Millbrook Elementary Teachers Selected for Best Teaching Practices
October 8, 2009 - The first grade team of teachers at Millbrook Elementary Magnet School has been selected to participate in a project to document the planning, teaching, assessment and reflection on one of their inquiry-based units of instruction for this school year. Teachers Donna Liefer and Christine Schaller talk with magnet coordinator Terri Walker about the visit by IBO videographers. |
Millbrook Elementary is an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme, using the IB method of inquiry-based instruction in teaching the NC Standard Course of Study. The Primary Years Programme emphasizes academic challenges, international understanding, community service, and mental and physical well-being. The programme seeks to develop the total child by addressing intellectual, social, physical, emotional and cultural needs. The curriculum framework includes five essential elements - concepts, actions, skills, knowledge, attitudes.
Millbrook’s teachers
The Millbrook first grade teaching teams includes Yolanda Barham, Debi Grossweiler, Donna Liefer, Anne Makover, Kristin Vore and Christine Schaller. Paula Trantham is the school’s principal.
The Millbrook teachers represent one of four schools in the world chosen to be highlighted by IBO on its website. Other IB Primary Years Programme schools are in Australia, Mexico and Germany. The goal of the project is to capture exemplar teaching practice in a Primary Years Programme classroom to share as a professional development resource for IB teacher workshops and school-based professional development.
A curriculum team from the Cardiff (Wales) and the US International Baccalaureate Organization offices in New York City will be arriving this week to gather evidence of best teaching practices. The aim of the project is to capture the unit of instruction through a variety of media, such as video, written documentation, assessment materials, teacher interviews, and teaching notes. The first grade teaching team has been working with the Cardiff office, via teleconference and electronic means, to think critically about the planning, teaching and learning, and assessment of the inquiry unit. The project will be shared with other Primary Years Programme schools as an example of how experienced Primary Years Programme teachers collaborative and implement inquiry-based instruction.
Millbrook’s IB history
Millbrook Elementary administrators, teachers, students, and staff have all shared in working towards the common goal of becoming an authorized PYP school. In February 2004, upon the recommendation of the authorization team, the International Baccalaureate Organization approved Millbrook as an authorized Primary Years Programme school.
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