ISD Secondary: MYP Music news

Music has accompanied many of us throughout important events in our life. Each of us has a song that evokes memories, people, countries, feeling. Music has been our best friend during all our life and has presented itself in different ways.

The soundtrack of this period for MYP2 students has been their own song. They worked very hard in composing a song using GarageBand. It has been fascinating listening to their compositions and how the song taste have changed during the lockdown. The music reflects always how you feel. Now they are coping with odd time signature and performing some challenging body percussion patterns. If you see them looking for some items around your house or if they are making a lot of noise in front of their computer, no worries it is my fault! 

Is it possible to play together during the lockdown? Well, MYP1 students may say yes!

After learning about Chord progressions and how to build a melody on top of it, they used a Google app called Shared piano. In this app students composed and played a little melody line. They had much fun doing it and the results have been amazing! Some of the students even gave a little live concert from home.
 
For the MYP3 students, after being busy in creating a soundtrack to a horror film clip, it is time for a new Unit: Discovering Dance Music. By exploring the characteristic musical features of dance music from different times and places, students understand the important connection between the steps, movement and formation of the dance and how these are inter-related within musical features such as time, metre, rhythms and chords in the music.

Are you ready to see them dance? Well, give them some time to practice!
 
As the Spring Break is coming up, I feel confident to hand over my classes to Ms Michele Ellis, while I will be welcoming my first baby within a couple of weeks. See you in a few months!
 

ISD Secondary – English LangLit: “Is knowledge power?”

Contribution by Mr Mike Dessens – English Language and Literature

This period MYP3 has been working on a unit called “Is knowledge power”.
For this they have watched a film called “The First Grader”. 
 
This beautiful film tells the remarkable story of an 84-year-old Kenyan villager who attends primary school. The film deals with the struggles of him attending the school and learning how to read and write, but also shows his violent past as a Mau Mau warrior fighting for Kenyan independence. I have had to edit this film because of some scenes being too graphic and violent, but that doesn’t take away from the strong message this film has to share.
 
The first response of the students was exactly what I was hoping for.
Later in the unit we will also be looking, through images and part of a documentary called “On the way to school”, at some incredible journeys students from around the world have to undertake just to get to school.
 
I am looking forward to linking these images to the questions: 
·       How far would you go to get an education? 
·       How has working on this unit changed your attitude towards school?
 
I am confident this knowledge will influence the way our students approach school and lifelong learning.

ISD Secondary - The Great Bean Ballet through the eyes of our students

ISD Secondary: Learning how to learn

Contribution by Ms Judith Gerritzen
 

The two weeks before the holiday, we introduced extra lessons for each class to learn how to reference using the Harvard system. Of course, this is a tricky subject to teach and can be seen as a bit dull. Therefore I asked the students to create their book citations based on their creative book titles. Look for yourself, I have to say these titles reflect many of our students' personalities and hobbies!

After the holiday, we will focus on research skills. Good research starts with the right inquiry questions. I like to illustrate inquiry-based education through this image: 'swimming instruction’ of Mackenzie (2018). Interesting to see where the teacher stands and to see the swimmers each in a different section.

In my opinion, this image represents precisely how the IB curriculum is thriving to guide students. Many of our MYP students are now on the ‘controlled inquiry’ or  'the guided inquiry' level and eventually, they will move to the 'free inquiry' stage. As teachers, we are there to facilitate this transition to the next stage. We do that by asking questions but also by giving guidelines. 

As a parent, you may be helping your child in this remote learning period, with their research. This can be done by asking them questions about their schoolwork but also helping them with their online search activities. To support you I have created a list of subscribed school websites and free resources to help students with their online research. In this link you will find an overview with logins for their next online inquiry. I hope it will help you and the students. This list will also be shared with the students in mentor time.