Teachers start here
Welcome to the InThinking MYP Physics site!
In this section you will find out how the site is structured, how to use it in your own classrooms and how your students can use it, too.
What's on this site?
This site is designed for teachers and students. Its mission is to integrate the rich pedagogical toolkit of the MYP planning process with authentic student activities, assessments and assessment materials. Along the way, it also aims to give some tips and ideas on how to develop your practice as an MYP Physics and MYP Sciences teacher.
There is extensive 'help' for the site on the top-right hand side of each page:
Here is a general overview to help you get started.
How is the site organised?
The sitemap in the 'home' menu provides an at-a-glance view of the site.
Notice that the pages are colour-coded according to whether, by default, they are teacher-facing only or student-facing.
With the 'student access' tools you can
- change which pages are visible to students
- set up teaching groups
- set reading or activities for groups or individuals, with deadlines
- return marks or comments to students
The top-level menu allows you to jump between the different categories of materials:
About the course is the place to go for general information, hints and ideas for teaching MYP Physics
Teaching is where you will find planning materials, from subject group overviews down to unit planners. This material is intended for teachers only.
Learning is where you will find activities for students. This material can be used by students, and it can be assigned to them using the student access tools. The activities include both formative checks for understanding, and full summative assessments. Tasks are titled beginning with the target assessment criterion, and organised according to the unit of inquiry they belong to, so they are easily accessible.
Assessment includes
- Information on the approach to MYP assessment (as assessment for learning, and assessment as learning) used on this site
- 'ATTL' pages - these are the marking notes and task-adapted assessment rubrics for the activities found in the 'learning' section. These can all be accessed directly from the teacher-boxes at the bottom of each activity in Learning.
- 'marked student tasks' where you can find student scripts as assessment exemplars
- ' e-assessment' curates tasks that are designed to help prepare students for the MYP e-assessment in Physics.
Using the site with your students
The student e-course tab provides access to the interactive student learning pages for the course. Activities (formative and summative) are embedded in the pages, including additional quizzes and tests.
Note that all of these pages are interlinked horizontally - so you can navigate from the SGO: MYP 4-5 Physics to the unit planners ⟶ the unit planner to activities ⟶ the unit planner to the relevant e-course pages ⟶ the activities to the student assessment exemplars ⟶and back again!
The following video explainers are also on the Students start here page:
Student access tools
You can use the student access tools to create classes, allocate pages or learning activities, and record grades in the built-in gradebook! The student access tools are accessible to paid subscribers from the pop-out menu on the right hand side of the screen.
A note on intellectual property:
With the exception of credited pedagogical information from the IBO - which we consider ‘fair use’ in our mission to help IB MYP teachers - all the materials on here are written by the author. Generative AI has only been used on occasion for generic images, to assist with coding simulations or to produce realia (mocked-up versions of real life materials.) As such, everything here is the author's copyright ©
The site can be used ‘live’ in the classroom using the presentation mode feature:
However there are also plenty of downloadables, as .pdf, .docx, .xlsx, .odx formats. As an InThinking MYP Physics subscriber you are warmly welcome to use the downloadables in your classroom and laboratory, but please respect the copyright information in the footer. If you wish to modify the materials, you are also welcome to do so - but please make it clear where you have done so - better still, why not send me a message to show me what you did? And of course, never share the intellectual property of others (without permission) in public forums online or on social media. We hold ourselves to the standards of academic integrity that we seek to promote in our students.
Thank you and have fun!
Check for understanding
Take a look at the 'template' pages here to help you understand how the materials in each of the sections above are set out.