Learning
We are delighted to once again announce Lance King as our keynote speaker at our user group conference in the Hague. Lance’s impact on the development of ATL skills within the IB CP, DP, and MYP programmes is unparalleled.
“[Lance’s] ideas around the development of resilience and the use of learning-skills focused, guided inquiry learning in the classroom have been potentially transformative and have helped shape the direction of all of these programmes. By the time all his present work is released his ideas will be influencing the learning of up to 750,000 students in 3500 schools in 120 countries”
Malcolm Nicolson, (former) Head of Diploma Programme Development, International Baccalaureate Organisation, IB Global Centre, The Hague
We hope you can join us in the Hague for an opportunity to hear Lance’s keynote and participate in his workshop.
In Lance’s own words:
Having run 20 or so IB ATL workshops in the last two years my greatest concern is the possibility that we are all re-inventing the same wheel. All schools seem to me to have the same concerns and the same key issues – in the initial stages of ATL programme implementation anyway – and my aim is to try and de-mystify that process a little so that schools can get on and get the process happening for themselves, by themselves.
I think it is important at every IB school to put into place an active cycle of ATL implementation, making sure there is Thinking, Planning, Doing and Reflection going on but what I am seeing in different parts of the world is schools getting stuck at different stages in this cycle. Getting stuck at the Thinking stage and spending endless committee meetings working through some of the ATL documentation paragraph by paragraph or getting stuck at the Planning stage and spending countless hours designing wonderful horizontal and vertical ATL skills articulation documents.
Both important processes but in terms of ATL implementation nothing is actually changing in the classroom. The aim of any ATL programme is to improve the effectiveness of student learning. That can only happen by doing. What I am totally focused on these days is helping schools to get this process going by starting with Doing.
My advice to schools is to start small. Work out what one significant ATL skill is, one skill that every learner needs to enable them to become an independent, self-managed, self-regulated learner and start with that. Map out the development of that one skill from new entrants to graduates and make sure that skill is being taught and reinforced in a consistent manner across the whole school.
Do that first. Get it happening tomorrow.
Then reflect on how that is going and develop a similar plan for implementing ATL skill No. 2.
Build your ATL skills map up from the bottom. One skill at a time.
