The following paper explores Middle Year Programme teachers' beliefs on what constitutes good teaching, meaningful learning, and quality curricula within the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme of an international school environment in the Netherlands. The Middle Years Programme promotes an inquiry-based approach to teaching that focusses on the development of conceptual and procedural understanding, interdisciplinary understanding, as well as a focus on Global Contexts, Approaches to Learning, and Community and Service.

Teachers from a variety of cultural backgrounds join the Middle Years’ Programme, following educational experiences across a range of national and international school systems. Consequently, they bring with them a variety of established beliefs surrounding teaching, learning, and curriculum development, which may or may not mesh well with the objectives of an MYP environment. 

The exploration of beliefs is merited, given Xu’s (2020) claim that “teachers’ beliefs about what learning is will affect everything that they do in the classroom” (p. 1400). They can influence  instructional practice, planning, curricular decisions, and choosing what needs to be taught (Poplawski, 2020) as well as the relational aspects of teaching which includes interactions between teachers and  learners (Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2017).

In addition to sharing their current beliefs, teachers were invited to share the ways in which their beliefs had changed following a move to an international school environment. Their collective  beliefs were taken into account in the construction of in-house professional learning opportunities, which were designed to address the outcomes of the study. 

The study employs a qualitative methodology to gain insight into teachers’ beliefs on education, teaching, learning, and curriculum in the Middle Years Programme. The purpose behind using a qualitative approach was to illicit descriptive accounts of the respondents’ beliefs in order to develop insight into how these beliefs were reflected in their teaching practices and in the philosophy of the MYP. Twenty-five teachers (T1-T25) were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. As Kitzinger (1995) maintains, semi-structured interviews are a valuable means of constructing the viewpoints of individuals during an inquiry of this nature. The respondents were all experienced Middle Years’ teachers, who came from different countries, and who taught a range of disciplines, across multiple year levels within the MYP. To investigate their beliefs, the respondents were invited to respond to the following questions: 1) In your view, what is the purpose of education? 2) What does good teaching look like to you? 3) How would you describe meaningful learning? How would you describe quality curricula? 4) Describe any impact that international school teaching has had on your beliefs?

Teachers articulated a range of pedagogical beliefs that covered many of the core elements of MYP philosophy, although the beliefs varied in their level of sophistication and descriptive detail. Overall, they indicated a belief in holistic education that places a strong emphasis on conceptual and procedural understanding, inquiry, the real world application of learning, constructivist approaches, a relational approach to teaching, and character development. Teachers believed in flexible student-centered approaches that were responsive to student interests and student needs, and they indicated the importance of positive learning environments. They appreciated the freedom to create curricula that was informed by concepts and big ideas, and they indicated an openness for collaboration, and an interest in learning from other teachers and from other cultures. In general, teachers embraced the complexity of an IB international school environment, and they spoke favorably of interconnected curricula that fostered transdisciplinary understanding. An aspect of teaching and learning that did not arise through teachers comments were beliefs regarding the internal state-of-being of the teacher, and there were minimal references to approaches-to-assessment, global contexts, and community and service.

Gilakjani, A. P., and Sabouri, N. B. (2017). Teachers’ Beliefs in English Language Teaching and Learning: A Review of the Literature. English Language Teaching, 10(4), 78 Kitzinger, J. (1995) Qualitative research: Introducing focus groups. British Medical Journal, 311, 299-302. doi10.1136/bmj.311.7000.299. Poplawski, K. and Gerstner, C. (2020) Analysis of how effectively teachers acquire and strengthen beliefs aligned with Responsive Classroom practices: Center for Responsive Schools, Inc: https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/RC_TeacherBeliefs-year2-upload.pdf Xu, L. (2012) The Role of Teachers‘ Beliefs in the Language Teaching-learning Process. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 2 (7).