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How does PD support MYP educators with ‘the power and impact of digital assessment’?

StanBStan Burgoyne is the IB’s Global Head of MYP Professional Development and began his career in education teaching English and theatre in the San Francisco Bay area, California. He later moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he was a teacher and coordinator for the Diploma and Middle Years Programmes in a public school system. He joined the IB in 2006 and saw his responsibilities grow from supporting 10 IB continuum schools to supporting thousands of MYP educators around the world. A leader in the MYP Next Chapter project, Stan affirms that the MYP has emerged more impactful and dynamic than ever before as a result of its extensive review.

Q. What are the latest developments in PD for the MYP, Stan?

SB:  The MYP is now firmly anchored in the 21st century. The programme has eAssessment for students and professional development for the teachers who support it, including a new digital assessment workshop we’re working on called ‘The power and impact of digital assessment’. We’ve also developed a series of free eAssemblies that will launch later this year. Guest hosts will interview MYP experts in the field to explain the ‘the why’, the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of MYP eAssessment. These will be available in English, French and Spanish.

Plus, we’re updating legacy workshops like ‘Managing MYP assessment’, among others, to accurately represent the recent changes in the MYP.

Q.  Tell us more about the new workshop ‘The power and impact of digital assessment.’

SB:  It will appeal to a wide audience of teachers, coordinators and heads of school. It’s a Category 3 workshop about why digital assessment may be more relevant for today’s students than other models of external assessment. It supports MYP educators to help their students to better demonstrate their knowledge and understanding through eAssessment than they can through its predecessor – moderation. This workshop promotes excellent classroom practice, deepens programme implementation and ensures a rigorous global standard of achievement.

Q:  Why is eAssessment so important to the MYP?

SB:  eAssessment allows educators the opportunity to capture the knowledge and skills of their students in a manner that corresponds to inquiry-based teaching and learning that have taken place over the course of the student’s MYP experience. This new MYP option helps both teachers and students experience positive outcomes, and it aligns with what they experience in the classroom.

Q:  How does your role for MYP professional development relate to eAssessment?

SB:  Everything I do is for teachers, so I try always to put myself first in that classroom seat and think about the learners and their needs. It is from this perspective that I can provide the most help in guiding the teaching experience and the professional development that is necessary to have a positive impact on learners. As we develop guidelines for professional development, we think of everyone involved in the MYP teaching and learning spectrum, particularly moderating and non-moderating schools. A key objective of ours is that non-moderating schools will adopt eAssessments as a way to give students the effective means to show their ability to think critically and to apply their learning to new situations. Our twin goals are to heighten awareness of the power of eAssessments and to support teachers with impactful professional development.

Q:  Students who participated in the eAssessment pilots this year were excited about their experience. That seems an important point for MYP educators to take in, would you agree?

SB:  Using new technology found in their own classrooms is an exciting experience for students. When they find that their assessment protocols are intuitive tools that they can manipulate to express themselves better, then yes, students want to embrace the experience. And yes, it may be less intuitive for the educators than for the students; this is the gap that professional development workshops fill. We make the entire eAssessment experience understandable and within reach for educators. eAssessment becomes the connection between inspirational teaching and impactful learning.

Q:  Please explain how Category 3 workshops enable educators to leap ahead in their personal practice.

SB:   Inverting a triangle is a good way to think of Category 3 workshops. An authorized school might spend a lot of time sending teachers to Category 1 workshops to develop the broad, sturdy base of the pyramid and to meet requirements for authorization. Then, some teachers choose to attend Category 2 workshops to deepen their practice and to stay current with programme and subject group changes. As a school matures, the triangle flips, so that Category 3 workshop attendance forms the broad base, and everyone at the workshop is somewhat at the same level again. Networking heightens as participants realize the value of sharing practice. The more Category 3 workshops that educators attend, the more chances they have to hone their teaching practice.

In Category 3 workshops, participants can reflect on the fact that they may have undergone at least one evaluation cycle; they might be doing well but want to learn more, whether it’s about digital literacy, approaches to learning, or inquiry. Schools everywhere are creating professional learning communities (PLCs) where a teacher-leader attends a Category 3 workshop and cascades his or her newfound understandings to others in the PLC. These teachers are at the pinnacle of the inverted triangle.

Q:    Tell us about the new series of free MYP eAssemblies

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Sign up for a free eAssembly to find out more about MYP eAssessment

SB:   Everyone who attends an eAssembly will enhance their understanding of why the IB chose to develop eAssessments and what benefits the eAssessment affords students over other forms of external assessment. These special events feature MYP experts working in the field, who are making themselves available for questioning by interviewers in English, French and Spanish and then by the event attendees. Anyone who attends is welcome to submit a question; all answers will be published shortly afterwards. Attendees will understand more about the enhanced MYP and what the eAssessment option is all about in a more detailed, up-close and personal way. Our special guests include educators from MYP schools who participated in the trial eAssessments and who were on the developing end of eAssessments. Their experiences are illuminating.

Everyone is welcome to attend—you don’t even have to be part of an MYP school. And they are free!

Q:     Are there other ways to tap into MYP content and professional development activity, easily and at low cost?

SB:    We have a webinar series, which is like a master class. Think of it like cooking with a great chef! As a coordinator, you can buy a webinar pass for a very reasonable fee, and it covers admission for your whole department or all your department heads or staff.

MYP webinars take the participants through the unit-planning process one step at a time. Ideally, webinar participants come back a month or so later for another webinar in the series, having tried some of the things that they learned. Over time, they grow. This series is offered in English, French and Spanish, so it’s suitable for most schools that offer the MYP. All webinars will be archived and accessible by those who have purchased a webinar pass – at any time during the year.


Since we published this post, the first eAssembly has take place. Take a look at the following videos from the event.