Key Concept Questions

Student's benefit:
Students become the possibility to reflect and articulate their opinion. Doing so, they develop a deeper understanding, which helps them to see connections and to find solutions.

Teaching enrichment:
Different concepts help students to observe, identify, describe and categorize a specific topic. Students learn to analyze functions, roles and behavior in different diciplines. Additionally, they promote students to scrutinize and preview consequences and chances because everything is an element of a system. Students become aware of ethical aspects while learning to consider the impact of actions on others whether immediate of far-reaching affecting environments and communities. Last but not least, they learn to reject simplistic and biased interpretations and examine their methods and conclusions.

Teaching and learning methods:
Questioning makes students aware of functions, consequences, changes and ethical aspects

This concept was selected because the ability to observe, identify, describe and categorize is fundamental to human learning within and across all disciplines.

This concept was selected because the ability to analyze function, role, behavior and the way in which things work is fundamental to learning within and across all disciplines.

This concept was selected because of the importance of promoting students to ask "why" and of helping them to recognize that actions and events have reasons and consequences. The analysis of causal relationships is significant within and across all disciplines.

This concept was selected, not only because it is such a universal feature of all existence, but also because it has particular relevance to students developing international- mindedness who are growing up in a world in which the pace of change, both local and global, is accelerating.

This concept was selected because of the importance of appreciating that nothing exists in a vacuum but, rather, as an element in a system; that the relationships within and among systems are often complex, and that changes in one aspect of a system will have consequences, even though these may not be immediately apparent; that we must consider the impact of our actions on others, whether at the immediate, personal level or at the level of far- reaching decisions affecting environments and communities.

This concept was selected because of the compelling need to develop in students the disposition towards rejecting simplistic, biased interpretations, towards seeking and considering the points of views of others, and towards developing defensible interpretations.

This concept was selected because of the need to develop in students the disposition towards identifying and assuming responsibility, and towards taking socially responsible action. This concept is directly linked to the action component, one of the essential elements in the PYP curriculum

This concept was selected for a series of interrelated reasons. It challenges the students to examine their evidence, methods and conclusions. In doing so, it extends their thinking into the higher order of metacognition, begins to acquaint them with what it means to know in different disciplines, and encourages them to be rigorous in examining evidence for potential bias or other inaccuracy.