Exploring MYP Global Contexts for Critical Thinking Day

29 August 2015 marked the Aga Khan Academy, Hyderabad’s second working Saturday, with students and staff of the Academy working together to facilitate Critical Thinking Day. They started off with a session on Critical Thinking by the Senior School Principal, Mr. Raymond Zinsli and the Head of Academy, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher. Their meaningful and thought-provoking talks set the ball rolling for a day filled with questions, answers, creativity, ingenuity, spontaneity and fun learning.

The MYP students then moved to their respective classrooms with class teachers and had a session on Global Contexts for all the MYP grade levels. The speakers who addressed the students ranged from scientists to lawyers, artists and sportsmen, as well as the teachers with their specialized teaching backgrounds on their specific subject areas. The aim of the session was to acquaint the students with the MYP Global Contexts for clearer understanding and importance of contextual learning.

The active part of the day began at 11.30am where all students worked towards exhibiting their understanding of their chosen Global Contexts in the classroom. There was a lot of excitement in the air as students had a chance to present their understanding of the global contexts through a creative medium of their choice. Judges had been appointed to give their valuable feedback to the students and the supervising teachers. The idea behind this was to set up a competitive atmosphere to facilitate collaborative understanding of the various strands of the Global Contexts.

MYP Global Contexts provide common points of entry for inquiries into what it means to be internationally minded, framing a curriculum that promotes multilingualism, intercultural understanding and global engagement. The exhibition following was a celebration of intelligence and creativity as students not only displayed their understanding of various strands of the chosen Global Context, but also enthralled the audience and judges with their role plays, songs, poems, plays, presentations and beautiful creative visual aids.

This wonderful day enabled the students to develop a deeper understanding of the Global Contexts and its application in the real world. We hope that Critical Thinking Day will help the students to place their academic learning into a realistic context and enable more meaningful learning.

By Meenakshi Joshi