Approaches to Learning
The Approaches to Learning (ATL) skill areas underpin teaching and learning in all IB programs. The approaches are deliberately broad, designed to give teachers the flexibility to choose specific strategies to employ that best reflect the particular contexts of the curriculum and the needs of their students.
Our focus on approaches to learning (ATL) is grounded in the belief that learning how to learn is fundamental to a student’s education. The five categories of interrelated skills aim to empower students to become self-regulated learners who know how to ask good questions, set effective goals, pursue their aspirations and have the determination to achieve them. These skills also help to support students’ sense of agency, encouraging them to see their learning as an active and dynamic process.
Approaches to Learning
Thinking Skills Including areas such as critical thinking, creative thinking and ethical thinking
Social Skills Including areas such as forming and maintaining positive relationships, listening skills and conflict resolution
Communication Skills Including both interactive skills like giving and receiving feedback, and language skills like making an argument effectively in speaking and writing
Self Management Skills Including both organizational skills such as managing time and tasks, and affective skills, such as managing state of mind and motivation
Research Skills
Including skills such as comparing, contrasting, validating, and prioritizing information
Approaches to Teaching are methods Edison teachers use to make the MYP come alive in their classrooms.
AA
From the document What is an IB Education?
Based on Inquiry. A strong emphasis is placed on students finding their own information and constructing their own understanding.
Focused on conceptual understanding. Concepts are explored in order to both deepen disciplinary understanding and to help students make connections and transfer learning to new contexts.
Developed in local and global contexts. Teaching uses real-life contexts and examples, and students are encouraged to process new information by connecting it to their own experiences and to the world around them.
Focused on effective teamwork and collaboration. This includes promoting teamwork and collaboration between students, but also refers to the collaborative relationship between teachers and students.
Designed to remove barriers to learning. Teaching is inclusive and values diversity. It affirms students' identities, aim to create learning opportunities that enable every student to develop and pursue appropriate personal goals.
Informed by assessment. Assessment plays a crucial role in supporting, as well as measuring, learning. This approach also recognizes the crucial role of providing students with effective feedback.
Edison are always working together to make sure that students develop the skills and habits to be successful students. This chart shows our current plans for Approaches to Learning skill development in departments and across grade levels.