Learning (approaches to teaching)

Ensuring effective education

The IB approaches to teaching provide an additional check point for teachers when designing and implementing engaging learning experiences.

School coordinators serve to ensure that teachers feel supported and empowered to employ the following IB approaches to teaching:

• Based on inquiry

• Focused on conceptual understanding

• Developed in local and global contexts

• Focused on effective teamwork and collaboration

• Designed to remove barriers to learning

• Informed by (formative and summative) assessment

Each of the IB approaches to teaching provide opportunities for in-depth exploration and inquiry. As teachers show readiness and interest, consider how a collaborative investigation and focus on the individual approaches to teaching may evolve the practice and culture around teaching in the school.

This might look like:

• Choosing a school-wide (or grade/age level) concept about which to inquire.

• Engaging in a professional book study.

• Experimenting with and reflecting upon instructional practices.

• Learning with and from others, perhaps outside of the immediate learning community.

Showcasing learning and teaching

Think about how the following actions may support teachers as they develop their approaches to teaching:

• Engage in learning about inquiry-based teaching strategies and learning engagements.

Ask: Are there opportunities for students to express and pursue their curiosity?

• Ask teachers to document how student agency will be incorporated throughout the scope of a unit of inquiry.

Ask: Where do students have voice, choice and ownership with their learning?

• Review unit planners to ensure that related concepts are being explored and addressed in classroom experiences.

Ask: Can students use the concepts to drive investigation and development to deepen their understanding of a big idea?

• Provide teachers with time to explore how their units of inquiry may have connections to both local and global contexts.

Ask: Could students apply this learning to more than one situation?

• Facilitate collaboration amongst teachers, so that they may facilitate collaboration amongst their learners.

Ask: How are students collaborating with each other and the teacher to move their learning forward?

• Help teachers identify opportunities for differentiation within the learning process, product, and/or environment.

Ask: Is every student being guided to engage with the same thing, in the same way, toward the same result? If so, how can we make revisions that account for differentiation?