ManageBac Unit Planners – Scaffolding Teacher Planning across the IB Continuum

At ManageBac, we know IB Unit Planners need to be many things. They need to be future-focused but have space to reflect on the past. They need to be responsive, adaptable and capture the voices and interests of students. They must be inquiry-based, concept-driven, technology integrated and incorporate multiple forms of assessment. Unit Planners also need to connect across disciplines, with the ATLs and the Learner Profile, as well as reflect your own school’s unique context. Finally, but importantly, the Unit Planners must align with Programme-specific requirements and the IB Standards and Practices.

In updating our Unit Planners for the new Standards and Practices, we began by identifying the similarities between programmes and where they differed. For example, we knew teachers would benefit from guidance at each stage of the planning process, but how might that look different in PYP compared to MYP, DP and CP? For PYP teachers, we have integrated the IB guidance that appears on the sample planner template, as well as the Principles into Practice guidance for each section. For MYP, we include the Building Quality Curriculum requirements and content specific to Interdisciplinary Unit Planning.

DP and CP teachers benefit from a broad template that incorporates all three sample planners from the IB, which can be easily edited by your IB Diploma Coordinator to create a streamlined template that is tailored to your school. For more information on how to do this, watch the video below.

One commonality across all programmes is the need to align and evidence the Standards and Practices. New to all IB schools, the updated Evaluation process has some different Planning requirements for schools. For example, for the first time, DP Unit Plans must be submitted and ATL development must be explicitly evidenced, generating an increased need for horizontal and vertical collaboration in the DP planning process. To support teachers of all Programmes with this transition, we have signposted the areas of the Planner that relate to which Standards and Practices, enabling teachers to become increasingly familiar with IB expectations and how they relate to everyday teaching and learning. Read more about the new Standards and Practices here.

In addition to our built-in guidance, we also provide a host of integrated support for teacher planning, including:

• Dynamic Subject Pages of resources curated by IB teachers
• Comprehensive guides for all Core Programme requirements written by IB teachers
• A growing Global ResourceBank of importable exemplar and teacher-shared units
• Tools for teacher collaboration, notes and reflection during the planning process as outlined in this video: