August 5, 2025 • 37 mins
Join me as I dive into the future of education with Jenny Gillett, the lead architect of the International Baccalaureate's groundbreaking Systems Transformation pilot. In this episode, Jenny reveals how she and United World College communities co-create a two-year, transdisciplinary learning journey—tackling global challenges from biodiversity to river pollution—through systems thinking, design sprints, and challenge-based assessment.
You’ll hear:
- How students apply real-world problem solving under time pressure
- Why only three deeply reflective artifacts can tell a richer learning story than any exam
- The role of Principled Action, Systems Thinking, and Just Futures in empowering learner agency
- Strategies for training teachers in IB Approaches to Teaching and co-creative facilitation
- Insights on fairness, neuro-diversity, and scalable peer-powered professional development
Perfect for educators, school leaders, and innovators, this conversation showcases the power of collaborative innovation, accountable assessment, and community-driven change. Tune in and discover how to transform your classroom into a living lab of student-centered, systems-led learning.
To learn more about the pilot, visit Systems Transformation Pathway: Leadership for Just Futures or Leadership for just and sustainable futures A future-facing model for education
Here is a video featuring the student experience (YouTube)
You might also like to look at two curriculum overview documents: International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme Subject Brief: Systems transformation – Leadership for change and International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme Subject Brief: Systems transformation – Leadership for just futures
Follow the EduByDesign Blog to explore the podcast topics, further.
And please let Phil know what resonates with you, in the comments.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_05 (00:00):
We've been refining the system for decades, but what
if it's time to redesign it?
Not from scratch, but from whatwe know works.
You're listening to Education byDesign.
I'm your host, Phil Evans.
(00:43):
Welcome back to the 10th episodeand part two of challenge-based
learning, where we explore howcommunities and organizations
can co-create the future ofhigh-stakes learning.
Today, I'm thrilled to be joinedby Jenny Gillett, an architect
behind the IB's groundbreakingsystems transformation pilot.
For well over two years, Jennyhas partnered with the United
(01:04):
World College communities fromAtlantic College in Wales to
Vancouver in Canada.
The United Work Collegesmovement began in 1962 when
German educator Kurt Hahn openedAtlantic College in South Wales.
Hahn didn't just set out merelyto prepare students for
university.
He believed schools should be aforce to unite people, nations
(01:25):
and cultures for peace andsustainable futures by helping
young people to developresilience through real-world
challenges.
He famously argued thatembracing both successes and
failures through experientiallearning builds the character
and agency tomorrow as leadersneed.
Today, Jenny Gillett's SystemsTransformation Pilot carries
(01:46):
forward that legacy, weavingsystems thinking and
challenge-based assessments intodeeply collaborative learning
experiences.
To start with, I think it'simportant to understand why this
is so different from atraditional educational model.
SPEAKER_00 (02:06):
I think what's really interesting about the
Systems Transformation Pilot isthat It's transdisciplinary and
it's assessed through more sortof authentic assessment tasks
that are non-exam based.
And transdisciplinary andnon-exam based are two quite
radical things for the IBdiploma in a kind of high stakes
assessment.
We have little bits of thosethings.
(02:28):
So we have transdisciplinarityin our theory of knowledge
course, or we have, for example,art subjects that are non-exam
based.
But I think challenging two ofthose pretty fundamental tenets
of our usual diploma,disciplinarity and exam-based
assessment, it's super excitingto be able to put forward a
(02:48):
course that really asksquestions about both of those
things.
SPEAKER_05 (02:54):
So what is it that students are actually going to
be learning about?
SPEAKER_00 (02:57):
So the systems transformation pilot The reason
it's called systemstransformation is because it's
half about kind of systemsthinking and design thinking
skills.
So it's very much about themindset and the skills of
systems thinking.
But the reason it's systemstransformation rather than
systems thinking is that wereally wanted that focus on kind
(03:17):
of that action orientation andthat experiential element to the
course.
So it's not just about sort ofpassively thinking.
understanding systems andmapping systems.
It's really about how do youactually bring about change?
How do you identify leveragepoints that are opportunities to
bring about change in a system?
So that's the sort of startingpoint for that course.
SPEAKER_05 (03:39):
And it sounds like it's almost impossible to assess
in that regard because thissounds very big.
So what does the assessmentactually look like?
SPEAKER_00 (03:47):
Yeah, so...
This experience, obviously, ismeant to be the last two years
of school.
It's meant to be the culminationof their kind of high school
experience.
But it's really meant to havethis practical, hands-on focus,
this kind of getting out intothe world, engaging with the
community, not just kind ofsitting in a classroom, studying
about it from a book, butactually being exposed to the
(04:09):
real world.
And so because that's the focusof the course, we really wanted
students the assessment toreally reflect that kind of
teaching and learning.
We didn't want this kind of moreradical pedagogy and then to
have a more traditionalassessment.
We wanted the two to really feedinto each other and to have a
kind of positive relationshipand a positive backwash between
(04:31):
the curriculum and theassessment.
So we figured the course ismeant to be about complex
systemic issues to do with kindof sustainability and social
issues.
So they're these complex thingsthat don't fit into neat little
boxes.
And we really wanted anassessment that reflected that
kind of that thinking andgrappling and exploring a bit
(04:56):
more rather than just giving theanswer.
SPEAKER_05 (04:57):
That's super refreshing.
Jenny, before you tell us whatthe assessment's all about, how
do you decide what systemstransformation topics the
student are going to explore.
SPEAKER_00 (05:08):
So we've actually, because this is such a
complicated project, we'restarting with four pilot
schools.
And each of the four schools isdoing something slightly
different with their curriculummodels.
So they've all got prettysimilar aims.
They're all around systemstransformation.
But then the schools have beengiven the flexibility to put a
particular emphasis on aparticular area or to structure
(05:29):
it in a particular way.
So the first pilot school in theUK, they are really focusing on
what they call these impactareas, these systems.
So food migration biodiversityand energy so you're looking at
the food system as an example ofthe system our second pilot
school in Singapore theirproject lenses are around
(05:52):
intercultural understandingsustainability and peace so
slightly different lenses butactually getting a lot of the
same underlying kind of issuesand the same competencies that
they want the students to kindof express but just coming at it
from slightly different anglesorganizing it in slightly
different ways.
And that's part of what we wantto learn from the pilot is, is
(06:13):
there a more effective way tostructure this?
How do students find itaccessible?
How do teachers find itaccessible to teach?
So all of the curriculum islooking slightly different, but
with these same sort offoundational tenets across all
four schools.
But as I say, because we hadthat kind of a curriculum, you
need to have a different,interesting assessment.
(06:34):
You can't have the same kind ofassessment that we have in some
of our other subjects.
So we decided to design fourassessment tasks, two
project-based tasks, one casestudy-based task, and one
competence portfolio-based task.
So they do these fourassessments.
For the first pilot schoolthey're doing one individual
(06:57):
project one collaborativeproject one case study which is
an unseen day-long bit like akind of hackathon or a kind of
design sprint format where theylook at an unseen case study and
then throughout the course theykeep a competencies portfolio
and they curate a small sectionof that portfolio to submit for
(07:18):
assessment at the end of thecourse
SPEAKER_05 (07:20):
wow so students really have a great sense of
agency about how they're beingassessed
SPEAKER_00 (07:24):
Yeah, and hopefully there is that agency.
And the case study day is areally interesting example, I
think.
So we really wanted to designsomething that had the look and
feel much more like theirteaching and learning activities
that they do in their regularclassrooms and less like a kind
of example.
So the other three tasks thatare all projects and portfolio
(07:45):
based are very open ended andcan take a really long period of
time.
And for some students that canactually be quite stressful.
If you think about things likeworkload, you can have really
conscientious students who willspend a lot of time on
open-ended tasks.
So we wanted to make one of thetasks more sort of contained and
controlled.
So we decided on this sort ofone-day assessment experience,
(08:08):
we called it.
So it's not an exam, it's kindof an assessment day.
But the idea is that they workcollaboratively in the morning,
unpacking this unseen casestudy, doing exercises like
stakeholder mapping.
So it's quite a kind ofstructured, scaffolded morning
of collaborative activities.
And then in the afternoon, theywork individually.
But what's really nice about it,as I say, is it has that look
(08:30):
and feel.
It feels much more like aclassroom.
And that was really intentionalin the design of it.
We wanted to give that time forthem to explore and discuss.
SPEAKER_05 (08:39):
I mean, that must give students who experience
test anxiety such a greaterrange of ways to demonstrate
what they understand and whatthey can do.
SPEAKER_00 (08:47):
Absolutely.
And also, we wanted to give theman opportunity to show what they
can do in different kind offormats.
So the morning is collaborativeactive that are quite structured
the afternoon is individual butalso the three artifacts that
they submit for assessment oneis a visual it's a stakeholder
map one is a oral presentationas a group they summarize their
(09:07):
insights from the morning as agroup and then the last piece is
a written individual piece soit's got the visual the oral and
the written components to theday so hopefully all students
find something it's not all inone format you've got that
diversity of modalities and thatdiversity of formats that
(09:28):
hopefully just help it appeal toa range of students.
SPEAKER_05 (09:40):
So one aspect of this collaborative innovation is
that you're really thinking andgrappling with the type of
curriculum and the type ofcontent and the type of context
for learning.
But on the other end, you'regrappling with team theory and
group theory.
And how do we meaningfully andauthentically assess students in
(10:02):
a collaborative setting?
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
Yeah, I mean, collaborative assessment is a
notoriously kind of thornyissue.
If you look in the assessmentliterature or anyone who's just
managed group work in schools,I'm sure every teacher who's
tried to deliver group work willtell you it can be a source of
contention and fallouts betweenstudents.
And it's, you know, it's got alot of challenges, but it's
(10:25):
also, if we talk aboutauthenticity and we talk about,
you know, preparing students forthe world that they're going to
live in, you know, this kind ofcollaborative activities are the
things that we do all of us allthe time and particularly with
systems you know any systemswork there's a phrase you know
systems work is together workyou don't transform a system on
your own by definition you'reyou know you've got to do
(10:46):
relationship building you've gotto collaborate felt like it
wasn't just making somethingcollaborative to be trendy or
for the sake of it it's becauseit feels like it's really deep
rooted and authentic to thediscipline but obviously the
logistics of it and the kind ofeven the philosophical sort of
rationale for is quitechallenging because you, for
example, if you've got studentsworking in groups, you have a
(11:08):
key question of whether you'regoing to award group marks for
the performance of the group asa whole, or whether you're going
to try to reward individualperformance within the group and
give individual marks.
Most people argue that the thetrue collaboration, then you'll
get a group mark.
But then the problem for that iswhat do you do if one student
(11:28):
isn't pulling their weight?
What do you do if one student'soff ill for that period of time
or two thirds of it and is therefor a third of it?
SPEAKER_05 (11:34):
And then you've got the reality of group dynamics
too.
SPEAKER_00 (11:37):
Yeah, absolutely.
So for example, you could havethe IB saying, these are the
randomly assigned groups.
You could have teachersassigning groups so that they
can avoid particular conflictsbetween personalities in the
class.
You can do kind of per purposelymixed ability groups you can
there's all sorts of differentoptions and each of those has
pros and cons so if I put mykind of assessment hat on I have
(12:00):
to think about things like if Iput students in mixed ability
groups and all of the groups ofmixed ability groups does that
squash all of my marks to themiddle and make setting grade
boundaries really difficult forexample and you don't get a full
spread of marks what we're doingacross the four pilot schools is
experimenting with a fewdifferent types of collaborative
assessment so in this firstcohort we have a kind of
(12:24):
co-authored section of a reportwith a group mark so that's sort
of one end of the spectrum isit's a completely co-authored
product with a completely jointgroup mark for some others we
have pieces where for example inthe oral presentation in the
case study each student isrequired to talk for two minutes
about one stakeholder they'reallowed to prepare it together
(12:46):
but each student has to take onthe accountability and
responsibility of representingone stakeholder holder in the
presentation.
And then in some of the othercomponents, we're exploring
things like peer feedback.
We're exploring things that getat some of the skills without
being a collaborative task.
So for example, a pitch to apanel.
So you pitch your project ideato a panel that consists of a
(13:10):
teacher, a peer student, and anexpert from the community.
And then you have to write apiece about how you've engaged
with their feedback, how you'veincorporated or rejected their
feedback.
So you're getting at some ofthose same skills around
listening, engaging withfeedback.
interacting with people, butit's not a collaborative task.
So across the pilot, we'retrying out some different
(13:31):
formats.
But yeah, quite exciting,really, to help the IB think
through this wider issue of ourstance on collaborative
assessment.
SPEAKER_05 (13:40):
You know, I just can't stop thinking about how
important the relational aspectof this is.
Like you're teaching studentshow to collaborate in contexts
that may not be comfortable tothem.
Yeah.
You know, this is a real worldskill, you know, that sometimes
the work has to be done and wemight not always know how to
(14:01):
approach different, you know,colleagues in our work.
But the trick is to actuallytry, you know, and to do that
through relationship building.
SPEAKER_00 (14:10):
I think it was really interesting.
So I did some video interviewswith some students at the end of
the first cohort.
They were just coming to the endof their time.
It was their last week of schooland I did some interviews with
them last month and and then alot of them actually pulled out
the collaborative element astheir sort of highlight from the
course.
But I think what was reallyclear from the student feedback
(14:31):
was you can't do that kind ofcollaborative assessment in a
more traditional course andwithout the groundwork that's
put in over the two years in theclass and the kind of cohort
building and skills that aredeveloped.
I think if you tried to do thatkind of assessment when the kind
of groundwork hadn't been laidthroughout the first year, I
(14:53):
don't think it would have goneas well as it did so I think
that was a really interestinglearning for me and the feedback
from the students was they alltalked a lot about the the
intentionality and thedeliberateness with which the
teachers had really tried tobuild those relationships the
fact that they'd been oftenworking in small groups on
multiple small projects butconstantly changing the group so
(15:15):
there were 24 students in thatfirst class and they were all
working with each other indifferent various different sort
of varieties of groups so acrossthat first year they sort of all
worked with each other and theygot really used to all sort of
you know who they were going towork with and it wasn't usually
just had your group and that wasit and then suddenly it would
have been difficult to work withsomeone else they were all very
(15:36):
used to kind of interacting andI think but for me I thought
that was a really interestingpoint about that cohort building
and that kind of relationshipbetween the students that
sometimes can get a little bitoverlooked but I think even for
example in the way they endedthe course normally you know you
end the course with peoplegetting ready for an exam and
then you might not see thestudents again.
(15:56):
But because it didn't have thatas an end to the course, the
teachers were really deliberateabout how they really ended that
course and kind of had a sort ofsense-making piece at the end
and thinking about how you wantto go on and be a kind of change
maker in the world beyondschool.
And it built in the time forthat right at the end in those
(16:18):
last few weeks of the coursethat perhaps you wouldn't do in
a course that ended with an exambecause you'd be in sort of
intensive revision kind of modegetting ready for the exam.
And it was just a very differentkind of headspace for the
students and the teachers to bein.
But I thought that was superinteresting for me, the fact
that As I say, the things likethat that weren't necessarily as
intentional or on my mind whenwe were designing the pilot have
(16:39):
come out as just being reallyimportant and really...
important foundations for theother pieces of work that were
more obvious were going to bedifferent to a normal course.
SPEAKER_05 (16:51):
Perhaps this would be a good time for us to listen
to what some of the studentssaid after they came out of that
full day assessment day that youtalked about earlier.
SPEAKER_00 (16:59):
Yeah, I'm very happy to share this feedback from
these two students.
So these two students had justcompleted the case study
assessment day.
And one of the teachers at theschool recorded them reflecting
on their day and reflecting ontheir experience.
So I'm very happy to share thatto give a sense, I think, of the
enthusiasm for this pilot andalso how it reflects some of the
(17:22):
things that we think are reallyimportant, that ability to think
critically and to apply thoseskills to something unfamiliar
and to really kind of grappleand think through and explore a
complicated issue in anassessment environment.
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
Let's
SPEAKER_05 (17:35):
take a
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
listen.
Hey, Jenny.
I've just asked two students whodid the assessment on Tuesday to
tell you what they think of it.
Hi,
SPEAKER_03 (17:44):
I'm Ray.
And I'm Elsa.
And we're both from the grade 11systems transformation class.
And we just had a exhaustingTuesday.
SPEAKER_02 (17:53):
But we really loved it.
It was so different to anythingwe've ever done in like an exam
setting.
And I mean, although it was veryexhausting, it was also like Ray
put it, exhilarating.
Exactly.
Like we're a part of this newbeginning and journey yeah
SPEAKER_03 (18:10):
education and in comparison to other exams it
felt less like i had to take allthe knowledge i already know and
put it on a paper it felt morelike an actual test of my
ability to critically think andfigure stuff out in a very short
period of time yeah because wewere kind of confronted with
this thing that we've never seenin our lives and then suddenly
oh where how do i approach thisand i found myself actually
pulling skills from othersubjects like philosophy like
(18:32):
critical analysis i learned inphilosophy like techniques i
learned in philosophy and justlike throwing that out and It
was...
something, the skills from thatcan be very widely applied.
And it's a more of a really truetest of academic, not really
academic pressure, but real lifepressure that you'll feel when
you're on a deadline and you'rein a room with other people and
you have to work
SPEAKER_02 (18:52):
things out fast.
I think the other thing is likeyou have, it's a bit of a hybrid
of how do you collaborate withothers and how do you understand
group dynamics and takeadvantage of them so that you
can all thrive, but then alsolooking at what can you do
independently in this kind ofsituation.
And so to have that likeopportunity I found it really
incredible that other peoplewill be able to experience that
(19:14):
at one point.
SPEAKER_05 (19:14):
That says it all, doesn't it?
Just how powerful thiseducational experience is that
students value the assessmentexperience just as much as they
did in the classroom.
It also reminds me of anothertestimony that one of the
students said in a video thatfolks can watch in the show
(19:36):
notes.
He was just saying how we justdon't get exposure to the
complexity of these systemsproblems until well and truly
after we've finished oureducation and we're now sort of
it's years later and we'refinally getting ourselves into
industry and we're having toapproach the actual problem in
(19:59):
real time.
And that's the difference.
You're giving high schoolstudents the experience to be
able to approach these complexproblems and to understand and
to even find an interest andmaybe an area where they could
make a contribution really,really early on.
on.
SPEAKER_00 (20:15):
But I just want to pick up on something you said
there that I think is reallyimportant which is that balance
in this course that we're tryingto get between really kind of
that sense of agency and thatsense of urgency but then also
that kind of intellectualhumility and that awareness of
the kind of complexity because Ithink that's the balance with a
(20:35):
course like this.
It's like you really want tohave students feeling inspired
that they can make change butyou also don't want them kind of
you know running blindly off andstarting projects without an
understanding of the potentialimpact on the communities that
they're working with.
Or, you know, you have to justbe really careful there.
(20:55):
So, for example, with the firstgroup, their projects, they were
allowed to do near school, inthe school, but they were also
allowed to do them in anycontext of their choice.
But it had to be a context thatthey had a meaningful existing
relationship with.
It had to be a context that theyhad like a kind of genuine
relationship of anaccountability with.
(21:16):
So it wasn't just like, I'mgoing to pick a random country
and go and do this project, thatsort of voluntourism type
approach at all.
And I think it's been reallyimportant to us all the way
through this pilot work, really.
It's trying to expose studentsto the idea that things are more
complicated than they mightseem.
There's people's differentperspectives and perspectives
even within particular groups.
(21:37):
You can't sort of assume that agroup will have a single
perspective, but yet at the sametime, not to overwhelm them with
that difficulty and kind ofparalyze them with that
complexity and difficulty, butsay, actually, you can still act
and you can still do things, butyou just need to have that
awareness and thatopen-mindedness and that
humility to realize that you'renot necessarily going to solve
(21:59):
something.
You might help something, or youmight help with a part of it,
but not another part of it.
But I think I asked the studentsthat question I asked them has
it been has the course been sortof depressing and all about kind
of all the problems in the worldor has it been sort of inspiring
and they every single one ofthem that I spoke to said no
it's been super inspiring tofeel like you can make a
(22:20):
difference and even that smallthings can make a difference
this sense of kind ofempowerment and this sense that
even doing a small thing can inthe end have a really big
difference.
SPEAKER_05 (22:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
(23:10):
aren't really programs.
In fact, they're just individualdiscrete courses that don't have
a connection.
Even if students take multiplecourses within that same
paradigm, they're not reallydesigned to make connections.
And for me, this is whateducation by design is all
about.
It's actually theintentionality.
We should be looking for systemsthat help students to make
(23:32):
connections because that is howwe solve problems, by
understanding how things arerelated.
SPEAKER_00 (23:38):
Yeah, I think for me, what really impressed me
about that video was not justthe enthusiasm and the fact that
it's kind of novelty it's a bitdifferent to what they do before
but the students were really soaware and so kind of clear on
what they enjoyed about thisassessment and the fact that
they were able to take thingsfrom other subjects and apply
(23:59):
them the fact that they coulddraw on these things rather than
just kind of having to kind ofdump everything that was in
their brains onto a piece ofpaper that they really genuinely
felt like they were being askedto think or the fact that they
appreciated the fact that it wasthe collaborative and the
individual parts to the day.
And I just, what was reallylovely having obviously worked
on the design of that task is tosee the things that you hope for
(24:22):
and the things that you try tobuild into a design actually
coming through into practice andthe students picking up on them.
And the other thing that didn'treally come through on the
video, but I thought was areally interesting piece of
feedback that was wedeliberately designed that task
to be completed in the firstyear of the two years of that
programme.
The idea is that it willscaffold them towards then
(24:44):
designing their own projects.
So the idea is that they've kindof applied this thinking to a
case study and looked at anintervention that someone else
has tried to do in a system andevaluated it.
But then the next step is beforethey go off and do their own
projects.
And that links to that pointabout that kind of intellectual
humility of understanding whatsomeone else has tried to do and
(25:05):
what barriers they encounteredand what the strengths and
weaknesses of that approach werebefore they go off and start
doing their own projects.
And then the other reason we putit in year one of the programme
was really to try to address thekind of issues of wellbeing and
workload, to kind of spread outthe workload a little bit.
So for those two students,what's really nice is by Easter
(25:26):
of year one, they've wrapped upa piece of their work that's
worth 15% of their overallgrades, just for, yeah,
spreading out that workloadrather than sort of everything
coming at the end of the twoyears to have that piece out the
way six months into the program.
SPEAKER_05 (25:42):
You know, it's just so interesting that we're
talking about assessment forlearning and so many education
programs or systems, curriculumssay that, you know, it's
assessment for learning, buteverything's sort of at the end
of the course.
But, you know, we're talkingabout students that are applying
their learning and what they'vegained from their assessment to
their future learning.
And, you know, that kind ofspiraling on and that building
(26:05):
and of, you know, it's lifelonglearning in action.
And I think that's just soimportant, that intellectual
humility to kind of say, I'mstill learning, I'm still
grappling, especially in a worldthat's just so paralysed.
I mean, this just gives me hopethat, you know, that there's an
education model, even if itcan't be replicated in lots of
(26:26):
different spaces, that it givesus sort of something to show
that education and schoolingcould be different.
SPEAKER_00 (26:32):
Absolutely.
And I think this pilot's, youknow, very on vicious but there
are principles that apply in allsorts of different ways and all
sorts of different places youknow we talked about
collaborative assessment that'ssomething that the IB has in
some of our art subjects butit's something that we could
explore more generally a lot ofthese things the things that we
do small amounts of but it's inthis course it's kind of ramped
(26:55):
up to you know dialed up to 11you know it's like so it's not
that we don't do these thingsit's not that the IB hasn't
always thought you know thiskind of thinking is it's really
important but it's how do youincorporate it within a high
stakes assessment system anduniversity admission so I think
the thing that really excites meabout this project is also the
(27:16):
thing that makes it quitechallenging we're taking things
that often might fit a littlebit more comfortably for example
in a co-curricular program so inour creativity activity and
community service in ourcommunity engagement pieces and
you're taking those things andyou're making them the center of
their experience and the centerof the academic course and
they're And underpinning themwith really thorough research
(27:38):
skills.
And
SPEAKER_05 (27:39):
communication skills.
SPEAKER_00 (27:41):
And communication skills.
So you're taking these thingsthat can sometimes be pushed to
the edge and really making themthe central focus.
And that's what's reallyexciting for this.
But also, as I say, what makesit challenging is it would be
super easy to design, you know,this kind of an experience
without an assessment and notwithin the diploma and not
within a high stakes environmentjust as a classroom experience.
(28:03):
But I think what's reallypowerful about this is you're
transforming from the inside andactually making it part of the
program, part of thequalification, part of the
diploma.
And that's the thing that makesit hard, but also for me, the
thing that makes it a reallyworthwhile thing to be trying to
do.
SPEAKER_05 (28:25):
Tell us a little bit more about the relationship that
the International Baccalaureatehas with the United World
Colleges Group.
SPEAKER_00 (28:32):
The UWC movement and the IB are kind of interlocking
histories and kind of cousins.
So UWC Atlantic was one of thevery first IB schools.
In 1968, when we did the pilotexams with nine schools, they
were one of the original nine.
And they both have...
kind of philosophical alignmentand kind of missions that are so
(28:54):
aligned in terms of making theworld a better, more peaceful
place.
And so right from the verybeginning, UWC Atlantic was one
of, as I say, our pioneeroriginal schools that helped
develop the IB and the IBdiploma in the 1960s.
So I think there's a really nicekind of symmetry there that they
now are involved so heavily inthis next vision and this next
(29:18):
iteration of the diploma programfor 2020.
in the year 2030.
But I think what's interestingis that this pilot is trying to
take some of that originalphilosophical context that's so
strong within the UWC movementand the IB and then combine it
with some really contemporaryinfluences.
So if you go back to thebeginning, the founder of the
(29:39):
UWC movement, Kurt Hahn, hewrote about the decline of the
modern youth and everythingbeing quite passive and people
not feeling that agency and notgetting out of their comfort
zone.
And he found for example theOutward Bound movement which was
all about kind of get out ofyour own head and walk up a
mountain and push yourself outof your comfort zone or his
(30:01):
original school in Salem thestudents were the volunteer fire
service for the village you knowit's this really remarkable
focus on kind of service and oncommunity and it's also really
important at the IB if you goback to the origins of the IB
you know it was set up in the1960s as a way to try to avoid
World War 3 you know forPhilosophically, that was the
(30:23):
point to develop internationalmindedness and intercultural
understanding, but also toprovide that kind of broad,
balanced, conceptual educationthat people felt was missing in
some places.
They felt that education wasbecoming narrower at that 16 to
18 phase.
And actually, what reallymatters at that age is that
learning to learn and thinkinglike a historian and thinking
(30:46):
like a scientist and having thatbreadth.
So I think this kind of pilot...
is very, very aligned with thosekind of founding ideas and
founding principles of the IB,but is then trying to really
combine that with reallycontemporary influences in
education.
If you take books like HospicingModernity by Vanessa Andriotti,
(31:07):
or you take the work ofinstitutes like the Villars
Institute in Switzerland who dosystems thinking.
So it's trying to take thoseclassic IB and UWC influences
and merge them and combine themwith some really consistent
contemporary directions ineducation.
And I think that's one of thethings that makes this pilot
really special.
SPEAKER_05 (31:27):
And I think it goes without saying, and our
listeners will certainly agree,that that kind of mission and
vision for education is what weneed when we're thinking about
how we want to transformeducation, especially now in
terms of bringing peace andcommunity and respect to And on
that note, and before we finishup, Jenny, when we think about
(31:50):
the respect for the professionand for the teachers, this is a
really big ask for teachers whoteach within a discipline in the
high school and are not soaccustomed to teaching in a
transdisciplinary context.
SPEAKER_00 (32:02):
Absolutely.
So the course is going to bedemanding for schools to
implement, but we are trying tobe really conscious of that in
the design.
But I think for the teachers,what's really interesting is
that it's going to bechallenging, for example,
because it's transdisciplinary.
So for most teachers at that 16to 18 age group, they're used to
operating within theirdisciplines.
(32:24):
They're used to operating withintheir sort of isolated subject.
They're a maths teacher andthey've studied maths at
university.
They're a biology teacher andthey've studied biology at
university.
And I think what's interestingwith this course is because of
the transdisciplinary nature, Itjust doesn't fit in a box like
that.
SPEAKER_05 (32:42):
And I imagine it really has turned up the
reliance on collaboration andteamwork for the faculty too.
SPEAKER_00 (32:48):
Absolutely.
It's really stressed theimportance of collaboration
between teachers, not justbetween students.
So across the four pilotschools, we again have slightly
different models.
We have some of the schools areco-teaching it.
So you have, for example, maybean anthropology teacher and a
biology teacher co-teaching thecourse together in the
classroom.
(33:09):
We have another model where it'sa single teacher, but they've
had a kind of advisory group ora kind of steering committee of
other teachers who are advisingAnd helping with the curriculum
development side.
So they're kind of drawing onthat and they're bringing those
teachers in as a kind of expertfor a small workshop session or
a kind of ask the expert sessionwhen it's that particular topic.
(33:32):
It's particularly kind ofrelevant.
SPEAKER_05 (33:35):
Jenny, I think what you're illustrating for us here
is something that we haven'tactually really been able to
kind of quite articulateproperly in the podcast so far.
And it's an important aspectabout what it really looks like.
looks like for an educationsystem like the International
Baccalaureate, a global systemthat does all this research and
collaboration and collaborativeinnovation to design curriculum,
(33:59):
to find out what the curriculumshould be and how to assess that
and how to really authenticallyjoin those things together
through learning and teaching.
But the role of the teachers andwhat it takes to what the
expectations that are placedthen on teachers to be part of
that collaborative design andthat co-design to bring that
home for the students in arelevant and Yeah, and that's
(34:20):
actually
SPEAKER_00 (34:20):
one of the reasons why this pilot is aiming to go
mainstream in 2030.
And one of the reasons it'squite a lengthy pilot is because
we really recognize the need tobuild good support materials,
exemplar materials, teachertraining opportunities, and to
build that capacity.
(34:42):
This is not the kind of thingthat you can just roll out, you
know, kind of instantly.
But just to go back to yourpoint about collaboration,
collaboration between teachers.
I think that has been reallykey.
And what we've noticed as wellthrough the pilot so far is that
there are just things that arejust different to a regular
course.
So I mentioned that theassessment model doesn't have
exams, but that means that youdon't have exams to use for
(35:04):
trial exams, or you don't haveexams to use for unit tests or,
you know, past papers to use forthat.
So the teachers are having todesign slightly different kinds
of classroom assessmentscompared to normal.
Um, So there's just, you know,and how you do your anticipated
grades for university might beslightly different.
And so it has this kind of knockon.
(35:25):
As soon as you start doingsomething differently, it is in
itself a system.
So you have these ripplesthrough the system and lots of
things that are a little bitdifferent that require us to
think a little bit differently.
It requires teachers to operatea little bit differently to
normal.
I think for me, it's also on apersonal level.
I really enjoy working for theIB and it's an opportunity to
(35:48):
bring about change that very fewpeople have that privilege to be
able to work on, you know?
And it's like, I feel like in myjob, if I can make an experience
a bit better for students or abit better for teachers, you
can, you know, you can have thatimpact on hundreds of thousands
of people.
And that's an amazing, it's anamazing privilege and an amazing
(36:08):
position to be in.
It's also a huge amount ofpressure sometimes, but it's an
amazing position to be and tothink something that you're
working on and something thatyou can really take the views of
teachers and represent them andtry and translate that into an
actual action and a change thatthey will be helpful to teachers
and schools and students allaround the world.
And that's got to be hugelymotivating, hasn't
SPEAKER_05 (36:32):
it?
You've been listening to theEducation by Design podcast.
I've been your host, Phil Evans.
If you liked this episode,please hit subscribe or follow
and join us for our nextepisode.
And until next time, staycurious.
We've been refining the system for decades, but what
if it's time to redesign it?
Not from scratch, but from whatwe know works.
You're listening to Education byDesign.
I'm your host, Phil Evans.
(00:43):
Welcome back to the 10th episodeand part two of challenge-based
learning, where we explore howcommunities and organizations
can co-create the future ofhigh-stakes learning.
Today, I'm thrilled to be joinedby Jenny Gillett, an architect
behind the IB's groundbreakingsystems transformation pilot.
For well over two years, Jennyhas partnered with the United
(01:04):
World College communities fromAtlantic College in Wales to
Vancouver in Canada.
The United Work Collegesmovement began in 1962 when
German educator Kurt Hahn openedAtlantic College in South Wales.
Hahn didn't just set out merelyto prepare students for
university.
He believed schools should be aforce to unite people, nations
(01:25):
and cultures for peace andsustainable futures by helping
young people to developresilience through real-world
challenges.
He famously argued thatembracing both successes and
failures through experientiallearning builds the character
and agency tomorrow as leadersneed.
Today, Jenny Gillett's SystemsTransformation Pilot carries
(01:46):
forward that legacy, weavingsystems thinking and
challenge-based assessments intodeeply collaborative learning
experiences.
To start with, I think it'simportant to understand why this
is so different from atraditional educational model.
SPEAKER_00 (02:06):
I think what's really interesting about the
Systems Transformation Pilot isthat It's transdisciplinary and
it's assessed through more sortof authentic assessment tasks
that are non-exam based.
And transdisciplinary andnon-exam based are two quite
radical things for the IBdiploma in a kind of high stakes
assessment.
We have little bits of thosethings.
(02:28):
So we have transdisciplinarityin our theory of knowledge
course, or we have, for example,art subjects that are non-exam
based.
But I think challenging two ofthose pretty fundamental tenets
of our usual diploma,disciplinarity and exam-based
assessment, it's super excitingto be able to put forward a
(02:48):
course that really asksquestions about both of those
things.
SPEAKER_05 (02:54):
So what is it that students are actually going to
be learning about?
SPEAKER_00 (02:57):
So the systems transformation pilot The reason
it's called systemstransformation is because it's
half about kind of systemsthinking and design thinking
skills.
So it's very much about themindset and the skills of
systems thinking.
But the reason it's systemstransformation rather than
systems thinking is that wereally wanted that focus on kind
(03:17):
of that action orientation andthat experiential element to the
course.
So it's not just about sort ofpassively thinking.
understanding systems andmapping systems.
It's really about how do youactually bring about change?
How do you identify leveragepoints that are opportunities to
bring about change in a system?
So that's the sort of startingpoint for that course.
SPEAKER_05 (03:39):
And it sounds like it's almost impossible to assess
in that regard because thissounds very big.
So what does the assessmentactually look like?
SPEAKER_00 (03:47):
Yeah, so...
This experience, obviously, ismeant to be the last two years
of school.
It's meant to be the culminationof their kind of high school
experience.
But it's really meant to havethis practical, hands-on focus,
this kind of getting out intothe world, engaging with the
community, not just kind ofsitting in a classroom, studying
about it from a book, butactually being exposed to the
(04:09):
real world.
And so because that's the focusof the course, we really wanted
students the assessment toreally reflect that kind of
teaching and learning.
We didn't want this kind of moreradical pedagogy and then to
have a more traditionalassessment.
We wanted the two to really feedinto each other and to have a
kind of positive relationshipand a positive backwash between
(04:31):
the curriculum and theassessment.
So we figured the course ismeant to be about complex
systemic issues to do with kindof sustainability and social
issues.
So they're these complex thingsthat don't fit into neat little
boxes.
And we really wanted anassessment that reflected that
kind of that thinking andgrappling and exploring a bit
(04:56):
more rather than just giving theanswer.
SPEAKER_05 (04:57):
That's super refreshing.
Jenny, before you tell us whatthe assessment's all about, how
do you decide what systemstransformation topics the
student are going to explore.
SPEAKER_00 (05:08):
So we've actually, because this is such a
complicated project, we'restarting with four pilot
schools.
And each of the four schools isdoing something slightly
different with their curriculummodels.
So they've all got prettysimilar aims.
They're all around systemstransformation.
But then the schools have beengiven the flexibility to put a
particular emphasis on aparticular area or to structure
(05:29):
it in a particular way.
So the first pilot school in theUK, they are really focusing on
what they call these impactareas, these systems.
So food migration biodiversityand energy so you're looking at
the food system as an example ofthe system our second pilot
school in Singapore theirproject lenses are around
(05:52):
intercultural understandingsustainability and peace so
slightly different lenses butactually getting a lot of the
same underlying kind of issuesand the same competencies that
they want the students to kindof express but just coming at it
from slightly different anglesorganizing it in slightly
different ways.
And that's part of what we wantto learn from the pilot is, is
(06:13):
there a more effective way tostructure this?
How do students find itaccessible?
How do teachers find itaccessible to teach?
So all of the curriculum islooking slightly different, but
with these same sort offoundational tenets across all
four schools.
But as I say, because we hadthat kind of a curriculum, you
need to have a different,interesting assessment.
(06:34):
You can't have the same kind ofassessment that we have in some
of our other subjects.
So we decided to design fourassessment tasks, two
project-based tasks, one casestudy-based task, and one
competence portfolio-based task.
So they do these fourassessments.
For the first pilot schoolthey're doing one individual
(06:57):
project one collaborativeproject one case study which is
an unseen day-long bit like akind of hackathon or a kind of
design sprint format where theylook at an unseen case study and
then throughout the course theykeep a competencies portfolio
and they curate a small sectionof that portfolio to submit for
(07:18):
assessment at the end of thecourse
SPEAKER_05 (07:20):
wow so students really have a great sense of
agency about how they're beingassessed
SPEAKER_00 (07:24):
Yeah, and hopefully there is that agency.
And the case study day is areally interesting example, I
think.
So we really wanted to designsomething that had the look and
feel much more like theirteaching and learning activities
that they do in their regularclassrooms and less like a kind
of example.
So the other three tasks thatare all projects and portfolio
(07:45):
based are very open ended andcan take a really long period of
time.
And for some students that canactually be quite stressful.
If you think about things likeworkload, you can have really
conscientious students who willspend a lot of time on
open-ended tasks.
So we wanted to make one of thetasks more sort of contained and
controlled.
So we decided on this sort ofone-day assessment experience,
(08:08):
we called it.
So it's not an exam, it's kindof an assessment day.
But the idea is that they workcollaboratively in the morning,
unpacking this unseen casestudy, doing exercises like
stakeholder mapping.
So it's quite a kind ofstructured, scaffolded morning
of collaborative activities.
And then in the afternoon, theywork individually.
But what's really nice about it,as I say, is it has that look
(08:30):
and feel.
It feels much more like aclassroom.
And that was really intentionalin the design of it.
We wanted to give that time forthem to explore and discuss.
SPEAKER_05 (08:39):
I mean, that must give students who experience
test anxiety such a greaterrange of ways to demonstrate
what they understand and whatthey can do.
SPEAKER_00 (08:47):
Absolutely.
And also, we wanted to give theman opportunity to show what they
can do in different kind offormats.
So the morning is collaborativeactive that are quite structured
the afternoon is individual butalso the three artifacts that
they submit for assessment oneis a visual it's a stakeholder
map one is a oral presentationas a group they summarize their
(09:07):
insights from the morning as agroup and then the last piece is
a written individual piece soit's got the visual the oral and
the written components to theday so hopefully all students
find something it's not all inone format you've got that
diversity of modalities and thatdiversity of formats that
(09:28):
hopefully just help it appeal toa range of students.
SPEAKER_05 (09:40):
So one aspect of this collaborative innovation is
that you're really thinking andgrappling with the type of
curriculum and the type ofcontent and the type of context
for learning.
But on the other end, you'regrappling with team theory and
group theory.
And how do we meaningfully andauthentically assess students in
(10:02):
a collaborative setting?
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
Yeah, I mean, collaborative assessment is a
notoriously kind of thornyissue.
If you look in the assessmentliterature or anyone who's just
managed group work in schools,I'm sure every teacher who's
tried to deliver group work willtell you it can be a source of
contention and fallouts betweenstudents.
And it's, you know, it's got alot of challenges, but it's
(10:25):
also, if we talk aboutauthenticity and we talk about,
you know, preparing students forthe world that they're going to
live in, you know, this kind ofcollaborative activities are the
things that we do all of us allthe time and particularly with
systems you know any systemswork there's a phrase you know
systems work is together workyou don't transform a system on
your own by definition you'reyou know you've got to do
(10:46):
relationship building you've gotto collaborate felt like it
wasn't just making somethingcollaborative to be trendy or
for the sake of it it's becauseit feels like it's really deep
rooted and authentic to thediscipline but obviously the
logistics of it and the kind ofeven the philosophical sort of
rationale for is quitechallenging because you, for
example, if you've got studentsworking in groups, you have a
(11:08):
key question of whether you'regoing to award group marks for
the performance of the group asa whole, or whether you're going
to try to reward individualperformance within the group and
give individual marks.
Most people argue that the thetrue collaboration, then you'll
get a group mark.
But then the problem for that iswhat do you do if one student
(11:28):
isn't pulling their weight?
What do you do if one student'soff ill for that period of time
or two thirds of it and is therefor a third of it?
SPEAKER_05 (11:34):
And then you've got the reality of group dynamics
too.
SPEAKER_00 (11:37):
Yeah, absolutely.
So for example, you could havethe IB saying, these are the
randomly assigned groups.
You could have teachersassigning groups so that they
can avoid particular conflictsbetween personalities in the
class.
You can do kind of per purposelymixed ability groups you can
there's all sorts of differentoptions and each of those has
pros and cons so if I put mykind of assessment hat on I have
(12:00):
to think about things like if Iput students in mixed ability
groups and all of the groups ofmixed ability groups does that
squash all of my marks to themiddle and make setting grade
boundaries really difficult forexample and you don't get a full
spread of marks what we're doingacross the four pilot schools is
experimenting with a fewdifferent types of collaborative
assessment so in this firstcohort we have a kind of
(12:24):
co-authored section of a reportwith a group mark so that's sort
of one end of the spectrum isit's a completely co-authored
product with a completely jointgroup mark for some others we
have pieces where for example inthe oral presentation in the
case study each student isrequired to talk for two minutes
about one stakeholder they'reallowed to prepare it together
(12:46):
but each student has to take onthe accountability and
responsibility of representingone stakeholder holder in the
presentation.
And then in some of the othercomponents, we're exploring
things like peer feedback.
We're exploring things that getat some of the skills without
being a collaborative task.
So for example, a pitch to apanel.
So you pitch your project ideato a panel that consists of a
(13:10):
teacher, a peer student, and anexpert from the community.
And then you have to write apiece about how you've engaged
with their feedback, how you'veincorporated or rejected their
feedback.
So you're getting at some ofthose same skills around
listening, engaging withfeedback.
interacting with people, butit's not a collaborative task.
So across the pilot, we'retrying out some different
(13:31):
formats.
But yeah, quite exciting,really, to help the IB think
through this wider issue of ourstance on collaborative
assessment.
SPEAKER_05 (13:40):
You know, I just can't stop thinking about how
important the relational aspectof this is.
Like you're teaching studentshow to collaborate in contexts
that may not be comfortable tothem.
Yeah.
You know, this is a real worldskill, you know, that sometimes
the work has to be done and wemight not always know how to
(14:01):
approach different, you know,colleagues in our work.
But the trick is to actuallytry, you know, and to do that
through relationship building.
SPEAKER_00 (14:10):
I think it was really interesting.
So I did some video interviewswith some students at the end of
the first cohort.
They were just coming to the endof their time.
It was their last week of schooland I did some interviews with
them last month and and then alot of them actually pulled out
the collaborative element astheir sort of highlight from the
course.
But I think what was reallyclear from the student feedback
(14:31):
was you can't do that kind ofcollaborative assessment in a
more traditional course andwithout the groundwork that's
put in over the two years in theclass and the kind of cohort
building and skills that aredeveloped.
I think if you tried to do thatkind of assessment when the kind
of groundwork hadn't been laidthroughout the first year, I
(14:53):
don't think it would have goneas well as it did so I think
that was a really interestinglearning for me and the feedback
from the students was they alltalked a lot about the the
intentionality and thedeliberateness with which the
teachers had really tried tobuild those relationships the
fact that they'd been oftenworking in small groups on
multiple small projects butconstantly changing the group so
(15:15):
there were 24 students in thatfirst class and they were all
working with each other indifferent various different sort
of varieties of groups so acrossthat first year they sort of all
worked with each other and theygot really used to all sort of
you know who they were going towork with and it wasn't usually
just had your group and that wasit and then suddenly it would
have been difficult to work withsomeone else they were all very
(15:36):
used to kind of interacting andI think but for me I thought
that was a really interestingpoint about that cohort building
and that kind of relationshipbetween the students that
sometimes can get a little bitoverlooked but I think even for
example in the way they endedthe course normally you know you
end the course with peoplegetting ready for an exam and
then you might not see thestudents again.
(15:56):
But because it didn't have thatas an end to the course, the
teachers were really deliberateabout how they really ended that
course and kind of had a sort ofsense-making piece at the end
and thinking about how you wantto go on and be a kind of change
maker in the world beyondschool.
And it built in the time forthat right at the end in those
(16:18):
last few weeks of the coursethat perhaps you wouldn't do in
a course that ended with an exambecause you'd be in sort of
intensive revision kind of modegetting ready for the exam.
And it was just a very differentkind of headspace for the
students and the teachers to bein.
But I thought that was superinteresting for me, the fact
that As I say, the things likethat that weren't necessarily as
intentional or on my mind whenwe were designing the pilot have
(16:39):
come out as just being reallyimportant and really...
important foundations for theother pieces of work that were
more obvious were going to bedifferent to a normal course.
SPEAKER_05 (16:51):
Perhaps this would be a good time for us to listen
to what some of the studentssaid after they came out of that
full day assessment day that youtalked about earlier.
SPEAKER_00 (16:59):
Yeah, I'm very happy to share this feedback from
these two students.
So these two students had justcompleted the case study
assessment day.
And one of the teachers at theschool recorded them reflecting
on their day and reflecting ontheir experience.
So I'm very happy to share thatto give a sense, I think, of the
enthusiasm for this pilot andalso how it reflects some of the
(17:22):
things that we think are reallyimportant, that ability to think
critically and to apply thoseskills to something unfamiliar
and to really kind of grappleand think through and explore a
complicated issue in anassessment environment.
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
Let's
SPEAKER_05 (17:35):
take a
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
listen.
Hey, Jenny.
I've just asked two students whodid the assessment on Tuesday to
tell you what they think of it.
Hi,
SPEAKER_03 (17:44):
I'm Ray.
And I'm Elsa.
And we're both from the grade 11systems transformation class.
And we just had a exhaustingTuesday.
SPEAKER_02 (17:53):
But we really loved it.
It was so different to anythingwe've ever done in like an exam
setting.
And I mean, although it was veryexhausting, it was also like Ray
put it, exhilarating.
Exactly.
Like we're a part of this newbeginning and journey yeah
SPEAKER_03 (18:10):
education and in comparison to other exams it
felt less like i had to take allthe knowledge i already know and
put it on a paper it felt morelike an actual test of my
ability to critically think andfigure stuff out in a very short
period of time yeah because wewere kind of confronted with
this thing that we've never seenin our lives and then suddenly
oh where how do i approach thisand i found myself actually
pulling skills from othersubjects like philosophy like
(18:32):
critical analysis i learned inphilosophy like techniques i
learned in philosophy and justlike throwing that out and It
was...
something, the skills from thatcan be very widely applied.
And it's a more of a really truetest of academic, not really
academic pressure, but real lifepressure that you'll feel when
you're on a deadline and you'rein a room with other people and
you have to work
SPEAKER_02 (18:52):
things out fast.
I think the other thing is likeyou have, it's a bit of a hybrid
of how do you collaborate withothers and how do you understand
group dynamics and takeadvantage of them so that you
can all thrive, but then alsolooking at what can you do
independently in this kind ofsituation.
And so to have that likeopportunity I found it really
incredible that other peoplewill be able to experience that
(19:14):
at one point.
SPEAKER_05 (19:14):
That says it all, doesn't it?
Just how powerful thiseducational experience is that
students value the assessmentexperience just as much as they
did in the classroom.
It also reminds me of anothertestimony that one of the
students said in a video thatfolks can watch in the show
(19:36):
notes.
He was just saying how we justdon't get exposure to the
complexity of these systemsproblems until well and truly
after we've finished oureducation and we're now sort of
it's years later and we'refinally getting ourselves into
industry and we're having toapproach the actual problem in
(19:59):
real time.
And that's the difference.
You're giving high schoolstudents the experience to be
able to approach these complexproblems and to understand and
to even find an interest andmaybe an area where they could
make a contribution really,really early on.
on.
SPEAKER_00 (20:15):
But I just want to pick up on something you said
there that I think is reallyimportant which is that balance
in this course that we're tryingto get between really kind of
that sense of agency and thatsense of urgency but then also
that kind of intellectualhumility and that awareness of
the kind of complexity because Ithink that's the balance with a
(20:35):
course like this.
It's like you really want tohave students feeling inspired
that they can make change butyou also don't want them kind of
you know running blindly off andstarting projects without an
understanding of the potentialimpact on the communities that
they're working with.
Or, you know, you have to justbe really careful there.
(20:55):
So, for example, with the firstgroup, their projects, they were
allowed to do near school, inthe school, but they were also
allowed to do them in anycontext of their choice.
But it had to be a context thatthey had a meaningful existing
relationship with.
It had to be a context that theyhad like a kind of genuine
relationship of anaccountability with.
(21:16):
So it wasn't just like, I'mgoing to pick a random country
and go and do this project, thatsort of voluntourism type
approach at all.
And I think it's been reallyimportant to us all the way
through this pilot work, really.
It's trying to expose studentsto the idea that things are more
complicated than they mightseem.
There's people's differentperspectives and perspectives
even within particular groups.
(21:37):
You can't sort of assume that agroup will have a single
perspective, but yet at the sametime, not to overwhelm them with
that difficulty and kind ofparalyze them with that
complexity and difficulty, butsay, actually, you can still act
and you can still do things, butyou just need to have that
awareness and thatopen-mindedness and that
humility to realize that you'renot necessarily going to solve
(21:59):
something.
You might help something, or youmight help with a part of it,
but not another part of it.
But I think I asked the studentsthat question I asked them has
it been has the course been sortof depressing and all about kind
of all the problems in the worldor has it been sort of inspiring
and they every single one ofthem that I spoke to said no
it's been super inspiring tofeel like you can make a
(22:20):
difference and even that smallthings can make a difference
this sense of kind ofempowerment and this sense that
even doing a small thing can inthe end have a really big
difference.
SPEAKER_05 (22:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
(23:10):
aren't really programs.
In fact, they're just individualdiscrete courses that don't have
a connection.
Even if students take multiplecourses within that same
paradigm, they're not reallydesigned to make connections.
And for me, this is whateducation by design is all
about.
It's actually theintentionality.
We should be looking for systemsthat help students to make
(23:32):
connections because that is howwe solve problems, by
understanding how things arerelated.
SPEAKER_00 (23:38):
Yeah, I think for me, what really impressed me
about that video was not justthe enthusiasm and the fact that
it's kind of novelty it's a bitdifferent to what they do before
but the students were really soaware and so kind of clear on
what they enjoyed about thisassessment and the fact that
they were able to take thingsfrom other subjects and apply
(23:59):
them the fact that they coulddraw on these things rather than
just kind of having to kind ofdump everything that was in
their brains onto a piece ofpaper that they really genuinely
felt like they were being askedto think or the fact that they
appreciated the fact that it wasthe collaborative and the
individual parts to the day.
And I just, what was reallylovely having obviously worked
on the design of that task is tosee the things that you hope for
(24:22):
and the things that you try tobuild into a design actually
coming through into practice andthe students picking up on them.
And the other thing that didn'treally come through on the
video, but I thought was areally interesting piece of
feedback that was wedeliberately designed that task
to be completed in the firstyear of the two years of that
programme.
The idea is that it willscaffold them towards then
(24:44):
designing their own projects.
So the idea is that they've kindof applied this thinking to a
case study and looked at anintervention that someone else
has tried to do in a system andevaluated it.
But then the next step is beforethey go off and do their own
projects.
And that links to that pointabout that kind of intellectual
humility of understanding whatsomeone else has tried to do and
(25:05):
what barriers they encounteredand what the strengths and
weaknesses of that approach werebefore they go off and start
doing their own projects.
And then the other reason we putit in year one of the programme
was really to try to address thekind of issues of wellbeing and
workload, to kind of spread outthe workload a little bit.
So for those two students,what's really nice is by Easter
(25:26):
of year one, they've wrapped upa piece of their work that's
worth 15% of their overallgrades, just for, yeah,
spreading out that workloadrather than sort of everything
coming at the end of the twoyears to have that piece out the
way six months into the program.
SPEAKER_05 (25:42):
You know, it's just so interesting that we're
talking about assessment forlearning and so many education
programs or systems, curriculumssay that, you know, it's
assessment for learning, buteverything's sort of at the end
of the course.
But, you know, we're talkingabout students that are applying
their learning and what they'vegained from their assessment to
their future learning.
And, you know, that kind ofspiraling on and that building
(26:05):
and of, you know, it's lifelonglearning in action.
And I think that's just soimportant, that intellectual
humility to kind of say, I'mstill learning, I'm still
grappling, especially in a worldthat's just so paralysed.
I mean, this just gives me hopethat, you know, that there's an
education model, even if itcan't be replicated in lots of
(26:26):
different spaces, that it givesus sort of something to show
that education and schoolingcould be different.
SPEAKER_00 (26:32):
Absolutely.
And I think this pilot's, youknow, very on vicious but there
are principles that apply in allsorts of different ways and all
sorts of different places youknow we talked about
collaborative assessment that'ssomething that the IB has in
some of our art subjects butit's something that we could
explore more generally a lot ofthese things the things that we
do small amounts of but it's inthis course it's kind of ramped
(26:55):
up to you know dialed up to 11you know it's like so it's not
that we don't do these thingsit's not that the IB hasn't
always thought you know thiskind of thinking is it's really
important but it's how do youincorporate it within a high
stakes assessment system anduniversity admission so I think
the thing that really excites meabout this project is also the
(27:16):
thing that makes it quitechallenging we're taking things
that often might fit a littlebit more comfortably for example
in a co-curricular program so inour creativity activity and
community service in ourcommunity engagement pieces and
you're taking those things andyou're making them the center of
their experience and the centerof the academic course and
they're And underpinning themwith really thorough research
(27:38):
skills.
And
SPEAKER_05 (27:39):
communication skills.
SPEAKER_00 (27:41):
And communication skills.
So you're taking these thingsthat can sometimes be pushed to
the edge and really making themthe central focus.
And that's what's reallyexciting for this.
But also, as I say, what makesit challenging is it would be
super easy to design, you know,this kind of an experience
without an assessment and notwithin the diploma and not
within a high stakes environmentjust as a classroom experience.
(28:03):
But I think what's reallypowerful about this is you're
transforming from the inside andactually making it part of the
program, part of thequalification, part of the
diploma.
And that's the thing that makesit hard, but also for me, the
thing that makes it a reallyworthwhile thing to be trying to
do.
SPEAKER_05 (28:25):
Tell us a little bit more about the relationship that
the International Baccalaureatehas with the United World
Colleges Group.
SPEAKER_00 (28:32):
The UWC movement and the IB are kind of interlocking
histories and kind of cousins.
So UWC Atlantic was one of thevery first IB schools.
In 1968, when we did the pilotexams with nine schools, they
were one of the original nine.
And they both have...
kind of philosophical alignmentand kind of missions that are so
(28:54):
aligned in terms of making theworld a better, more peaceful
place.
And so right from the verybeginning, UWC Atlantic was one
of, as I say, our pioneeroriginal schools that helped
develop the IB and the IBdiploma in the 1960s.
So I think there's a really nicekind of symmetry there that they
now are involved so heavily inthis next vision and this next
(29:18):
iteration of the diploma programfor 2020.
in the year 2030.
But I think what's interestingis that this pilot is trying to
take some of that originalphilosophical context that's so
strong within the UWC movementand the IB and then combine it
with some really contemporaryinfluences.
So if you go back to thebeginning, the founder of the
(29:39):
UWC movement, Kurt Hahn, hewrote about the decline of the
modern youth and everythingbeing quite passive and people
not feeling that agency and notgetting out of their comfort
zone.
And he found for example theOutward Bound movement which was
all about kind of get out ofyour own head and walk up a
mountain and push yourself outof your comfort zone or his
(30:01):
original school in Salem thestudents were the volunteer fire
service for the village you knowit's this really remarkable
focus on kind of service and oncommunity and it's also really
important at the IB if you goback to the origins of the IB
you know it was set up in the1960s as a way to try to avoid
World War 3 you know forPhilosophically, that was the
(30:23):
point to develop internationalmindedness and intercultural
understanding, but also toprovide that kind of broad,
balanced, conceptual educationthat people felt was missing in
some places.
They felt that education wasbecoming narrower at that 16 to
18 phase.
And actually, what reallymatters at that age is that
learning to learn and thinkinglike a historian and thinking
(30:46):
like a scientist and having thatbreadth.
So I think this kind of pilot...
is very, very aligned with thosekind of founding ideas and
founding principles of the IB,but is then trying to really
combine that with reallycontemporary influences in
education.
If you take books like HospicingModernity by Vanessa Andriotti,
(31:07):
or you take the work ofinstitutes like the Villars
Institute in Switzerland who dosystems thinking.
So it's trying to take thoseclassic IB and UWC influences
and merge them and combine themwith some really consistent
contemporary directions ineducation.
And I think that's one of thethings that makes this pilot
really special.
SPEAKER_05 (31:27):
And I think it goes without saying, and our
listeners will certainly agree,that that kind of mission and
vision for education is what weneed when we're thinking about
how we want to transformeducation, especially now in
terms of bringing peace andcommunity and respect to And on
that note, and before we finishup, Jenny, when we think about
(31:50):
the respect for the professionand for the teachers, this is a
really big ask for teachers whoteach within a discipline in the
high school and are not soaccustomed to teaching in a
transdisciplinary context.
SPEAKER_00 (32:02):
Absolutely.
So the course is going to bedemanding for schools to
implement, but we are trying tobe really conscious of that in
the design.
But I think for the teachers,what's really interesting is
that it's going to bechallenging, for example,
because it's transdisciplinary.
So for most teachers at that 16to 18 age group, they're used to
operating within theirdisciplines.
(32:24):
They're used to operating withintheir sort of isolated subject.
They're a maths teacher andthey've studied maths at
university.
They're a biology teacher andthey've studied biology at
university.
And I think what's interestingwith this course is because of
the transdisciplinary nature, Itjust doesn't fit in a box like
that.
SPEAKER_05 (32:42):
And I imagine it really has turned up the
reliance on collaboration andteamwork for the faculty too.
SPEAKER_00 (32:48):
Absolutely.
It's really stressed theimportance of collaboration
between teachers, not justbetween students.
So across the four pilotschools, we again have slightly
different models.
We have some of the schools areco-teaching it.
So you have, for example, maybean anthropology teacher and a
biology teacher co-teaching thecourse together in the
classroom.
(33:09):
We have another model where it'sa single teacher, but they've
had a kind of advisory group ora kind of steering committee of
other teachers who are advisingAnd helping with the curriculum
development side.
So they're kind of drawing onthat and they're bringing those
teachers in as a kind of expertfor a small workshop session or
a kind of ask the expert sessionwhen it's that particular topic.
(33:32):
It's particularly kind ofrelevant.
SPEAKER_05 (33:35):
Jenny, I think what you're illustrating for us here
is something that we haven'tactually really been able to
kind of quite articulateproperly in the podcast so far.
And it's an important aspectabout what it really looks like.
looks like for an educationsystem like the International
Baccalaureate, a global systemthat does all this research and
collaboration and collaborativeinnovation to design curriculum,
(33:59):
to find out what the curriculumshould be and how to assess that
and how to really authenticallyjoin those things together
through learning and teaching.
But the role of the teachers andwhat it takes to what the
expectations that are placedthen on teachers to be part of
that collaborative design andthat co-design to bring that
home for the students in arelevant and Yeah, and that's
(34:20):
actually
SPEAKER_00 (34:20):
one of the reasons why this pilot is aiming to go
mainstream in 2030.
And one of the reasons it'squite a lengthy pilot is because
we really recognize the need tobuild good support materials,
exemplar materials, teachertraining opportunities, and to
build that capacity.
(34:42):
This is not the kind of thingthat you can just roll out, you
know, kind of instantly.
But just to go back to yourpoint about collaboration,
collaboration between teachers.
I think that has been reallykey.
And what we've noticed as wellthrough the pilot so far is that
there are just things that arejust different to a regular
course.
So I mentioned that theassessment model doesn't have
exams, but that means that youdon't have exams to use for
(35:04):
trial exams, or you don't haveexams to use for unit tests or,
you know, past papers to use forthat.
So the teachers are having todesign slightly different kinds
of classroom assessmentscompared to normal.
Um, So there's just, you know,and how you do your anticipated
grades for university might beslightly different.
And so it has this kind of knockon.
(35:25):
As soon as you start doingsomething differently, it is in
itself a system.
So you have these ripplesthrough the system and lots of
things that are a little bitdifferent that require us to
think a little bit differently.
It requires teachers to operatea little bit differently to
normal.
I think for me, it's also on apersonal level.
I really enjoy working for theIB and it's an opportunity to
(35:48):
bring about change that very fewpeople have that privilege to be
able to work on, you know?
And it's like, I feel like in myjob, if I can make an experience
a bit better for students or abit better for teachers, you
can, you know, you can have thatimpact on hundreds of thousands
of people.
And that's an amazing, it's anamazing privilege and an amazing
(36:08):
position to be in.
It's also a huge amount ofpressure sometimes, but it's an
amazing position to be and tothink something that you're
working on and something thatyou can really take the views of
teachers and represent them andtry and translate that into an
actual action and a change thatthey will be helpful to teachers
and schools and students allaround the world.
And that's got to be hugelymotivating, hasn't
SPEAKER_05 (36:32):
it?
You've been listening to theEducation by Design podcast.
I've been your host, Phil Evans.
If you liked this episode,please hit subscribe or follow
and join us for our nextepisode.
And until next time, staycurious.
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