Have you heard of ATL or Approaches to Learning? This groundbreaking framework designed by Lance King for the IB curriculum focuses on developing 21^st Century skills in students that help them learn how to learn. It is a true honor to have Lance King at SEK International School Qatar, as his venture has been transforming and shaping the direction of especially the MYP and DP programmes -over 4000 IB schools in 150 countries are implementing the ATL curriculum.

Lance King’s ideas revolve around developing resilience and guiding inquiry learning in the classroom by activating a cycle of implementation based on Thinking, Planning, Doing and Reflecting.

Almost 50 international teachers that live in Doha learned from Lance King in his two-day workshop “Teaching with ATL in mind”. The workshop outlined the ATL framework and provided hands-on opportunities to incorporate a focus on developing these skills into regular classroom practice.

Some of the topics included the purpose and need of 21^st Century skills; thinking and learning skills selection to match student needs; identifying the Cognitive, Affective and Metacognitive ATL skills; teaching time and task management, goal setting and motivation skills; developing self-regulated learners through helping students to take responsibility for their own skills assessment and development, and so much more.

Furthermore, important questions were being answered throughout the workshop, such as what skills and teaching strategies give students advantages in specific qualification examinations, what are the steps of development of the Cognitive ATL skills across a student’s school life, how can teachers raise meta-cognitive awareness in students, and how can students (and teachers) learn how to “fail well” -amongst many others great inquiries!

The workshop was a “hands-on” style full of activities for participants, designed to give schools clear practical strategies. 

You can find out more about Lance King and ATL here https://www.taolearn.com/

On November 16th and 17th SEK International School Qatar had the pleasure to host a 2 day workshop lead by Kath Murdoch entitled Teaching and Learning Through Inquiry.

Kath Murdoch is an experienced teacher, author, university lecturer and popular consultant who has worked for many years in schools throughout Australia, New Zealand, Asia, America and Europe. She is widely respected for her work in the field of inquiry based learning and integrative curriculum in which she has taught, researched and published for well over 25 years.

During the workshop she explained her inquiry-based approach for students, in itself, an approach that recognizes the importance of student voice and choice and of linking new learning to the existing knowledge, experiences and interests of the student.

 The workshop was an enriching experience for all participants as they learnt new teaching strategies and techniques to help build students’ skills as inquirers.

We would like to thank Kath for sharing her insights and the 90 participants that came to the workshop from different schools in Qatar and abroad.