IB Middle Years Programme
“Tell me, and I forget
Teach me, and I may remember
Involve me, and I learn”
Benjamin Franklin
The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP) at the Berlin Brandenburg International School, which spans Grades 6 through 10, is a framework for teaching and learning that benefits all students. The MYP framework addresses a wide range of learning styles, involves all students in their own unique learning processes, and gives them a standard, internationally accepted foundation of knowledge. The MYP is a comprehensive programme of academic challenge and life skills appropriate to this age group.
The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme is designed for students aged 11 to 16. This period, encompassing early puberty and mid-adolescence, is a particularly critical phase of personal and intellectual development and requires a programme that helps students participate actively and responsibly in a changing and increasingly interrelated world. Learning how to learn and how to evaluate information critically is as important as learning facts.
The MYP insists on a thorough study of various disciplines, while emphasizing the importance of their interrelatedness. This is known as a holistic view of learning. This perspective asks the student to consider issues and problems in their widest scope and to realize that good solutions often come from knowledge and understanding drawn from many sources.
In short, students learn to think critically in order to solve authentic problems. This is why we focus on helping students recognize relationships between school subjects – and to combine relevant knowledge from different subjects and the world outside.
In December 2011, the Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK) recognized the MYP Certificate as equivalent to a German "Mittlerer Schulabschluss".
The Fundamental Concepts of the MYP
Intercultural Awareness
At BBIS, we believe in the importance of education as a way of fostering understanding among young people from around the world by encouraging them to consider issues from multiple perspectives. We aim to develop student’s attitudes, knowledge, and skills as they learn about their own and others’ social, national and ethnic cultures. In this way, intercultural awareness can build understanding and respect.
Holistic Learning
While the MYP insists on a thorough study of eight subject groups, it also highlights the interrelatedness of the subjects and so encourages students to develop a holistic view of learning. Students become aware of these links through carefully planned units of work between subjects; thus, they learn to recognize relationships between school subjects and real-world issues so that students will learn to see knowledge as an interrelated whole.
Communication
The MYP stresses the fundamental importance of communication, verbal and non-verbal, in realizing the aims of the programme. A good command of expression in all its forms is fundamental to learning. In most MYP subject groups, communication is both an objective and an assessment criterion, as it supports understanding and allows student reflection and expression.
The MYP Curriculum Model and the Areas of Interaction
What does the curriculum contain?
The curriculum contains eight subject groups together with a core made up of five areas of interaction.
This is illustrated by means of an octagon with the five areas of interaction and the IB Learner Profile at its centre.
Students study subjects from each of the eight subject groups through the five areas of interaction: approaches to learning, community and service, human ingenuity, environments, and health and social education.
What are the five Areas of Interaction?
The areas of interaction are, put simply, the contexts through which the curriculum content interacts with the real world. The five areas of interaction are:
Approaches to learning (ATL): Through ATL teachers provide students with the tools to enable them to take responsibility for their own learning, thereby developing an awareness of how they learn best, of thought processes and of learning strategies.
Community and service: This component requires students to take an active part in the communities in which they live, thereby encouraging responsible citizenship.
Human ingenuity: Students explore in multiple ways the processes and products of human creativity, thus learning to appreciate and develop in themselves the human capacity to influence, transform, enjoy and improve the quality of life.
Environments: This area aims to develop students’ awareness of their interdependence with the environment so that they understand and accept their responsibilities.
Health and social education: This area deals with physical, social and emotional health and intelligence – key aspects of development leading to complete and healthy lives.
The areas of interaction provide the MYP with its unique core. Teaching subject areas through these contexts allows teaching and learning to focus on attitudes, values and skills.
In the final year of the programme students are engaged in the Personal Project. Through this project which is considered to be the culmination of their MYP studies, students realise an idea of their own. Working on the Personal Project they demonstrate the Approaches to Learning skills learned through the programme while focusing research and project development around one other area of interaction.
