International TeacherEnd-of-Semester Report

Fall Semester, 2021-2022

1. Personal Details:

Name: Laveena Kukanesan Department: PYP Department

Year / Month Hired: 08/2016

2. Accomplishments of Job Duties:

This semester has been challenging as I have had to juggle having a new role, a new

curriculum, new students, a fairly new team and completing a three month course in a time

with new systems and unforeseen circumstances pop up. As a PYP homeroom teacher, I feel I

have been able to meet most expectations. I have been working to end classes on time and ca

n do better there, I conduct UOI lessons using the inquiry model, assess and address the needs

of my learners, communicate with parents as necessary, train my students to get into the habit

of maintaining an orderly class, have done well myself making learning visible by displaying

the week’s learning materials in class, have taken the initiative to enroll in and pay for a

professional development course and would like to do better by learning to put more of what

I learn to practice. I have done what it takes to complete work as best as I can, staying long
past the end of the day if needed. After our many class meetings and one-on-one talks, my

students are mostly settling down and behaving better at least during my lessons. Seeing one

of my most volatile students calm down, feel safe in her environment and hearing from her

mother that she now enjoys school has been one of my biggest rewards this semester.

Behaviour management is still an area that needs improvement, starting with consistent

practices between my partner teacher and myself.

As a Grade Level Leader, I am learning to settle into a new routine of getting things done –

sending out meeting agendas, newsletter templates, setting a block aside to prepare for

meetings, running them, checking and completing lesson plans that reflect a standards-based

curriculum and addresses the PYP essential elements, relaying information and completing

additional tasks assigned as we given them. We have set up some weekly and unitly rosters to

ease operations. We are attempting to follow a timeline that goes from collaborative lesson

planning meetings on Tuesdays to preparing lesson materials on Thursdays and need to

improve on this.

I have always come into collaborative meetings prepared with ideas. Although I feel I have

significantly increased my standard of input as a team leader this semester by proposing

models for planning units, proposing unitly case studies, sharing resources I had downloaded
and sharing ideas for lessons, having a strong team challenge ideas and come in with their

own ideas has meant that decisions were still not made as quickly or easily but also that our

final outcome was generally a lot stronger. The process has been messy but far from stagnant.

We are a team that actively innovates and creates, reflects and revamps. This being the first

year of our new curriculum, I feel we have done a decent job laying a strong foundation and

system for next academic year, with plenty more room for improvement from the reflections

we have already had.

Having said that, I aim to work a lot harder on improving collaborative meetings and our

team efficiency. Given the time, I would like to end this semester with all essential elements

and standards thoughtfully mapped out across all 3 units for next semester and unpack all

standards using the Know, Understand and Do method. Having the heavy lifting done ahead

will give us the time we need to flesh out the details of each lesson, reflect on previous

lessons and meet the needs of my team in our weekly meetings. While I have valued going

with the better ideas that come our way, I see now the need to set a cut-off point for new ideas

that involve drastic change to our team plans and will save them instead for future reflections.

I will also work on expressing myself more clearly and on my organizational skills.

In attempting to allow for more collaborative decision-making, I feel I have subconsciously

been experimenting with these boundaries. There were times when I had left too much to my

team’s choice when perhaps they wanted some decisions made for them or went out of my
way to accommodate one person’s ideas but changed team plans and times where I had micro

managed my team which had upset them. I am learning from experience just how much

stewardship is expected of me and hope to do better next semester. I had created a list of each

member’s strengths. Next, I need to identify their needs and would like to be able to help

them meet them.

3. Problems, Reflections and Improvements Regarding This Semester's SMART Goals:

My goal as a teacher this semester was to strengthen and solidify my teaching pedagogy and

find out more about Thinking Tools so I can introduce them to my students, linking them to

conceptual thinking and using this language in the classroom. To get there, Ilouwna and I had

gathered a team and signed up for a three month course by Harvard Project Zero on Making

Thinking Visible. The course has introduced me to the Understanding Map which entails

specific thinking skills for understanding. Learning about them has given me a clearer

understanding myself of what I need to teach and look out for in my students. I have since

displayed this in my class and refer to them as we use each skill in our lessons so frequently

that my learners are beginning to make the connections themselves now without me showing

them. Seeing my children develop their metacognition this way has been hugely rewarding as

it has always been a difficult sub-skill to hone in my learners. I have also used the language

frequently in my student reports this semester.

with each tool, how to use them, how not to use them and sometimes explaining the

pedagogical science behind it. I introduced some of the new routines to my students and

learned to use ones I’ve used before properly. The results were almost instantaneous. Within a

week, I saw my learners drastically improve their reasoning skill when I introduced the What

Makes You Say That Routine and the other skills that each routine highlighted. Ryan’s

proposal to get learners to design their conceptual Lines of Inquiry had improved my

students’ conceptual thinking. In unit 3, I had also designed conceptual graphic organizers for

two of the three main concepts this unit and given them routinely each week with different

case studies. I saw and shared evidence of deep perspective thinking through the Step Inside

organizer and a good understanding of the impact of different explorations through the

Causation Links organizer. The next week, I received work with more children showing

deeper thinking.

In my goal, I had also meant to engage my students’ minds and emotions with strong

provocations when planning and delivering lessons. I have not paid much attention to this

part of my goal as I was more focused on the previous goal. This goal was also easily

achieved in most lessons as my team mates were excellent at this and I learned from them.
While not mentioned as a SMART goal for this semester, I did mention in my interview that

as a Grade Level Leader, my main goal was to create a strong curriculum for Grade 4 this

year. I think we have done well by creating a system that ensures ours is a standards-based

curriculum, with enough spotlight on the targeted concepts and skills. Next, I would like to

incorporate opportunities for addressing learner questions into the system.

4. SMART Goals for Next Semester Referring to IB Standards and Practices:

Standard 5: Application of Content

Within the next six months, I would like to continue to strengthen my ability to make

conceptual thinking easy and visible. I had already attended the Harvard Project Zero course

on Making Thinking Visible and plan to review my contents, review all lesson plans for next

semester, be clear on the specific concepts and thinking skills for each lesson and plan to

make them visible by introducing an average of one thinking routine or opportunity for

making student thinking visible each lesson. To ease this process, I will see if there is a bank

of these routines mapped to the PYP Key Concepts and the Thinking ATL, create one if there

isn’t, and use that to help me select a thinking routine and/or a matching conceptual graphic

organizer for lessons each unit.

As a Grade Level Leader, I want to be more organized by finishing this semester with solid

unit plans and overviews for next semester and using the student-free weeks to research and
contribute stronger proposals to drive the curriculum forward.

5. Short, Mid-Term, and Long Term Career Goals:

Short term: See above.

Mid-term: Within the next year I would like to finish my last academic year here strong,

leaving a strong curriculum and system behind for my colleagues to pick up on. I would

also want to have excelled in my IELTS test and be enrolled in a Masters in Education

program. I have already purchased some IELTS study materials for me to get started.

Long term: Five years from now, I would like to have completed my Masters in Education

conducted in-person with an IBO-affiliated program, preferably in Australia. I would then

like to contribute to and grow with a reputable IB PYP school anywhere around the world.

6. Comments and Suggestions:

I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to the leadership team for

leading by example and providing us with opportunities for Professional Development.

Following are some old and/or new recommendations I have for our PYP department and the
school:

 As the Grade Level Leader position is a new one in school and all GLLs are new to

the role, I would very much appreciate support or training for us.

 Hire a professional curriculum advisor or coordinator who understands our needs

delivering and ESL program in a PYP school in China, even if for an ad-hoc project,

who is able to not only propose a solid plan for us but maybe even provide us with

recommended/specially curated resources.

 I understand that we have current challenges to making transdisciplinary learning

happen, and that we are taking steps towards addressing this by making it compulsory

for homeroom teachers to co-teach some Math lessons next semester onwards. I hope

there is also a plan in place for specialists to attend collaborative meetings too.

 I appreciated having Yikang observe my demo class and give Amy and I professional,

constructive feedback on our lesson. I would appreciate having this from leadership

more often.

 I had proposed last year that each student be given a planner with templates for them

to note down their daily homework and their weekly goals and reflections. We could

also insert pages on the calendar, learner profile attributes, approaches to learning, key

concepts, transdisciplinary themes, motivational quotes from role models and study

tips to make the PYP and growth mindset languages more accessible. I am more than

happy to collaborate with our school designer during the student-free weeks if our
 school is willing to make this happen and connect us.

 I had also proposed an Action Wall to put the spotlight on students we have already

seen taking action and motivate others to do the same. Jordan had proposed we use

the walls outside the Art Room. I am happy to work on this with perhaps a partner in

the student-free week if given the green light.

Sincerely,

Laveena Kukanesan

20/12/2021