Nadia Abdallah - Interdisciplinary Units - Amman

In this episode I’m speaking with Nadia Abdallah. Nadia is a former Head of Department for English, Director of Teaching and Learning and MYP Principal in Jordan. She has also worked as a workshop leader for the IB and is currently Chief Education and Development Officer for Junior Achievement Worldwide, a nonprofit organisation providing hands on learning in financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship skills

I wanted to speak to Nadia about the IB’s MYP and more specifically the Inter Disciplinary Unit that is expected in each year of the course. Nadia recently ran an excellent 2 day training seminar that I attended and was kind enough to share more of her time discussing it for the podcast.

We discuss:

- A quick introduction to her career to date

- Some of the common misconceptions or mistakes teachers make in respect of the IDU and what the most important things to remember as a school attempting to implement it  are

- How and when Nadia sees the assessment criteria of evaluation, synthesis and reflection actually taking place in a unit 

- Examples of the ways in which different subjects can come together to form an IDU

- Advice on the mechanics of actually timetabling IDUs

- What constitutes action or service in an IDU and examples from Nadia’s own practice

- And final advice for Heads of faculty, coordinators and teachers in respective departments embarking on their first forays into an IDU

Thanks again to Nadia for an extensive and firsthand account of considerations that are needed when approaching the Interdisciplinary Unit. Despite the time, resources and collaboration required, it is an undertaking that can massively benefit students and their appreciation of the respective subjects. 

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