New study explores what it means to be an IB teacher

19 March 2013

Researchers at the International Baccalaureate (IB) set out to learn what ingredients go into making an IB teacher an IB teacher -- to better understand the perspectives and attributes of this effective, dedicated corps of educators. Researchers Liz Bergeron and Michael Dean used an online survey, focus groups, and document review to improve current understanding of teaching in IB programmes, compared to commonly held more general beliefs about effective teaching. Their findings, reported in the study, “The IB teacher professional: identifying, measuring and characterizing pedagogical attributes, perspectives and beliefs” support the assertion that IB teachers approach the whole student with inquiry-based instruction, and with the intention of shaping their students into socially responsible citizens.

“This study supports what we in the IB community have long known: IB teachers are themselves lifelong learners who aim to develop the same keen interest in their students,” says Chief Academic Officer Judith Fabian, International Baccalaureate. “IB teachers approach their students with creativity, flexibility, openness, care and compassion. Their pedagogical approaches and belief systems are at the core of their excellence as teachers.”

The survey sample included 3,184 IB teachers who completed The Teaching Perspective Inventory (TPI) developed by John Collins and Daniel Pratt; a widely used instrument of self-examination that allows for comparison against a population of non-IB teachers. Each respondent received a profile report on both their dominant and recessive perspectives from a total of five TPI perspectives characteristic of teaching practice: transmission, apprenticeship, developmental, nurturing and socialreform. As a unit, the average IB teacher profile has nurturing as its dominant perspective, backed up by apprenticeshipand development. Although this pattern is similar to the general primary and secondary teacher population, IB teachers were found to score higher than 60 percent of their peers on not one, but four perspectives: social reform, developmental,apprenticeship, and transmission, suggesting that IB teachers identify with these four perspectives more than the average teacher.

From 

http://www.ibo.org/announcements/2013/newstudyexploreswhatitmeanstobeanibteacher.cfm