ATL Skills Framework in the Classroom

Skills based classrooms are 21st century classrooms, as it prepares students to become successful citizens this century. There has been much talk about these skills and how different institutions have different skills sets, however all have many common features. Schools that implement the International Baccalaureate (IB) call those essential skills Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills. The five skills are: Thinking, Social, Communication, Self-Management, and Research. We all teach students those skills implicitly, as those are necessary competencies for inquiry based learning. but without teaching the skills explicitly, students are not conscious of the skills and not actively engaged in developing them.

In order to let students become more aware of these skills, it has to be taught explicitly. Students need to be aware of which skill is addressed; what their strengths are with regard to these, but also what they can still improve upon. In order to teach skills explicitly, students gather evidence of their progress and reflect on their development.

Here are some examples of how these ATL skills can be taught explicitly. Every now and then, I let students work on a topic that they find interesting. In the USA, this is referred to as Genius Hour, which is derived from practices by Google to give employees free time to explore creative endeavors. Students enjoy spending some time on their own interest, regardless of instructions I give with regard to structure. Students are using the MYP inquiry cycle to embed their inquiry into their interest, thus dividing their exploration into different sections. The final section is a reflection, which in this case is focused on the use of ATL skills. Eventually students indicated one or two skills they used during their exploration: how they used these skills and what they can improve on next time.

Students can also get explicit instructions when learning a specific skill. For example, teaching students media literacy through cross-referencing, requires many scaffolds at the beginning and less in the end. Thus, students are aware that the skill of cross-referencing is taught without the need to focus on subject matter. With each lesson, students perform this skill more and more independently. In the first lesson, students receive a particular claim they have to investigate along with four different sources either providing corroborating or conflicting evidence. By the fifth lesson, students evaluate whether or not a source is reliable by applying the skill of cross-referencing independently. Throughout this process, formative assessments take place for students to understand their own development, and for the teacher to see where more assistance is required. When such moments are documented, it can help students to see the development and areas for improvement.

To make such development visible for both teachers and students, a tool like Sutori can be used to gather evidence of moments where students worked on a particular ATL skill. Sutori now has a framework that allows students to create an ATL skills portfolio, along with opportunities for students to have a reflection moment. This makes it very clear for teachers and students to see what skills are often addressed and what skills are more difficult for students to have a meaningful understanding of.

Here are the specific ATL resources for the IB MYP:

• ATL Skills Framework
• ATL Student Self-Assessment