Confessions of a PYP Teacher

C6 (Challenge): Evidencing the Inquiry

Lu Gerlach Season 1 Episode 6

Send us a text

As we are looking to assess student understanding, are we considering the entire journey and not just content objectives?  Things to consider when looking back: 

  • Do students understand the WHY of the unit and how is this demonstrated? 
  • Did they engage in a variety of inquiry thinking?
  • Have we addressed the questions in our A-Z planner?
  • Do students know how to ask a variety of questions?
  • Have they gone through different stages of inquiry to stretch their thinking?

To authentically assess a child, we need to see the big picture of student ability.  This is especially important with inquiry-based learning, since it tends to be more hands-on in nature.  How do we assess inquiry? How do we find a balance between collecting data on a child and evidence of student growth.  Do we know the difference? 

According to the IB, there are four dimensions of assessment that need to be considered when evaluating a child.  This provides a broader and more richer evaluation of student progress.  The four dimensions include: 

  • monitoring  - collecting evidence of student progress to make goals
  • documenting  - collecting and displaying the process of learning 
  • measuring - capturing student understanding at one point in time
  • reporting - sharing and celebrating student growth throughout the year

The four dimensions of assessment help to balance the purpose of collecting data and evidence with student goal-setting.

For a written blog post and other resources, visit:   https://thinkchat2020.weebly.com/



Thanks for listening! Please find us on LinkedIn @lugerlach, Instagram @thinkchat2020, Threads @thinkchat2020, and Bluesky @thinkchat2020.bsky.social.

Join our Confessions of a PYP Teacher Facebook Group! Let's have some fun!