The MYP Areas of Interaction

The Areas of Interaction (commonly referred to as AoI) are topics and skills that every MYP subject uses. They are very important and should be related to everything you do in the subject. Perhaps not all of them at once, but usually two or three per unit of work or project.

[Summarized content taken from the MYP Areas of Interaction Guide]

There are five areas of interaction:

• approaches to learning (ATL)
• community and service
• homo faber
• environment
• health and social education.

These areas provide a means of broadening student experience, placing learning in context and helping students to develop attitudes and values based on knowledge and skills. They form the basis of the MYP and contribute to an education resulting in global awareness, international understanding and an appreciation of cultural diversity. They should be at the core of the teaching of all subject groups and the primary approach to the areas of interaction must be through the curriculum.

The areas of interaction should be used as “lenses” through which to view the curriculum, and to provide a base for teachers upon which they can encourage student reflection on the issues at hand. Teachers should consult the MYP Areas of Interaction guide to become familiar with the aims, objectives and dimensions of each area. This will help them to identify links to relevant topics and issues, and base units of work on these areas.

It is important to note that some of the examples that follow could easily fit into more than one category. The areas of interaction should be seen as overlapping throughout the programme.

Approaches to learning
How do I learn best?
How do I know?
How do I communicate my understanding?

Approaches to learning (ATL) skills are central to the learning experience in the MYP. This area of interaction is concerned with providing opportunities for the development of skills and attitudes to learning. ATL skills should enable students to become competent in identifying, monitoring and managing their own learning.

MYP technology should contribute to the development of thinking skills by providing students with a curriculum that offers challenging opportunities that enable them to question, investigate and evaluate data and information presented to them.

ATL skills and attitudes include:

• learning skills -communication, information processing, organizational skills, higher-thinking strategies
• personal attitudes -responsibility, collaboration, integrity and reflection (metacognition).

In technology, the design cycle is at the core of students' experiences and is the source of ATL skills, attitudes and practices. Specific ATL skills that may be developed through technology include:

• information literacy skills- while researching technology problems and their contexts
• communication skills- when constructing plans and time lines
• organizational skills- when following plans
• problem-solving skills- when devising products/solutions to technological problems
• social and group-work skills- when working safely and effectively, collaborating with others and respecting their views
• reflection skills- when reflecting upon products/solutions, and on the student's own performance, in the evaluation stage of the design cycle.

Community and Service
Defining Features of the Area of Interaction
How do we live in relation to each other?
How can I contribute to the community?
How can I help others?
How can I make a difference?

This Area of Interaction seeks to deepen students’ knowledge and understanding of the world around them, supports the fundamental concept of intercultural awareness, which aims to encourage tolerance and respect, leading to empathy and understanding.

The area of community and service in the MYP aims to develop:
- sensitivity to the needs of the community and society in general
- awareness of the role of the individual within a community
- a willingness and the skills to respond to the needs of others
- an altruistic attitude which enriches the life of the student through enhanced insight into different social patterns and ways of life.

This area of interaction also supports the fundamental concept of intercultural awareness, which aims to encourage tolerance and respect, leading to empathy and understanding. Students engage in interactive situations that will enrich them emotionally, socially, morally and culturally by engaging them in positive action and contact with other social and cultural environments.

Community and service in the MYP involves three central elements:
o awareness
o involvement and service
o reflection.

Community Awareness
Before any useful involvement in the community can take place students must develop an awareness of what a community is, in all its complex forms. Students will develop increasingly sophisticated personal answers to fundamental questions such as:

o What does “community” mean?
o What makes a community?
o How are communities similar?
o How are they different?
o What is my role in the community?
o How can I make a difference?

Community Involvement and Service
Inspires students to respond to the community’s needs in a responsible, altruistic way. Social awareness should therefore develop into social involvement, where the student displays increasing levels of responsibility and initiative.

Reflection
This could include journals, summary documents to describe the activities and reflect on their impact, group discussions, presentations of some projects, etc.

Homo Faber
Defining Features of the Area of Interaction
Why and how do we create?
What are the consequences?

To gain some insight into the concept of homo faber, it is necessary to go back to the origin of the word faber, which is derived from the Latin word facere. Facere encompasses the sense of making, creating and doing. Homo faber is therefore a person who can be an artisan, a maker of objects, an artist, an inventor or a thinker. As an area of interaction, homo faber goes beyond looking solely at individuals, and looks at human contributions both in context and as part of an ongoing process. These contributions result from the human instinct to create, innovate, develop, or transform our lives and our world. Homo faber
therefore is at the heart of inquiry and active learning, and it puts the student in a situation of responsible action in a variety of contexts encountered through the curriculum. This area of interaction culminates in the personal project, where the student chooses an area of inquiry and creation.

Over the five years of the programme, students will:
* identify why we create, develop or change products, examine contributions, developments and changes through time and predict possible future developments and changes
* be involved as innovators, creators and developers
* celebrate human endeavour and achievement, and also evaluate and criticize the impact of the creation on individuals, society and/or the world.

Homo faber is much more than the presentation of a product as an example of human achievement. For students and teachers it involves questioning, explaining, discovering and doing. Students need to investigate the creative process, to engage with the product and reflect on its role and context

Homo faber goes beyond the act of creation alone. It leads students to examine, experience and reflect on the creative process, from the following perspectives:
* Origin
* The individual desire to create, develop or change.

Process: The processes involved in creation, development or change.
Product: That which has been created.
Context: Placing the product in context (background or general meaning).
Impact: The impact or effect of this creation on individuals, society and the world.
Development: Subsequent developments and changes.

Environment
Defining Features of the Area of Interaction
Where do we live?
What resources do we have or need?
What are my responsibilities?

Students are often confronted with complex and controversial global issues. This area of interaction deals with the importance of the local and global environment, the concepts of sustainable development in a context of increasing environmental threats and related problems of a political and socio-economic nature. Students also have to cope with their immediate surroundings and various environments within it, that require attention and involve decision making.

This area aims to help students to see the links between economic, political, cultural and social issues, to develop positive and responsible attitudes, and to gain the motivation, skills and commitment to contribute to their environments. Through this area of interaction students should develop an understanding of, and appreciation for:

o the variety of environments, natural and man-made, their qualities and the nature of our interaction with the environment
o the gravity and scope of many environmental issues
o conservation and the nature and role of local and international organizations responsible for protecting our environment
o man-made environments, interrelationships between people, between people and their environments, and related social issues
o the concepts, principles and issues connected to sustainable development
o political, economic and cultural dimensions of environmental issues
o the ways in which environments are manipulated, transformed, controlled, preserved or destroyed by people.

The entire school community will over time develop awareness through investigation, discussion and debate and should use these activities to develop appropriate attitudes, responsibility, and action. Teachers can help students gain an understanding of these concepts and issues at the personal, local, and global levels by guiding their investigation through the following perspectives:

o awareness
o responsibility
o action
o reflection

Awareness
Developing personal awareness to connect with environmental issues at local and global level will lead to an understanding of the fragile balance and interconnectedness of theirenvironments. Over the five years of the programme students form a broader, deeper and more holistic understanding of their place within the global environment.

o What environments am I a part of?
o How do I affect the environment?
o How am I affected by the environment?

Students can investigate our interdependence with the environment. There are many natural connections to community, and to health and social education for students to explore as they consider the consequences of their personal actions and how their environment affects them.

Responsibility
Issues such as conflicting interests, conservation, urbanization, ecosystems and sustainable development should be investigated so that students are able to turn awareness in to a commitment to finding solutions.

Action
An increased awareness of environmental issues can contribute to a greater sense of student responsibility. Encouraging students to become more active in the promotion of healthy local environments will create a strong base on which to build their involvement where more global issues are concerned. Often this will emerge from a question as simple as, “What difference can I make?” Whereas some actions directly result in tangible physical changes, other actions may be more symbolic and represent a change in the attitudes or commitment of the student.

Reflection
Students should be given the opportunity to reflect on environmental issues from a personal perspective, taking into account the experience they have gained through related research and activities. These reflections should be guided to allow students to appreciate the balance between the local and global perspectives, as well as between personal and social responsibilities.

Health and Social Education
Defining Features of the Area of Interaction
How do I think and act?
How am I changing?
How can I look after myself and others?

This area deals with physical, social and emotional health and intelligence, key aspects of development leading to complete and healthy lives. Through this area, students become better informed about health issues as they consider life options. The students’ experience in this area should develop in them a sense of responsibility for their own well-being and for their physical and social environment.

Integrating health and social education throughout the curriculum and school life aims to prepare students for life by developing their ability to make choices from alternatives and to evaluate and make decisions about health hazards which they may face. Students also become aware of related social issues and their effects on communities.

The exploration of this area of interaction goes beyond the acquisition of content knowledge. Students are increasingly in a position where they make choices that require critical thinking considering the following aspects:

o knowledge
o skills
o attitudes
o values
o action.

Students examine, discuss and reflect on the medical, psychological, sociological, economic and legal aspects of health, taking into account factors such as:

o unhealthy dietary practices
o drug and alcohol abuse
o sedentary lifestyle
o risky sexual behaviour
o unhygienic practices
o behaviour that results in intentional or unintentional injury.
o tobacco use o etc.

Students should also get involved in the planning and development of each of these areas:
o policies linked to health, safety and school
o physical and psychosocial environment
o curriculum/studies
o health and support services.