Indonesian IB Schools Association’s inaugural Leaders Bali Symposium.

Really happy with the Indonesian IB Schools’ inaugural Bali Leadership Symposium hosted at Bali Island School over the weekend. Thanks to the leaders who gave their time assisting us to set up this association and organize this event.

Thanks also to the Indonesian office of The University of Melbourne who sponsored our event and arranged Dr Nicky Dalfer, Senior Lecturer at the Graduate School of Education to visit as our keynote speaker and her search on IB Schools in an international environment.

Nicky Dulfer is a Senior Lecturer at the Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne who has over a decade’s experience undertaking research within the field of education. Her research areas of expertise include issues of inequality and pedagogy within Secondary education and the International Baccalaureate. Her past research projects include both quantitative and qualitative studies which connect to three key themes. The first theme, post-compulsory educational provision has included research investigating high stakes assessment, post-compulsory educational provision, school-based apprenticeships and careers education.

The second theme of equity has involved research in low and high socio-economic classrooms looking at retention and engagement strategies, funding models and equity practices.

The final strand of Nicky’s research focuses on pedagogy and has comprised examining pedagogical practices, teacher efficacy, differentiation, engagement and retention in a range of secondary schools. Nicky’s latest research project was funded through the International Baccalaureate’s prestigious Jeff Thompson award and enabled her to research differentiation practices in International Baccalaureate schools in Hong Kong and Australia

Differentiating in an International Landscape – This keynote will explore the relationship between high-stakes educational environments and differentiation.  Nicky will examine the some of the models used to cater for diverse student populations and then drawing on her recent research of differentiated instruction in IB schools in Hong Kong and Australia, she will explore two key questions;

• How do teachers employ differentiation in their approaches to teaching in International Baccalaureate environments?
• What factors inhibit or enable differentiation in their classrooms?

The breakout session was – Diving into Classroom Observations as Professional Development – In this session participants explored how they might use a differentiation classroom observation tool, that is based around a developmental taxonomy, as a way of capturing what takes place in classrooms and enabling every teacher to reflect on their practice. The session was designed to provide an observation strategy that can support differentiated instruction at the school and classroom level.

We also had some great sessions from leaders within Indonesian IB Schools; Michele McLay  from Bali Island School gave a session titled, “Concept-based curriculum and Instruction”, Nicolene du Preez from Independent School, Bogor gave a session titled  “Teacher PD – Trending hot and sexy” and finally, Chair of the Indonesian IB Schools Association, Dr Manish Semwal gave a final session on “Mapping of IB Evaluation and BAN Accreditation : Requirements for SPK Schools in Indonesia”.