Bridging the Gap Between PYP and MYP With Design

It’s a tough job to allow our final year students of PYP to practically interact with one of the MYP learning frameworks. I find the best way is through Design and the MYP Design Cycle.
After all, problem solving happens in every grade and the four stages of the MYP Design Cycle can be used in any scenario. Here’s one way I have done it.

As an educator with experience in working in both the PYP and MYP there always seems to be a perceived gap between a student’s transition from PYP and MYP. From transdisciplinary units to subject specific units; even the daily schedule looks different. Myself, as a teacher, found this transition to be quite apparent when I moved from PYP Technology Integrator to MYP Design Teacher. I found myself asking the question “Apart from the Learner Profile and the Approaches To Learning what else can we use that bridges the gap between the PYP and MYP?”

In the Grade 5 “How We Organize Ourselves” unit with the Central Idea of “Sustainable Communities Help The Future” students engaged with three main lines of inquiry “Sustainable Communities”, “Sustainable Practices”, and “Organizations That Support Sustainability”. 

With my background in MYP Design, our Grade 5 teachers organized a time when I could introduce the MYP Design Cycle to the students within the context of sustainable design. I also used this time to connect the SDGs with the MYP Design Cycle (which the students had been introduced to already).

I centered my workshop around 14 slides.

• Slides 1-5 were questions that I asked the grade to get their own answers before presenting the definitions I had.
• Slides 6-8 were to introduce the MYP Design Cycle terminology and process.
• Slides 9-14 were used to frame a design prompt (the image was pretty hard to find as I wanted one image with multiple potential problems to solve). The chosen image provoked great discussion and ideas.

For slides 9-14 students were given time to respond to each stage of the MYP Design Cycle. As this was just a one hour workshop, it was a little rushed but hopefully an effective introduction to the main concept of MYP Design for PYP students.

Here’s the slideshow: