Planning the inquiry

1. What is our purpose?

Class/grade: 2

1a) To inquire into the following:

School:Domuschola International School

transdisciplinary theme

Age group: 8-9

School code: 7800

Title: Peoples' histories

An exploration of our orientation in place and time; of our personal histories and
geographies; homes and journeys; the discoveries, explorations and migrations
of humankind; the relationships between and the interconnectedness of
individuals and civilizations, from local and global perspectives.

Teacher(s): Katrina Virrey, Brenn Bavia, Carmina Gutierrez,

Caral delos Angeles
Date: October

central idea

Proposed duration: : 6 weeks Number of hours: over 8 hours a week

Interpretation of artifacts contributes to our understanding of peoples' histories

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 create an object that would be considered as an artifact in the future

Role: Inventor
Audience: DIS community

Focus Key Concepts:

form
function
reflection
Related Concepts:
artifact
history
value
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?

Scenario: You are the first archaeologist that is sent to the Philippines. Your task

is to dig for an artifact that gives information of peoples histories. There is an

international conference and you have to present your artifact. Using the artifact,
explain peoples histories from the time the artifact was used.
How people analyze artifacts
Product: An item or artifact from the past that says something about peoples
How artifacts contribute to our understanding of the past
histories.
Why people keep or discard artifacts
Students explain the need for redesigning an object from the past. They will
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
apply their learnings from the past to create something new. For them to come
up with a new innovative design of an object, they will need to have self How does an artifact look like?
knowledge so they can come up with a successful product.
How does an artifact function?

What does an artifact tell us about the past?

What are the reasons why people preserve artifacts?

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 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 students prior knowledge and skills? What
evidence will we look for?
Students will be shown various photos of old cars/ mode of transportation, communication,
clothing and things used in school and they come up with a chart that shows their memories
or experiences with such items/things. Using the chart, they will write a text explaining it.
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines of
inquiry? What evidence will we look for?

Line of
Inquiry
How people
analyze
artifacts

How artifacts
contribute to
our
understanding
of the past
Why people
keep or
discard
artifacts

Tuning-in
1. Interpretation of artifacts using old photos.
2. Artifact bag - Students will be asked to bring a box containing artifacts or photos that are related to transportation,
communication, clothing and education. Students should know where these came from. These should have been used by
their parents or relatives in the past. Students will be analyzing these photos and artifacts and try to come up with a guess
as to why those artifacts look a certain way.
3. Artifact scavenger hunt - Students will look at pictures and watch a video about old Manila. They will choose artifacts
that can be seen on the video or photos. There will be a group discussion about what they have seen and watched. They
will use a graphic organizer to show what they learned.

What will be assessed?

How will evidence be collected?

Students' understanding that

artifacts can be analyzed to findout hidden meanings.

Students analyze a given artifact

and extract hidden meanings from
it. They apply the processes and
skills that they learned in analyzing
an artifact. Through the artifact, they
elicit different symbols and their
meaning.
Using sample artifacts (through their
symbols, etc.), students write what
each artifact tells about the past.

4. Getting to know the regions of the Philippines - Students will visit the archeology, arts and anthropology of some
regions in the Philippines. They will be filling out their artifact booklet during their visit.

Students create a poster on why

people keep or discard artifacts.

Social Skills: GROUP DECISION-MAKING and COOPERATING - Students will have a lot of group activities encourage
them to listen to their group members so it can help them work toward creating the output for the tasks.
Research Skills: OBSERVING AND RECORDING DATA - Students will record the data that they gather from different
sources. They will also be writing and analyzing their observations.

Students' understanding that

artifacts provide opportunities to
challenge and enhance our
understanding of the past.
Students' understanding that
artifacts can be kept or discarded
depending on ones purpose.

5. Parked questions- After being exposed to different artifacts, students will be encouraged to formulate their own
questions about the unit.
(continuation: see attachment A)
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 will learn facts and vocabulary that were used in the past
and the present. ANALYSIS- Students will compare artifacts from the past and present. They will analyze the
characteristics of each artifact and see how it is related to the present things.

B. Learner Profile
Knowledgeable - Students will be knowledgeable about how artifacts say a lot about the past. They will use their
knowledge in analyzing and synthesizing when they try to come up with new designs of objects.

Reflective - Students will be reflective because they will be given an opportunity to think about what could have
happened in the past and try to connect it with whats happening in the present. They will be given a chance to
change something based on their reflections.

5. What resources need to be gathered?

Places
National
Museum
Ayala Museum
Resource
speakers

Literature
Articles about culture and
history
Balagtas, Marilyn, et al.
Philippines' Pride. Manila: Rex
Book Store, Inc. 2013

Audio-Visual
Ancient Egyptian Artifacts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1clsSCOQKg0)
Philippines Treasure Part III (GMA 7) feat. Maitum Burial Jars
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk8UfARFPyw)
Manila, Queen of the Pacific (http://www.oldmanila.net/videos/94-test-1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0REgjTGDXg&list=PLvDWYMplZrTIt-sOeRvHnEzB7bneSCZy

Websites
http://www.oldmanila.net
http://www.hannahvilleschool.net/wp
content/uploads/2013/06/Gr2SSUnit1.pdf- LOI 1 how it will be
assess/ teaching LOI 1

International Baccalaureate Organization 2011

How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry?
International
Organization
-Visible
thinkingBaccalaureate
tools will be posted
to show 2011
thinking to show how students make connections- Philippine map posted on the wall and artifacts that are found in certain places in the country.- Artifacts will be brought by
the students and will be displayed on our UOI museum.

Reflecting on the inquiry

6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?

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

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.

What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:

develop an understanding of the concepts identified in What do we want to learn?

Students understand that artifacts are not just old objects used as, say, weapons
or tools. They came up with the conclusion that an artifact is an object that can
tell something about a persons history, culture, tradition. They found out that

artifacts can also be a sign of an achievement and can connect people.

To show their understanding of LOI 1, they were able to analyze artifacts

according to their form and function. An evidence for this is their artifact booklet
that they used to analyze the artifacts they explored and saw during their field
trips.

Key concepts:
Form - The engagements in class allowed them to look and explore the various
artifacts that they saw during the field trips. They were able to explain how each artifact
looked like (texture, shape,, size, moveable parts etc.)
Function - The use of the artifacts were also investigated on. This helped them gain a
better understanding of the livelihood, religion, culture of the people before.
Reflection - At the start of the unit, the students thought that artifacts were just plain
tools. After several engagements, their understanding of artifacts and peoples culture
were deepened because of various connections made from a number of resources for
them to reflect on the unit.

demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?

Thinking Skills:
Acquisition of knowledge and analysis- for them to analyze artifacts, they had to go
through the finding out stage to gather information of the artifacts they saw.
Social Skills:
Group decision-making and cooperating The students were exposed to different
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a
learning engagements that allowed them to work as a group. They had to fill out some
more accurate picture of each students understanding of the central idea.
graphic organizers that required them to listen to what their classmates had to say for
them to complete the task.
Creating their own artifact for their summative assessment was effective in
Research Skills:
assessing their knowledge and understanding of the central idea because the Observing and recording data The students used their artifact booklet to exhibit these
skills.
products that were created were varied. They were able to explain it and it
showed the culture of the country.
develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
In each case, explain your selection.
On the other hand, the artifacts they analyzed in their UOI booklet were too
much. It would have been better if the teacher chose the artifacts that would be
Learner Profile
analyzed .
They found out that artifacts help them understand what may have happened in
the past. They focused on some artifacts that showed the changes that the

Philippines underwent through time. They also discovered that people keep
artifacts so that they would have memories of what happened before.

What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea
and the transdisciplinary theme?
There were connections made between the central idea and transdisciplinary
theme because they were able to carry out the tasks that were asked during their
Book Fair. Also, they are now more aware that the things that happened in the
past influences who they are.
International Baccalaureate Organization 2011

Knowledgeable and reflective The students were able to show that they were knowledgeable
because they learned a lot of facts from the finding out stage and because of this, and they were
able to effectively reflect on the things that happened in the past.

Reflecting on the inquiry

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

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

Why are artifacts important?

What is the use of an artifact?

Why do we need to know what happened in the past?

What can be considered as an artifact?

Why do people have different culture?

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.

Students are more aware of the things that they have to keep or save, knowing that
these objects might be important in the future.

International Baccalaureate Organization 2011

9. Teacher notes
Strengths - The way the unit was presented was interesting because they saw
different objects that they havent seen before. This helped them to become more
engaged in the unit. They also enjoyed their summative assessment.
Challenges - There were a lot of artifacts available, perhaps too many, which made
it a bit difficult to plan and make connections with the outcomes needed.
Recommendations - The teacher should choose artifacts that are very important or
significant based on the outcomes they need to meet, so as not to overwhelm the
students. This will also make the process easier to manage.

Attachment A
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)

Students go on field trips to Ayala Museum and National Museum to

explore different artifacts that were preserved and discovered in the
Philippines. They also find out their histories and what they tell about the past.
Students listen to and interview resource speakers. They ask about
particular artifacts in their culture.
Students analyze different artifacts by describing how they look like and
knowing their functions. They also identify the different symbols found in the
artifacts and find-out what they could mean.
Students are divided into groups: transportation, clothing, communication,
education and culture. They research the different changes that took place
over time with each of these categories. Through different sample artifacts,
they state what they tell about the past.
Students interview their parents about why they keep or discard artifacts.
Students research different old artifacts related to music, sports/games
and arts and find-out what they tell about them before. They make
comparisons of the music, sports/games and arts that we have today.
Students learn how to compute for the age of an artifact using simple
methodologies.

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)

Using the Philippine map, students sort the different pictures of the artifacts that
they took in the museums. They label them as to which place in the Philippines they
were found or came from. Beside each picture would be a brief statement on what
they tell about the past.
Students come up with a collage of the different pictures of the artifacts that would
show an event or understanding of our history.
Students come up with a protocol list in analyzing a certain artifact.
Students come up with a time line of artifacts (pictures) that would show the different
changes in the aspect of transportation, clothing, communication, education and
culture.
Students come up with a list of generalizations about why people keep or discard
artifacts.
Students come up with a Venn Diagram to compare how sports, music, arts looked
like before and now.
Students write a fairytale story where parts of the story are talking or should be
related to artifacts.

Going Further
Activities to challenge and extend
Raising new questions, extending experiences, challenging assumptions. May be individually negotiated.
Students revisit the questions they have on their wonder wall which werent yet answered. They select some questions of their interest for their individual and
independent research.
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 make generalizations and write what they have learned throughout the unit. They use the triangle generalization template to guide them with their
generalization.

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.

Students make a letter to the principal requesting her of her permission for them to bring home any of their work outputs that they want to keep and form part of their
personal artifacts. This would later on tell them of their personal learning history.