DESIGNING A POST-PANDEMIC THINKING

AND LEARNING (ATL)

SKILLS PROGRAMME

Lance G King Hosted by 4Generations 4Education

10 – 13 August, 2020

www.taolearn.comwww.lalatat.com

Thinking and Learning Skills (ATL) resourceslance@taolearn.com

Lance King – The Art of Learning@TAOLearn

Designing a Post-Pandemic Thinking and Learning Skills Programme

Session 1: Lessons learned from Covid19

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Any thinking and learning skills programme is all about focusing students on factors to improve success that are in their control.

By 2030 – predicted trends in the developed world: Automated cars, buses, taxis, trains, aircraft, food delivery, doctor’s visits, banking, law, most retail Manual work and permanent contract work disappearing Artificial Intelligence involved in all aspects of life Most work will be contracted and most workers will be freelance – involved in on-line collaborative teams

working on specific projects Selection for employability for those teams will be based on an individual’s skills and experience – driven by

Social Media Social Media identity will be as important as real life identity The primacy of acquired knowledge will be superseded by the skills needed to find information, learn, adapt,

create and problem solve

“The world economy no longer rewards people just for what they know, the world economy rewards people for what they can do with what they know”

Andreas Schleicher, PISA, OECD

What thinking and learning skills are top priority for 2020-21 students?They need to be taught all the skills of remote self-managed learning: Time and task management Self-motivation, persistence, overcoming procrastination, learning from failure Creating and maintaining digital collaborations, social media relationship skills Effective searching and researching, validating and verifying sources, interpreting data Critical media consumption, recognising perspectives and bias, IP rights and copyright Summarising key points in text and video presentations Building evidence based arguments, critical and creative thinking Writing essays and reports, creating digital presentations They need to have lots of practice in the self-management of learning: In class In on-line collaborations Remotely – outside the classroom, at home

The lessons from Covid19 that all schools need to implement for 2020-21:Teachers need: comprehensive training in how to design engaging, independent, remote-learning lessons for their students

that utilise the best on-line resources available 2

to become very familiar with every website that teaches their subject matter – both the free and the paid sites

Schools need: to invest in subscriptions for teachers in all the best school subject sitesStudents need: to master all the Thinking and Learning (ATL) skills they need for effective remote, self-managed learning

Video 1: ATL skills taught explicitly at Tokyo International School – PYP.Key points:

Video 2: Thinking and learning skills taught explicitly in middle school in Helsinki, FinlandKey points:

Video 3: Design thinking skills taught explicitly in high school in Michigan.Key points:

What is a skill? “A collection of strategies and techniques unified for a specific purpose, that improves with practise”

Self-Management of learning – the purpose of thinking and learning skills development3

NoviceWatch

LearnerCopy

PractitionerDo

ExpertTeach/Share

Can watch others performing tasks and using the skillHigh levels of scaffolding from teacher needed

Can copy others performance of the skill

Medium level of scaffolding needed

Can demonstrate the skill on demand

Minimal teacher scaffolding required

Can teach others the skill

Self-regulatingNo teacher scaffolding required

Increasing self-management of learning

Introduce – raise awareness of the skill, have the students experience using the skill for the first time

Practice - allow for practice and improvement

Master - enable independent use of the skill

Tasks for thinking and learning skill development Introduce – raise awareness of the skill, have the students experience using the skill for the first time Practice – have students practice the skill in many subjects, improve their proficiency up to expert level Master – create opportunities for students to use the skill independently in a self-managed way

Thinking and learning skill teaching methods: Explicit Teaching – directly teaching the skill itself with simple content, either within or outside of subject

based lessons Implicit Teaching – developing the skill by using it with subject content in normal subject lessons Different stages of skill development lend themselves to different methods of teaching

Introduce – raise awareness of the skill, have the students experience using the skill for the first time

Practice - allow for practice and improvement

Master - enable independent use of the skill

Explicit teaching – introduce the skill by teaching with simple content

Implicit teaching – develop the skill by using it with subject content

Session 2: Designing Your Own Programme

All thinking and learning skills can be divided into two groups: Core skills for Effective Remote Learning:

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the most basic social, emotional, digital, organisation and study skills universally by every student for successful learning of every subject both at school and remotely

Subject Specific skills: thinking and learning skills that give students significant advantage for academic success in learning specific

subjects

Links for frameworks:For junior IB students:2020 Revised IB MYP ATL Skills – full framework2020 Revised IB MYP ATL Skills – Core Skills for Effective Remote Learning2020 Revised IB MYP ATL Skills – Subject Specific Skills onlyFor senior IB students:2020 IB DP ATL Skills – full framework2020 IB DP ATL Skills – Core Skills for Effective Remote Learning2020 IB DP ATL Skills – Subject Specific Skills onlyFor non-IB students:2020 LALATAT – full framework2020 LALATAT – Core Skills for Effective Remote Learning2020 LALATAT – Subject Specific Skills only

Three types of Thinking and Learning skill:1) Cognitive skills – active information processing and retrieval skills eg: note-making, listening, time

management, questioning, researching, summarising, critical thinking, creative thinking2) Affective skills – enabling the student to gain some control over mood, motivation and attitude eg: self-

motivation, perseverance, resilience, emotional management, mindfulness3) Metacognitive skills – thinking about thinking - noticing learning and thinking strategies, trying new

strategies, continuously improving learning effectiveness

Core skills for Effective Remote Learning Listen well, take good notes from text and from online presentations, research well, develop good evidence

based arguments, summarise, write good essays and reports and present to audiences Set up and maintain digital project teams and study groups, encourage others, build consensus, resolve

conflicts, develop healthy relationships both live and social media, understand data security Focus and concentrate, overcome distractions, persevere and persist, self-motivate, learn from mistakes, fail

well Set goals, take action, manage time and tasks, plan study and assignments, meet deadlines, try different

ways to learn, remember well Improve learning of all subjects by improving proficiency in all the key thinking and learning skills

All are important Core Skills.Video 4: Thinking skills at Tokyo International School.Key points:

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Video 5: Critical Thinking at the OCB Key points:

Pick your framework.

First task – Core Skills planning: Each skill needs to be “Introduced” when it first needs to be used, not before The aim of the “Practice” phase is to have students improve their proficiency in each skill through repeat

practice it in different subjects “Mastery” is the highest standard of independent use of that skill that you would expect to see at school –

by the end of Grade 12 with no teacher support:“By the time our students finish at this school they will be able to …………………………….”

Task 1: Core Thinking and Learning skills – Introduction, Practice and Mastery Form mixed programme groups of ~4 Save a copy of the relevant spreadsheet as a sharable document Divide up all the Core skills between the groups Each group, do your research:

o Find out how other people teach, practice or coach your first skill strand Decide at what Grade or Year level the skill needs to first be Introduced

o Design one exercise a teacher could use to Introduce the skill to the students for the first time - write the ‘when’ and ‘how’ in the First Lesson columns of the spreadsheet

Task 2: Mastery definitionFor each skill strand create a definition of Mastery of this skill and write it in the Mastery column of the Skill Development section

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“By the time our students finish at this school they will be able to ……………………”

Task 3: Developing Skill Practice For each skill strand, describe actions you expect a student to be able to undertake in subject lessons by the

time they reach three critical points – you decide:o in time for their Exhibition or by the end of Junior or Primary School o in time for their Personal Project or by the end of Middle Schoolo in time for their Extended Essay or final exams or by the end of Senior School (this may be your

Mastery definition as well) Write these as expected actions at the appropriate Grade levels in the Skill Development section of the

spreadsheet Change the column headings to suit

Example 1. IB MYP ATL skill 6a – Find the right informationIntroduce in Grade 2. Given a book title, find the correct book in the classroom library Given a book, find a specific character or idea Given a book and a character, find a specific action or specific factBy the Exhibition: use the Dewey Classification system to find specific books use a simple Google/Baidu search to find specific informationBy the Personal Project: use Advanced Google/Baidu searching to find specific information use Boolean Operators and Search Limiters to refine search resultsBy the Extended Essay (also the Mastery definition): independently interrogate university databases accurately to accurately find scholarly articles

Video 6: Thinking skills for building confidence in Primary and Middle school in Scotland.Key points:

Video 7: Full 21st C skills programme in elementary – Norfolk, Virginia, USA.Key points:

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Resources for teaching and learning all skills:www.atlskills.com – hardcopy IB schools onlywww.21stC-skills.com – hardcopy all non-IB schoolswww.lalatat.com – digital all schools

How are you going to do it at your school? Stand-Alone: All the Core Thinking and Learning skills are taught as a separate programme – outside of

subject lessons Teacher Choice: Every teacher picks from the Core Skills spreadsheet the skill strands they consider their

students need most and teaches them (explicitly or implicitly) when they think they are needed within normal lessons

Centrally Planned: Departments choose the Core Skills they wish to take responsibility for and the Introduction of all these skills is mapped out across departments and across the whole school from Grade 1-12. Individual teachers take responsibility for building their department’s Core Skills into their lessons

Last questions: Who is going to teach which Core skill when? How are you going to ensure that every student gets taught all the Core thinking and learning skills that they

need? Whose responsibility is it to ensure effective implementation of all of the Core skills?

Subject Specific Thinking and Learning skills: Specific thinking and learning skills that characterise and are a natural part of individual subjects Ways of thinking and learning that create significant advantage for academic success in that subject Most teachers don’t recognise them as specific skills – they are often just a part of normal subject teaching

Video 8: Critical Thinking at the OCSB (2).Key points:

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Video 9: Teaching Critical Thinking through Socratic dialogue Key points:

Video 10: Directly teaching thinking skills at John Summers High School in Wales. Key points:

Link Subject Specific ATL skills to summative assessmentsSuccessful learning is demonstrated by an improvement in: knowledge understanding practical use transferTask 4: In your subject’s summative assessments, what is being tested? Look at one of your last summative assessments or exam papers

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Analyse each question in the last summative assessment in your subject as to what each is primarily testing: o Knowledge o Understandingo Practical useo Transfer

Generate approximate percentages of each

In your summative assessments, what is being tested?Assessment % Knowledge % Skills % Meaning % Transfer

Look at the command terms: Knowledge questions - what, when, where, who, identify, define……Understanding questions - distinguish, analyse, adapt, create, interpret…….Practical use questions - use, represent, combine, separate, perform……. Transfer questions - apply, relate, connect, exchange, find connections…….

Think about the thinking and learning skills that will give your students an advantage in their assessments.

Task 5: Select your Subject Specific skills In your subject group Save one copy of the appropriate Subject Specific skills spreadsheet – with your programme and subject

name at the top Discuss each skills strand in the spreadsheet and put an “X” alongside any that you all agree:

are needed for learning your subject are an advantage in your subject assignments

Task 6: Final Subject Specific Skill selection – Top 10: Discuss within your whole subject group and decide which are your Top 10 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10Task 7: Subject Specific Skills – Introduction Divide your Top 10 up within your group

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Each subgroup, do your research:o Find out how other people teach, practice or coach your skill strand

Decide at what Grade or Year level the skill needs to first be Introduced Design one exercise a teacher could use to Introduce the skill to the students for the first time - write the

‘when’ and ‘how’ in the First Lesson columns Leave blank if you think the skill will have already been introduced before students come to you

Task 8: Mastery definition For each skill strand create a definition of Mastery of this skill and write it in the Mastery column of the Skill

Development sectiono “By the time our students finish at this school they will be able to ……………………”

Task 9: Developing skill practice For each skill strand, describe actions you expect a student to be able to undertake in subject lessons by the

time they reach three critical points – you decide:o In time for their Exhibition or at the end of Junior or Primary School o In time for their Personal Project or at the end of Middle Schoolo In time for their Extended Essay or at the end of Senior School (this may be your Mastery definition

as well) Write these as expected actions at the appropriate Grade levels in the Skill Development section Change the column headings to suit

Last questions: In your department how are you going to make sure that all your Top 10 Subject Specific Thinking and

Learning skills are being incorporated into lessons by every teacher? How are you going to ensure that every student doing your subject gets practice in all your Top 10 Subject

Specific skills? Whose responsibility is it to co-ordinate Thinking and Learning skills practice across all subjects?

How are you going to do it? Teacher Choice: Every teacher picks whichever of their subject’s Top 10 Subject Specific skill strands they

consider their students need the most and builds the practice of those skills into lessons as required. Centrally Planned: All departments Top 10 Subject Specific skill strands are mapped out across the whole

school from Grade 1-12. Each department takes responsibility for introducing different Subject Specific skills. Individual teachers in all departments take responsibility for building Subject Specific skills practice into unit and lesson planning.

Video 11: Room to Breathe.

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Key points:

Video 12: Lets create Mindful Schools Key points:

Video 13. Arrive – A Mindful MinuteKey points:

Video 14. Making Schools Mindful Key points:

Session 3 – Teaching Affective (Character) Skills12

Video 15, 16 & 17:

Task 10: Success and Failure:What happened? What do you think was

the cause of your success or failure?

What did you do next?

A time when you set a goal and achieved it was …

A time when you set a goal and didn’t achieve it was…

"All the top academic students had learned how to fail well

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Characteristics of Resilience

whereas all the lowest academic students were failing badly"

Reactions to failureFailing Well Failing Badly

Acknowledging your failures,o analysing the failure for factors that

were in your controlo working out what you could have

done bettero making changes, ando doing it againo but doing it differently, every time

Blaming the school or the ‘system’ Blaming other people Pretending there is no failure Adding ‘drama’ to failure to avoid dealing

with it Avoiding any activity that could possibly

lead to failure

Full article available at www.taolearn.com/wp-content/uploads/articles/article88.pdf

Task 11: Key practices of Failing Well Before any assessment - get children to set their own goals for the outcome After the assessment - have a conversation about the difference between failing well and failing badly Build in class time for the re-processing of every mistake

Video 18. Jack Ma.Key points:

Video 19. Michael JordanKey points:

Help your students overcome any fear of failure

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Use examples of famous people Use slogans – “If at first you don’t succeed, make sure you fail well”

o First Attempt In Learning Create a new paradigm for success and failure:

- change 50% success, 50% failure 50% success, 25% failing well, 25% failing badly

Task 12: How can you help your students overcome any fear of failure? Discuss what you could do, in your class, in your department, to help your students to see failure as a

necessary condition of achieving success.Key points:

Prof Carol Dweck on Attribution for Success and Failure Attributing to effort ….“my hard work, persistence, determination…” Is linking your success and failure to something

over which you have control any test or assessment becomes a measure of

progress, an opportunity to learn

Attributing to ability ….“my talent, intelligence, natural ability….” Is linking your success and failure to something

over which you have no control assessment is then often seen as a critical

judgment, an opportunity to fail

Do you model failing well in your own learning practice?1) Focus on internal dialogue – change every “I can’t” ”I haven’t yet”

(ability attribution) (effort attribution)2) Focus on visualisation - imagine yourself doing it right3) Practise failing well

As an academic role model do you demonstrate for students to copy: a willingness to challenge yourself and constantly learn new things? the habit of admitting to and learning from all your mistakes?

Video 20 – Nic Vujicic

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My courage strategy is:

Task 13: Affective ‘Character’ skill development: Work in pairs Pick one of the Affective (pink) Core Skill strands - the one you think your students need the most Find one video clip online that demonstrates the particular affective skill – and relates to your subject if

possible Put the URL reference into the Core spreadsheet in the AFFECTIVE SKILLS section Think about how a teacher could use that video to get students to practice the skill, add notes to the

spreadsheet as appropriate

Video 20. BatmanKey point:

Session 4: Metacognitive Assessment and Inquiry Learning16

Metacognitive assessment of subject understanding At the end of any unit of work

o Have you achieved the subject content goals?o What is your evidence?

Is this really what a teacher needs to know - most?o What don’t you understand yet?o What questions do you have?

This turns assessment into metacognitive training – recognising gaps in knowledge and understanding. Noticing what you don’t know is far more useful than proving what you do know.

Metacognitive Assessment of Subject Understanding

Evaluate understanding of subject matter, identify gaps

What I don’t understand is .......................

How do I .................?

What do I have to do to .......................?

What I need to know is .....................?

The thing I just don’t get is ....................?

What do you mean when you say ................?

What questions do you have so far?

.......................................................................................................................................................................

.......................................................................................................................................................................

.......................................................................................................................................................................

.......................................................................................................................................................................

What questions do you have?

Metacognitive assessment of Thinking and Learning skills:When your thinking and learning skills programme is working well you will see an ongoing: improvement in your students’ success rates in learning all their normal subjects improvement in their performance in formative and summative assessments and all high-stakes exams, and improvement in their ability to manage their own learning

Four valid forms of Thinking and Learning skills assessment:

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1. Diagnostic assessment of students’ skills needs2. Student self-assessment of skills proficiency completed pre~ and post~ training3. Teacher reporting on thinking and learning skills in reports – comments on skill development not

grades/scores4. Designing subject-based assessments so that generating the answers needed requires the use of thinking

and learning skills at a specified level of proficiency.

Thinking and Learning Skills

NoviceWatch

LearnerCopy

PractitionerDo

ExpertShare

Starting Practicing Getting better

Got it!

Task 14: Thinking and learning skill self-assessment. Key questions:Could you get students to self-assess on a regular basis? How? When?

Do you have an easy way to gather your observations of individual student’s thinking and learning skills to use as comments in report cards?

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Novice

Watching

Learner

Copying

PractitionerDoing

Expert

SharingStarting Practising Getting better

Got it!

I know what the use of the skill looks like when others are using it

I can copy someone else using the skill

I am starting to use the skill by myself

I am using the skill by myself in familiar situations

I am getting better at using the skill in unfamiliar situations

I am able to use the learning skill whenever I need to

I use the skill without needing to think it through first

I can break the skill down into steps

I use the skill one step at a time

I am still conscious of using the skill one step at a time

I am starting to put all the steps of the skill together

I can usually use the skill without referring to the way that I have done it in the past.

I can confidently use the skill without referring to the way that I have done it before

I am capable of teaching other students how to use the skill

When I try to use the skill myself I make lots of mistakes and ask lots of questions

I still make mistakes and ask for help but I am getting better at correcting my own mistakes

I can correct my mistakes with some help

I can correct my own mistakes

Any mistakes I make I can quickly correct

I can usually correct any mistakes automatically

I correct any mistakes I make automatically

I need lots of help to use the skill

I can use the skill in familiar situations with some help

I still need help to use the skill sometimes

I don’t need help to use the skill in familiar situations anymore

I still need help to use the skill in unfamiliar situations sometimes

I hardly ever need help to use the skill anymore

I can use the skill in unfamiliar situations without any help from anyone else

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Metacognitive assessment of learning strategies

Learning Logs:One new thing that I

have learnedtoday/yesterday is…

What was going on in the lesson at the time -

pictures, diagrams, listening, discussing, hands-on, activity…?

Who helped me to understand?

I think I learned well because…

One time today/yesterday that I noticed I wasn’t learning well

was…

What was going on in the lesson at the time - pictures, diagrams, listening, discussing, hands-on,

activity…?

I found it difficult to learn because…?

Task 15: What conclusions can you draw about your own best ways of learning?I seem to learn best when:

Help students to become more aware of their learning preferences through reflection on their own experience, not from questionnaires

Engaging Students – live or remotely:

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Video 21. Sugata Mitra 1, 2 & 3.Key points:

The most motivating learning is always: Learning through the experience of discovery, comparing contrasting, validating and verifying information Involves the use of a full range of Thinking and Learning skills, enabling students to discover what is true for

themselves – rather than being told what is true

Task 16 – Inquiry Learning exercise:1. Shrink the Zoom screen down and access your browser2. Connect to www.topmarks.co.uk3. Select any subject you are presently teaching and the level using this key:

a. Early Years = < 5 yrs oldb. Key Stage 1 = 5 – 7c. Key Stage 2 = 7 – 11d. Key Stage 3 = 11 – 14e. Key Stage 4 = 14 – 16f. Advanced = 16 – 18g. Higher Ed = > 18

4. Click ‘Go’5. Explore as many new websites in your subject area as you can find6. Save any useful URLs

POSBGIL - Process Oriented, Skills Based, Guided Inquiry Learning – to have students learn the skills of effective learning, practice self-managed inquiry and develop into effective self-managed learners

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Use as a design structure for inquiry-based subject classes and research projects – live or remotely. Achieving understanding through using Thinking and Learning skills:

o collaboration and communication skills – teamwork, consensus, negotiation, leadership, delegation, organisation, presentation

o research skills, media and information literacy skills - finding, comparing, contrasting, verifying and validating information, recording, presenting

1. Choose the openness of the inquiry:Structured Inquiry Guided Inquiry Student Directed Inquiry

Students follow precise teacher instructions to complete a research activity and reach prescribed objectives

Students follow teacher guidelines using their own research skills to achieve specific curriculum goals

Students generate their own topic, questions, investigation procedures, analysis and reporting methods within curriculum guidelines

Increasing self-management of learning

2. Find the best resources Are all teachers aware of all the websites that have independent learning resources for their subjects?

o for PYP toddleapp.com o for K-6 – Sanfordharmony.org o all students - TEDed.como for middle and senior school - Udacity.com

- Coursera.com o For the POGIL process – POGIL.org

Important to be aware that: Students differ in the degree of self-regulation they have the skills for and they are practiced in using Teachers differ in the degree of self-regulation they have the skills for and are comfortable allowing in their

classroom

How can you engage students with the idea of self-managed learning? Does becoming a self-managed learner have a high status at your school? How can you make it something that all students will want to aspire to?

3. Differentiate your students on the basis of proven self-management of learning Divide the students up into three groups based on their ability to manage their own learning Set up an inquiry learning environment Work directly with the low SML (self-management level) students teaching them the appropriate learning

skills Help the intermediate SML students where required

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Allow the high SML students to work independently

4. Create POSBGIL lessons1. Find several sources of the subject matter you want to teach on-line2. Develop questions for students to answer that will lead them to the understandings needed3. Give students clear measurable learning objectives and time frames 4. Put students into small groups and assign (rotating) roles – researcher, questioner, recorder, director5. Specify the web pages students are allowed to connect to6. Facilitate their journey7. Focus on teaching the low and intermediate SML students the necessary skills of self-managed learning

Task 17 - Develop provision for the highly self-managed learner at all levels: Re-create as many as possible of your lessons as well designed, well supported, fully independent learning

experiences – and make them available for (some) students to access in class

To develop self-managed learners: Teachers must learn how to stop teaching and allow learning to take place Only by being allowed to practice the skills of self-managed learning will students become self-managed

learners.

Summative assessment – is it possible to design examinations to: Encourage the practice of thinking and learning skills and higher order thinking within the examination

itself? Test the student’s expertise in the use of the actual skills they will need to be successful at their next level? Advantage thinking over recall?

To complete the ATL or 21st C skills revolution in teaching and learning the final step is…

Thinking and Learning Skills and the Teaching Revolution1. Teach thinking and learning skills to all students2. Teach all subjects using inquiry methods 3. Make all examinations open-book4. Give self-management of learning a high value for students – celebrate extravagantly!

Keep in touch

Regards,Lance King

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