthy?
Why do we need to exercise?
Why do we grow?

We had difficulty in coming up with the conceptual understanding. What we can do next is to
take the concepts or abstract nouns as part of our lessons in English specifically in
vocabulary.

At this point teachers should go back to box 2 What do we want to learn? and highlight the
teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries.

What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?

Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to reflect,
to choose and to act.
After visiting the garbage dump site to inquire into the effects of the environment as one of
the factors of growth and development, one of the students asked her parents if she could
celebrate her birthday with the less fortunate, like the kids that the class saw around the
dump site area.

Attachment...
A. Learning Engagements
Finding Out

Data collection
Experiences to assist students to gather new information about the topic

Sorting Out

Experiences and texts that add to the knowledge base. Emphasis on gathering first-hand data in a range

of ways (usually shared experiences)

Gauging, organizing or representing new information

Activities to assist students to process and work with the information and ideas they have gathered about
the topic (including exploring values)
Organizing, analyzing and communicating the information gathered using a range of vehicles (e.g

through Maths, Arts, English, Drama, Music or IT)

Line Of Inquiry !: How our bodies grow and develop

Video Watching: How to take care of our sense organs

Jigsaw Article Reading: Food Groups, Proper care of sense organs
Role play: How bacteria/virus transfer from host to host
Tug O War: Should we care for our bodies?
Students measure their different body parts and compare them with others.

Line Of Inquiry 2: Internal and external factors affecting human growth and
development

Students create cartoons showing how human bodies grow.

They create a chart that depicts the food content of their everyday plate.
Students create a chart to show their body part measurements and discuss
write how they would be when they become teenagers.

Students use a graphic organizer that shows the different factors affecting
growth and development.

They students create posters showing the responsibilities of humans for

their own growth and development
They synthesized what they learned and understood using the developing
conceptual understanding template (Pyramid)

Field Trip to Payatas Dump Site

Imagination Game: What can affect my growth
Video Analysis: Environmental factors affecting growth
Resource speakers
o Ms Jeff (HR): social growth
o Ms Jime (Guidance):cognitive growth
o Mr Joel (School President): spiritual growth
o Ms Joy ( School Nurse): physical growth
Line Of Inquiry 3: Our responsibilities to our growth and development
Belly-button Sharing: What are the responsibilities that we have to our
bodies
Interview parents about the responsibilities of humans toward proper growth
and development.
Students play fitness games in PE and discuss their benefits to the body.
Students investigate on the role of music in their growth and development.

Going Further
Activities to challenge and extend
Raising new questions, extending experiences, challenging assumptions. May be individually negotiated.

Students independently research on their questions that haven't been answered yet.
Drawing conclusions
Raising new questions, extending experiences, challenging assumptions. May be individually negotiated. Students draw conclusions of what they have learnt. This is an important time to
evaluate the success of the unit and the needs and achievements of individuals. This is where students put it all together.
Students write an essay or a poster about this: Proper growth and development is everyones responsibility.
Reflecting and Taking Action
To reflect on what has been learnt and process of learning. It is important that students be given opportunities to act upon what they have learnt. Actions are things that students can
themselves and from which they can see results.
After the realization that its everyones responsibility to let humans grow and develop properly, the students came up with action plan that involved themselves and their families. They were
encouraged to act on the goals that they set in their summative assessment.