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I am certain that if students are able to grasp and master the ATL skills they will be strong students and moreover have the tools to succeed in their lives.

I am not sure if i have met a person who did have a good grasp or master all the ATL skills. I certainly haven't. :)

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I'm not sure about implementing the ATLs and making them explicit (if I have to)

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I am certain that ATL are necessary to be successful in one's life.

I am not sure how to communicate the importance of ATL to parents that have different values.

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Students need to develop the ATL skills and we need to teach them explicitly through our teaching of the subjects (at DP)
I'm not sure how this fits with a heavy and disconnected curriculum at DP that seems to prize content over anything else

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I have successfully implemented some of the teaching strategies to enforce ATL skills

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I am certain that ATL skills are important to be taught in class as these skills will help them somehow in the future
Not sure how to find a perfect evidence on how to measure the ATL skills progress in my students

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I am certain that ATL skills are fundamentals and essential 'soft' skills needed for students.

I am not sure if my school (and I) have done enough to make sure that we have equipped the students in order for them to be ready to become lifelong learners.
I am not sure if I have correctly integrate these ATL skills in my lessons and unit planners.

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...ATL skills are definitely not subject-specific, and that we all have our own approach and understanding of teaching them, whether we realize it or not.
...having said the above, some subjects might have an easier way to integrate certain ATL skills than others.

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I emphasise in class enough and in our team meetings how important it is that pupils are raising good questions

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I am certain that ATL"s are life long skills that support the children's learning, agency and ability to think outside of the box throughout their time in education and beyond.

I am not sure how to integrate the ATLs into our curriculum and planning in a meaningful and achievable way.

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I am certain that ATLs need to be fully embedded into lessons.

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I am certain that ATL are fundamental and important skills for each learner, in and out of the classroom.

I am unsure how to explicitly teach and reflect on the ATL in teaching and learning.

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I am certain the ATL are an important aspect of the IB curriculum model and the development of lifelong learners. I am not sure we value them as much as context and concepts. One concern I have is if we extrinsically reward ATL development does that mean they are truly developed or are they fabricated?

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I am certain that ATL will need for students in their live for their success
I am not sure if student will understand ATL in just only short activity at class, it need a process

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I am certain that the ATL is fundamental life to support the students in learning

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I am certain that the ATL is fundamental life to support the students in learning

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...there can be an objective rubric created for assessing/evaluating ATL skills. I'm definitely interested in finding a way, if there is, and I hope I can walk away with that after 3 days.

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ATL can be integrated in the learning process in my school. This will be a brilliant addition to make sure that our students can be a true learner that can be independently achieve success in their own learning.

I am not sure on how to assess how successfully ATL has been implemented in a system

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I am certain that by the end of this workshop I will learn more about ATL, especially in implementing ATL into Indonesian language A (ILL) and B (ILA) in elementary levels and in early years levels.

I am not sure if we could apply the student agency, because I think it is a big challenge. It will take times, meanwhile when a new academic year comes, everything should be ready.
I am also not sure that Heads and teachers of Indonesian language between PYP, MYP and DP in our school sat together since we never collaborate in designing the curriculum.

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I am certain that... I am not sure if... 

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I am certain that... I am not sure if... 

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I am certain that ATL is important for the students to acquire in order to make them a successful learner especially when they reach to DP and prepare for their university life.

I am not sure if it can be implemented easily.

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Making sure that it is an explicit part of the planning within each unit and that the language of ATL is shared consistently across the school

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What do you need to do to enhance ATL development in your classroom?

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What do you need to do to enhance ATL development in your classroom?

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As I discussed with my Rio partner, both she and I need to do a better job to create tasks that clearly assess students on the different ATLs. Tasks that are clear to the student what ATL is being covered so we can be confident that our assessments of them our thorough and meaningful.

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What do I need to do to enhance ATL development in your classroom?

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What do I need to do to enhance ATL development in your classroom?

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We need to make the ATL visible and explicit in our teaching and learning practices.

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The most important is that teachers recognise where they are following ATL practices already and use the same language across different subjects. Next, to hear more often from students about they identify that is needed for them to develop.

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I need to be more mindful and deliberate in my planning for teaching and integrating ATL in my classroom tasks and experiences. Dedicating a specific time for me to do this is essential as the demands of school can often shift my priorities.

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What do you need to do to enhance ATL development in your classroom?

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What do you need to do to enhance ATL development in your classroom?

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Creating meaningful assessments and activities that help students develop & assess the ATL skills.

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To enhance the ATL development in my classroom I need to be more deliberate with the language surrounding ATL usage and the explicit teaching of them. I also need to make sure I am not limiting the opportunities to authentically work on ATL skills by capitalizing on teachable moments.

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What do I need to do to enhance ATL development in your classroom?

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What do I need to do to enhance ATL development in your classroom?

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I would like to explore an idea:
Is it possible to link all (or at least, most) ATL skills with some of the strands in the A-D criteria in MYP mathematics?

If so, then that could open up the possibility of formatively asses ATL skills (as they are embedded in summative tasks) without the need to add another assessment task that students need to complete.

This would also give teachers the opportunity to explicitly comment on students' ATL skills based on students' demonstrations of those ATL skills in summative or formative tasks.

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is to make sure we choose the most suitable skill(s) to be embedded in the unit we have in the class, and make sure that the students will have a balance portion of each skills in a school year so that the learning activity will still be fun and meaningful

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What do you need to enhance ATL development in your classroom?

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What do you need to enhance ATL development in your classroom?

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1. Making meaningful connections with the learner profile
2. Helping students achieve their full potential
3. Preparation of a specific task

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We can apply the ATL skills implicitly by on going process while doing our activities in the classroom. However, we need to do it consistently.

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Create more opportunities to teach the ATLs explicitly. Use the ATLs to form the Essential Agreements. Think of ways to embed the ATLs through implicit teaching. I would also like to use the language of the ATLs more in class for the students to become familiar with the vocabulary.  Liaise with Prep, (the Year above) to asses how they implement the teaching of the ATLs to ensure continuation.

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- create a formative assessment with some scaffolding needed based on the topic
- create a summative assessment with some questions that requires student's thinking skill which implicitly reflect their understanding on ATL
- One on one feedback
- Consistent in using the ATL language

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What do  you need to do to enhance ATL development in your classroom? 

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What do  you need to do to enhance ATL development in your classroom? 

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I think I need to make an action plan to implement the ATL in my class. Identify the students' strength and weaknesses as well. Then consider this in my unit planner.

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listening, speaking, exchanging information.
hierarchy of skills across all 3 programs

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1. Exchanging information effectively
2. importance of communication: languange, culture, development, media, checking for understanding
3. Explicit and visible in EY and PYP, practice and opportunities at MYP, independence at DP and support

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Exchanging information effectively through interactions
Importance for:
- language development
- Culture
- Literacy/media
In school:
- Explicit and visible at EY/MYP
In MYP pupils practice it and have opportunities to showcase
- in DP they are expected to use them

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1. Managing time effectively
2. States of mind
3. Reflection

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- it's importance is linearly increasing with the years
- managing time and task across phases
- more reflection in MYP and DP than before
- state of mind across phases

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To enhance ATL :
Work with partner (collaborative learning) to design ATL that impacts students and evaluate it together

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I cannot confidently assess a range of transdisciplinary skills

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I couldnt agree more with the importance of proper research skills in today's world of fake news, social media and propaganda. Deciphering truth from fake news or bias is critical.

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information literacy, media literacy ... in PYP
media literacy in MYP
Why
- keep students safe
- to be able to evaluate helpful vs harmful inf.

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Communication + Interaction + Relationships = Success

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1. Listening
2. accepting "defeat"
3. encouraging others
4. thinking creatively - valuing + connectng
5. open minded (rspectful) willing to change
6 not win / loss

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When I ask the pupils what skills we used to solve maths problems, WE NEED TO include ATL skills in the discussion and not only maths skills

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Ask HoDs at the meeting to choose the subskills they regularly employ in their subject areas and we can find the 'left overs'.

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ATL Poster by Orenji Buta

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Whole class feedback-

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By Alison Yang

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https://toolkits.dss.cloud/design/method-card/emoji-story/

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4 corners - I can adapt for early years to support thinking thinkings and independent thought

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communication skill : interative and language skills

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communication skill : interative and language skills

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xjm7lAJly8mZFN75DwJSKk4Ro6PhgCS4/view

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1.1a Reflecting on your experiences giving and receiving feedback

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By Alison Yang

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Helps students to get better understanding in gaining information.

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What is Visual Thinking?

Visual thinking is a way to organize your thoughts and improve your ability to think and communicate. It's a great way to convey complex or potentially confusing information.

It's also about using tools - like pen and paper, index cards and software tools - to externalize your internal thinking processes, making them more clear, explicit and actionable.

Why is Visual Thinking important?

There's more information at your fingertips than ever before, and yet people are overwhelmed by it. When faced with too much information we shut down. If your ideas can't be drawn, they can't be done. Visual thinking is a vital skill for developing new ideas and designs, communicating those ideas effectively, and collaborating with others to make them real.

But can I do this?

Drawing is a natural process for thinking, exploring ideas and learning. Every child enjoys drawing - but at some point in our lives we learn that drawing is the province of artists. We begin to say things like:

"I'm no artist"
"I can't draw a straight line"
"I can't draw a stick figure"

This is a fallacy. You can draw, and when you were a kid you knew it. You just forgot.

Don't believe me? If you have got a pen or pencil, a piece of paper and five minutes, I will prove to you that you CAN draw. What do you have to lose? Click the video below.

Visual Thinking basics

In this 20-minute video I share some basics of visual thinking that will get you up and running in about 20 minutes.

Attribution:
In case there is any doubt, the visual alphabet is freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution license. This means you can use it in any way that you like and share it broadly, so long as you credit the source @davegray or xplaner.com.

How to know what to draw

Once you have gained some comfort with drawing, the next question is, "Now that I know how to draw, how do I decide what to draw in order to best convey my ideas? In this video I share a simple three-by-three matrix that will help you determine the best way to approach drawing an idea.

How to know when to draw

Not every situation is improved by drawing. Sometimes writing is enough to do the trick. Someone once said, " writing is thinking." That's true, and drawing is thinking too. But when to do which? Here's a conversation with my friend and learning expert Marcia Conner about exactly this question.

If you're interested in learning more about visual thinking, please contact me about visual thinking coaching for individuals and teams. You can also arrange a Visual Thinking workshop where you and your team can develop these important thinking and communication skills.

You can also say thanks and you will be supporting my work if you buy a t-shirt with the visual alphabet on it. It's a great conversation starter!

Visual thinking reading list.

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Visual thinking is a way to organize your thoughts and improve your ability to think and communicate. It's a great way to convey complex or potentially confusing information. It's also about using tools - like pen and paper, index cards and software tools - to externalize your internal thinking processes, making them more clear, explicit and actionable.

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Naming the possible uses for an item helps provide solutions to a whole array of problems. The primary one, of course, is finding new uses for a product. Baking soda, for example, isn't just for baking. It is useable as a refrigerator deodorizer, a cleanser, and a teeth brightener.

How many uses can you think of for a hammer? Name them.  - we are focusing on the related concept of tools, this would be a good one to to.

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Think Puzzle Explore - a variation of I see, think wonder.

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People with a KINESTHETIC preference like:

ACTION
- making things happen

Solving problems
PRACTICALLY

RECALLING
previous experiences

To TAKE IN information use:

all of your SENSES - sight, hearing, touch, taste, & smell

a HANDS-ON approach

TRIAL & ERROR - practice, practice, practice

REAL LIFE examples & personal stories

displays, collections, photos, & videos of REAL things

autobiographies & documentaries

surveys, field trips, & interviews

To PRESENT information:

focus on the REAL things that happened

recall EXACTLY what happened

use plenty of EXAMPLES when you present

use previous EXPERIENCE as the basis for decision-making

stay in the HERE & NOW

Ideas need to be PRACTICAL & RELEVANT to you.
You need to DO things to understand them.
Using KINESTHETIC STRATEGIES in:

"I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand."
~ Confucius

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Ideas need to be PRACTICAL & RELEVANT to you. You need to DO things to understand them. Use REAL LIFE examples to explain and simplify principles.

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Fact or opinion - this would support our learning of the concept perspective

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Our world is in a communication crisis.

Kids spend astounding amounts of time on their electronic devices and with this shift, they are losing their skills in how to communicate their needs-with their own voices.

Picture the kids you know having no access to wi-fi. There might be a revolt when you start to ask them to communicate with you without a phone or device.

With the availability of alternative sources of social support (Leung, 2007), reaching kids in a one-to-one setting is difficult. The skill of self-expression in real life and face-to-face interaction has far-reaching implications.

Improving communication skills in children of all ages today could benefit generations to come, salvaging the power of verbal communication in a world buzzing with technological alternatives.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Communication Exercises (PDF) for free. These science-based tools will help you and those you work with build better social skills and better connect with others.

What are Communication Activities, Exercises, and Games?

Certain activities, exercises, and games can teach children to communicate better. In most settings, adults decide the communication style and social norms. The rules of etiquette are also decided by adults.

These days, it is revolutionary to teach communication skills in "kid terms" with room to advance the skills as children develop. Imagine a world where every adult practiced their face-to-face communication.

The following are effective communication fundamentals (Stanfield, 2017):

1. Empathy;

2. Conversation skills;

3. Established listening and speaking procedures;

4. Respectful vocabulary;

5. The power of the pause;

6. Practice speaking and listening in natural settings;

7. Introspection;

8. Turn-taking.

Any activities, exercises, and games that include these fundamentals can improve skills in communication. Interactive games encourage kids to express their needs. Plus, when kids see these activities as fun and engaging, the more likely they are to participate.

The Importance of Teaching Kids Communication Skills

There are profound psychological implications for underdeveloped communication skills. Conversely, more effective communication skills result in a higher quality of life.

Communicating well enables people to know and ask for what they need, and can result in higher self-efficacy (Nørgaard, Ammentorp, Ohm Kyvik, & Kofoed, 2012). With higher self-efficacy, there are lower instances of violence (Khoury-Kassabri, 2012), bullying (Clark & Bussey, 2020), and self-destructive behaviors (Forman & Kalafat, 1998).

Research with people who are hearing impaired revealed the impact on feelings of loneliness and depression (Knutson & Lansing, 1990). Now, the same effect is showing for children who are not severely hearing impaired.

When there is difficulty in basic communication, there is a barrier to a fundamental human need, thus resulting in emotional and psychological problems. We are hard-wired to connect and belong with other humans (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

For example, when a toddler cannot communicate their needs, a tantrum might follow. When a pre-teen child cannot effectively communicate, frustration might ensue. When a teenager cannot effectively communicate, a perfect storm might occur. And when adults cannot understand and state their needs, lives can fall apart.

Everyone benefits from practicing good communication. Right now, children are in desperate need of effectively communicating with their peers and with adults.

Good communication is a habit, and it needs to start young.

Effective communication skills equip children with the ability to have their needs met. As children age, their skills need to increase as difficult situations occur. In school and social settings, a child's peers play a significant role in how these skills develop.

Communication Skills in Children. Image by Bessi from Pixabay.

Any parent of a teen is aware of how these skills are a part of a teenager-parent relationship. Modeling appropriate communication skills is a great way to show children (and teenagers) how people use kind communication to get "what they want."

Basic communication skills are needed for basic survival. Something as basic as eye contact can be difficult to maintain for many children, even though it is the most critical part of nonverbal communication (Zeki, 2009). Looking people in the eye is a skill. It takes practice to understand the importance of eye contact for the development of good manners and social connection.

So how do we begin teaching kids communication skills? Every setting offers learning opportunities. When children know how to listen and respond, they also develop deeper understandings of empathy and compassion.

When kids communicate well, they are more likely to recognize and pursue opportunities with confidence and self-efficacy (Nørgaard et al., 2012).

You can practice life-changing skills starting with these simple exercises below.

5 Tips on How to Teach Communication Skills to Children

Every day, if you work with kids or have them yourself, you model how to ask for what you need. Even simple moments where you ask a coworker for a pencil can be goldmines of modeling.

Here are five specific tips.

1. Be a Model

The old adage, " Do as I say, not as I do " rears its head once again. Kids are more likely to do "as you do" regardless of what you say. Parents who model good communication have children who are-shocker-better at communicating with others.

It is important to note that sometimes, difficulty in communication may have underlying factors such as the presence of autism, attention disorders, or auditory disability.

2. Create a Framework for Communication Procedures

Teaching children how and when to communicate is a foundational skill. Chronic interrupting and volume control are disruptions to communication everywhere, not just for children. Set boundaries for kids to know when it is appropriate to interject with their opinion. Positively reinforce kids or students who follow the known expectations.

Regardless of the framework specifics, teach kids how to get your attention-without inappropriate disruption.

3. Don't Embarrass Children by Correcting Them in Public

Shame is powerful, and can negatively influence a desire to learn for anyone. Kids will make mistakes in their communication, as do adults. That two-year-old who called a stranger "fat" needs to understand why that is inappropriate, but they do not need to be corrected in front of everyone.

Gently correcting errors in private is a basic principle of positive discipline, and it helps promote a growth mindset where children feel safe. If a child is embarrassed in public, they will make fewer communication attempts in the future, or worse, continue the act for attention.

4. Teach Empathy

Empathy is an important topic for children in every aspect of life. The ability to see someone else's point of view creates space for mutual understanding and concern for the pain of others. An empathic listener is a skilled listener. It is crucial to value and praise the students who show care for other's feelings, as this promotes a culture of empathy.

5. Show the Power of the Pause

The power of mindful communication is very important. Kids are especially unskilled with controlling their impulsive behavior, as are many adults. Simply teaching kids to think about the impact of their words and any other decision-making overall, can help kids reflect before they act.

It is equally important to value the pauses between statements and encourage a culture of pausing to also create space for others to speak who may need more processing time.

How to Spot Communication Difficulties in All Ages

Spotting difficulties in communication is important. Infants as young as 0-7 months who don't babble might show signs of communication difficulties. Early intervention can help with cognitive and social growth.

Apprehension in oral communication also can lead to difficulties in psychological well-being (McCrosky, 1977). There is an increasing rate of anxiety with regard to communication skills in children. A child suffering from Communication Apprehension will even avoid situations where oral communication is needed, just to avoid the pain and anxiety associated with that communication.

A great deal of research has been done in the development of emotional intelligence and its relationship to effective communication skills (Irvin & Richardson, 2002). Higher test scores exist in individuals with higher reported rates of emotional intelligence, this adds value to the need for improving skills as early as possible. Development of social and communication skills is important for kids, especially those entering Middle School.

While these present as difficulties, they are not in most cases complete barriers to effective communication. Altering skills to fit the obstacle in effective communication is paramount to a child's success.

Infants and Communication Skills. Image by Lisa Runnels from Pixaby.

This is not to downplay the importance that a spectrum disorder, an attention disorder, or an auditory difficulty may play in communication in children. Children with these obstacles may find more difficulty with social communication than their peers due to their struggle with effective communication.

Current research is trying to link other obstacles children may have with these developmental differences.

Here are some concrete ways to spot difficulties in communication:

Immature language;

Speech that is difficult to understand;

Struggling to talk and or listen in conversation;

Avoidance of verbal communication.

6 Games and Exercises for Toddlers and Preschoolers in Kindergarten

Most of these games do not take long, and the skills they teach are foundational to future lessons.

1. Guess the Object

This is a fun game for kids to practice the power of description. Cut a hole in a box that is large enough for their hands. Make sure that they understand that they're not allowed to peak into the hole. Place an object in the box. Have the child describe what the object feels like. Have the class take turns guessing what it might be.

2. Show and Tell

Many kids love to share at this age. Devoting time for children to share things is an encouraging way for them to hone their communication skills. Encourage classmates to think of questions about what their classmate has shared, as a way to develop active listening skills.

3. Feelings Corner

Many times, children at this age have trouble communicating how they are feeling. Emotions can be so abstract; they may not yet have the skills to recognize them at first. Have a designated area for kids to express these feelings, where a printout of an emotions wheel is on display. Have matching emojis that the child can silently hand to their teacher.

Create space during the day for the teacher to address these feelings with any participants. This creates a place for trust and understanding in an age group prone to outbursts when feeling misunderstood or wronged.

4. Turn-Taking

Taking turns in speaking is much like sharing a favored toy, and children need to learn the skill. An engaging exercise for this age group is color circle time. Each child gets a turn in the center of the circle speaking about a chosen subject.

For instance, the color yellow. The child would get 15 seconds to list all of the yellows he or she sees in the room. Then that child names another color for the next child in the center. Before the next turn, each new participant says two things that they heard from the previous sharer.

5. Picture-Telling

Have a variety of pictures for each child. Give each a time limit and let them describe what they see in story form. During this exercise, they are processing visual cues and utilizing their ability to speak them to the classroom. The other children practice their listening skills.

6. Finish-the-Nursery-Rhyme Story

Children need to be familiar with the particular nursery rhymes for this activity to be fun. Help kids imagine and express alternative endings to nursery rhymes in a fun and creative way. Have each kid add to the shared ending and as a class, develop alternative endings to various nursery rhyme stories.

Storytelling is a rich way to practice listening and communication.

A Look at Communication in the Classroom

Classrooms are not for the faint of heart. Teachers deserve the credit for establishing the parameters for their students to learn basic communication. What a teacher tolerates and encourages from their students is one way that children absorb communication habits.

Kids are clever. They know what they can "get away with," and they look to adult figures for examples of how to speak and act. Thus, classroom parameters are paramount, especially when students get to "make the rules" too. Adults always make the rules, but when students help with the process, they are likely to exhibit more buy-in.

Criticism and judgment from classmates should be avoided in classroom culture as much as possible. These issues must be addressed, while also recognizing students practicing clear and kind communication.

The language and tone used in classrooms are important. Teachers who berate and shame kids may speak of frustration with unhappy and critical students.

Kids are smart-they respond to respect.

As the leader in the classroom, teachers are in a position to influence positive language and tone. Congruent communication is one way for teachers to demonstrate skills in the classroom (Brown, 2005). The role of active listening and body language among adolescents can help create an atmosphere of trust and mutual understanding between teacher and students.

Empathetic listening by the teacher creates a connection with the students that allows them to feel "heard."

Social interaction among peers is also important in the growth of communication skills. The more inclusive the focus of a classroom, the more growth each student will experience.

We are hard-wired to cooperate with others. Fostering positive interactions will benefit the entire culture of the classroom, as well as teach children skills that will serve them throughout life.

4 Ways Students Can Improve Communication Skills

Practice makes improvement-not perfection. Once kids are aware of these skills, the practice is available in every interaction.

1. Active listening skills through reinforcement

2. Group projects with collaboration

3. Know the benefit of open-ended questions

4. Developing empathy

6 Communication Games and Activities for Elementary Students

Telephone is a common "playground game," and also a powerful metaphor for teaching miscommunications and the practice of sharing information. The rest of the games, like Telephone, are also quite fun.

1. Telephone

Have students gather together in a circle. The instructor will whisper one short topic, sentence, or phrase into the ear of the student next to them. This phrase will be whispered into the ear of each student around the circle until arriving back at the instructor, who will then compare the original sentence to the one that it became.

2. Emotional Charades

Write-out scenarios that might provoke emotion in participants. The scenarios should be generally light emotions like forgetting your lunch, losing your phone, hearing a rumor about you, waiting for a bus, or forgetting your homework.

Each student then gets a scenario and acts it out with no speaking. After the scenario is guessed, discuss the emotional response. The more easily students can verbally express their emotions, the more easily a teacher can communicate with them and reference confusing feelings.

3. Audio Book Interaction

Scholastic has many interactive books available to students for free. The benefit of this interactive experience is for the student to align reading with speaking the words of the book.

4. Internet Resources

www.creatubbles.com is one website that unites students around the world and offers a platform to learn about creative and effective communication skills.

5. Role-Playing

This is a great way to expand empathy and perspective-taking. Setting goals for the roles is helpful, to guide the students toward vocabulary that will better facilitate cooperation.

For instance, assigning students as parents or teachers allows the kids to be creative in thinking of words that adults would use, and how it might feel to be in a situation from a view other than their own.

6. The Follow All Instructions Activity

Create a list of detailed instructions. The first instruction should be READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS FIRST. The last listed should be IGNORE ALL OTHER INSTRUCTIONS AND WRITE YOUR NAME ON THE TOP OF THIS PAPER.

The purpose of the activity is for students to communicate the importance of reading all instructions first before beginning any project. It offers a great conversation as well, for students of all ages.

7 Games and Activities for Middle and High School Students

So far we have covered a lot of games geared towards younger audiences, although they can be applied to older students too. Now we offer resources specifically for older students.

1. Famous Pairs

Create a list of well-known famous pairs. For instance, peanut butter and jelly, Romeo and Juliet, Superman and Lois Lane, etc. Each participant should receive a post-it-note with one half of a famous pair on their back.

Moving throughout the room, with only three questions per person, the participants try to figure out who the person is on their back.

Once the person has discovered who they are, they need to find their partner. If the other partner has not figured out his/her identity, they must not reveal themselves until they know.

2. The Best Parts of Our School

Many students are negative when it comes to their interpretation of school. In an effort to recognize what is good about your school, this activity is connective and a communication skills builder. This activity should be conducted over three days.

The first day is spent with each student listing 10 things that they consider the best parts of their school. The second day is spent in groups. The groups will create a coordinated list of agreed-upon best parts of their school. The third day is spent creating a class collective list after each group presents their best parts of their school ideas to the class.

3. The Enigmatic Self

We are often mysterious to others. This game promotes self-awareness about what you find mysterious about yourself. In this activity, students write down three things about themselves that no one else knows. In groups of 3 or 4 students, each read the mysterious aspects to each other.

Each group collects the mysteries. At a later time, each group reads the fact list and the remainder of the class tries to guess who the facts are from on the list. Encourage deep respect for these mysteries. Encourage students to celebrate the uniqueness of each other.

Classrooms with solid trust are often built on awareness and appreciation of each other.

4. Stand Up for Fillers

How many people use "like" or "um," or "uh" or "so," or "right" to fill a silent space? It is a nervous habit that is often rooted in the perceived discomfort of silence. This activity helps eliminate these fillers in conversation or in public speaking.

Each student is given a topic that they will speak about for 1-3 minutes (topic is not important; it should be simple). During their speaking time, the remainder of the class will stand when they hear any of these fillers occur in the speech.

The class is listening and the speaker is hyper-aware of the words that they use. It is a deliberate shock to the speaker to see the entire class stand when they hear these fillers and helps to be mindful about using precise vocabulary.

5. Blindfold Game

Create an obstacle course with everyday items in the classroom. Sort students into two groups. One person is blindfolded while the rest of the group decides how to communicate (from their seats) instructions on how to navigate through the course wearing a blindfold. Time each group and discuss which communication style was the most effective.

This activity builds trust and requires accurate communication to successfully navigate through the course. *Be sure to have at least one person to stand near the blindfolded student to help them stay safe during the course.

6. Drawn Understanding

Have two students sit back-to-back. One student has an object and the other has colored pencils and paper. The student with the object must describe it in as much detail as possible, without directly saying what it is.

The second student must draw the object as best they can, based on the communication of the student with the object.

7. Find It Together

Another blindfold is needed for this activity. Divide the group into pairs. One of the students is blindfolded. It is their job to retrieve specific objects from a designated circle. The other student guides their blindfolded partner to retrieve the correct object.

This game can get chaotic because of other blindfolded participants. It requires discussions after the activity, as well as voice recognition and teamwork. A closing discussion question could be something like, "How did people ignore the distractions of other sounds?" It can lead to great conversations on listening and volume control.

5 Communication Games and Activities for College Students

Students at the college level have likely developed some effective communication skills. At this level of education, there are still deep needs to practice communication-it is a skill that needs work.

1. The Guessing Game

This activity is a fun way to introduce and show the difference between closed and open questions. Split your class into two equal groups/teams. One person from each team will leave the room for a minute and think of a business object (any common business object that can be found in any office like a stapler, printer, etc.).

When each person returns, it's the team's task to ask him/her closed-ended questions only to try and guess the object. If needed, explain that closed-ended questions are those that can be answered only by a yes or no. Once any team finds the object, this means that they won this round. And they can go for another round.

After two or three rounds, end the game and lead a classroom discussion. Tell the group that it took a long time and effort to find out the object in each round, but what if they had no time and only one question to ask to find out the object: what would that question be?

The question would be "What is the object?" which is an open-ended question. Open-ended questions are an excellent way to save time and energy and help you get to the information you need fast.

However, closed questions can also be useful to confirm your understanding or to help you control the conversation with an overly talkative person/customer.

2. One Word Letters

Divide into pairs. Each team has one piece of paper and two pencils.

The instructor will start a clock (2-minute time limit). During the two minutes, the pair will write a single letter between them. Each of them will add only one word at a time.

The pair is to write as quickly as possible, not going back to re-read anything, but the last word added.

Letters and Communication Practice. Image Retrieved as Free Photo by Pixaby.

Grammar and spelling are unimportant. Punctuation is only added for sense in the letter. The letter may be written to anyone that the pair decides. It does not need to be a finished letter.

Once the time is up, the letter is read aloud to each other, or the group if classroom trust is solid.

Something interesting occurs when this activity is repeated. The original letters are nonsensical and amusing.

As the process is repeated, the pair's language begins to become more cohesive. It makes for a rich discussion.

3. Study Groups

Creating space for college students to manage a group culture is practice for future employment and collaborations. Study groups are one way to create the space for effective communication skills to be fostered.

Setting up the study groups for the class can form new bonds between students, and challenge them with handling situations that students might not naturally enter. The benefits of effective learning and the development of cooperative communication skills are far-reaching (Colbeck, Campbell, & Bjorklund, 2000).

4. Team Debate Projects

Collaboration is an important skill for students to have in the world of employment, opinions, and creating solutions. To understand any selected course material, have students argue a point against another within a mediated session.

There are many resources on how to facilitate team debates. Discuss the complications that may arise with debates, and how they can practice listening and being willing to change their mind if the argument is convincing.

5. Peer Mentoring

Leadership development requires advanced communication skills. A productive way to develop these skills is through the active engagement of peer mentorship programs. The give and take that exists within this relationship will fully develop skills in both parties.

Mentors benefit from the self-confidence boost that their guidance is needed, while mentees benefit from advice and a role model.

5 Nonverbal Communication Activities and Games

These games can all start or end with a discussion on what is more valuable in communication: nonverbal or verbal cues?

1. You Don't Say

Divide the group into smaller groups of 5-7 people. Write out a list of non-verbal behaviors.

Have the groups act out and interpret the meanings of these behaviors. This activity helps participants recognize nonverbal communication cues from others. Within their groups, have students display one of the nonverbal behaviors, while everyone else in the group shares or writes down what nonverbal message they are receiving.

Non-verbal behaviors can include:

Leaning back in a chair with arms crossed;

Leaning forward in a chair;

Smiling;

Frowning;

Yawning;

Nodding;

Resting chin in both hands;

Resting chin on knuckles;

Rubbing your temples;

Tapping fingers on the table;

Looking at your watch;

Staring around the room;

Ask the participants afterward to share their small-group findings. Ask the class if anyone has ever experienced a nonverbal cue that signaled to them much stronger than any words? Chances are that they have, and this provides context from their direct experience.

2. Picture Telling with Writing

To promote creative communication, this activity engages descriptive language and storytelling. Hold up a picture with people in it. Have the group write about what the people are doing and feeling in the picture.

With smaller children, the instructor can ask them to draw what happens next. This is a great form of imagination and emotional expression.

3. Mimes

Have a list of topic questions prepared. Divide groups into partners. Have one partner act out the answer to the topic question. The second partner guesses by writing what they believe the answer is on a piece of paper.

4. Movement Sticks

Hold two poles between the fingers of pairs. Together the pair will adjust to the movement of the poles. This is a fun and interactive way to attune body language.

5. Mirrors

Divide the group into pairs. Have one partner be chosen as a leader. The other will follow the facial expressions and body language of the leader. This works on eye contact and emotional awareness, along with improvement in awareness of body language cues.

Switch the leader with the follower for the second round. Ask the class if they preferred to follow or lead, and why?

5 Active Listening Games and Exercises

These games have been around for decades and are still fantastic for teaching active listening skills. Everyone knows the directions, and most people enjoy playing.

1. Red Light, Green Light

2. Simon Says

3. Musical Chairs

4. Popcorn Storytelling

This game is fun for all ages. Have the group sit in a circle. Give the group a starting sentence. For instance, "Once upon a time, a tiny gray elephant...." Have each participant add to the story based on what the previous participant has added to the story. It is a great demonstration of utilizing active listening.

5. What's My Favorite Movie?

Have each participant describe their favorite movie to a partner. Then, in pairs ask them to repeat their partner's favorite movie. Only those who have actively listened will be able to accurately repeat the favorites. It's tough when the game has many participants.

5 Assertive Communication Activities for Teens

Assertive communication is a healthy way to express one's needs. Being respectful and honest may still cause discomfort, and negotiating that discomfort is a critical skill. The following are activities that can help teens to develop these vital communication skills.

1. Emotion Awareness

Being attuned to our own emotional needs is the foundation of understanding why we are happy or frustrated with others. Many teens have trouble putting words to how they are feeling, and that is often a matter of knowing how to identify complex emotions.

In this activity, provide each participant with a sheet of various emojis. Take the group through various emotion-invoking scenarios. Have them keep track and label the emotions that popped up for them. Being able to name emotions as they are cued is a first step in improving emotional intelligence, and also relaxes the amygdala from over-firing.

2. Fists

Divide the group into pairs. The pair will get two different sets of instructions.

Person 1 instructions will read: Person 2 will make a fist. You MUST get that fist open.
Person 2 instructions will read: Person 1 is going to attempt to get you to open your fist. You must NOT open your fist unless he/she asks you politely and assertively.

Most people will try to pry the fist open. It is an opportunity to efficiently explain assertive communication. Knowing the power of good communication skills is important in building them properly.

Discuss with the students how the directions influenced their actions. Did they consider a peaceful way of asking? Why or why not? What communication role-models do movies and media offer?

3. Situation Samples

Have a list of scenarios where assertive communication would be the most effective. Offer the teens an opportunity to practice responses to the situations. Have them demonstrate aggressive, passive, and then assertive styles.

When they know the difference, the better they may practice it in real life scenarios.

Some sample scenarios could be:

You are standing in line at the check-out and two salespeople are engrossed in a deep conversation ignoring you.

Your teacher graded a paper that you feel should have received a higher mark.

Someone calls you a name that is hurtful.

Go through various options for responses and get the teens brainstorming.

4. Eye Contact Circle

This nonverbal skill is essential in assertive communication. A creative way to build this skill is with this circle. Create a circle with group participants. Each participant will answer the same question (ie: what is your favorite ice cream flavor) and after answering must find mutual eye contact with someone across the circle.

Once this eye contact is made, the participant must call out their partner's name and slowly switch places with them, while maintaining that eye contact. Eye contact is one of the basic principles of communication and trusting others.

5. Role-playing

Put the group into pairs and have them play different roles. Have the teens brainstorm scenarios from the past where they wish they had been more assertive. This also can be used in the workplace with employees, where people brainstorm in pairs.

This gives people the chance to learn from mistakes, and the empowerment to express their needs during the next uncomfortable situation. Have a list of possible scenarios ready, just in case the brainstorming doesn't produce enough opportunities to explore.

A Take-Home Message

Good communication is a skill that serves people in every area of life. Even the best communicators make mistakes, let alone those of us still learning how to improve. Imagine a world where everyone knew the emotion behind their message and tried to communicate with assertive kindness.

Equipping children with effective communication skills results in higher levels of emotional intelligence, higher test scores, lowering incidents of bullying, and improvements in overall mental well-being. There is so much to gain from practicing these skills.

With the omnipresence of technological advances, kids need to practice these face-to-face skills more than ever.

Building these skills in all age groups builds a society for empathy and emotional resilience. The more practice kids get in school and at home, the better these skills will become. Adults and kids alike have endless opportunities to change how they speak and address their shared needs.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don't forget to download our three Positive Communication Exercises (PDF) for free.

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39 Communication Games and Activities for Kids and Students

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Communication activities for students and kids will improve communication skills in kids of all ages & benefit generations to come.

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One of a routine for reflecting.

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Thinking skill  - Creative Thinking Skill - Practise visible thinking strategies and techniques

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The 4C’s routine provides students with a structure for text-based discussion built around: making connections asking questions identifying key ideas considering application

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QEY5psn4fZ5JBvD-DTWjKGiaCLiYI-K7/view

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Two-Minute Interview

Students interview classmates to gather evidence and ideas about a topic as they practice being active listeners.

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Self-Managements Skills: Mindful Breathing 

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Self-Managements Skills: Mindful Breathing 

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Help them to calm down.

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delegate and share responsibilty for decision making
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rXEM-2a0U5bXddx7UrV3cwx1P1PSejPJ/view

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Thinking - Critical Thinking Skills

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5 tips to improve your critical thinking

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Every day, a sea of decisions stretches before us, and it’s impossible to make a perfect choice every time. But there are many ways to improve our chances — and one particularly effective technique is critical thinking. Samantha Agoos describes a 5-step process that may help you with any number of problems. [Directed by Nick Hilditch, narrated by Addison Anderson].

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This is an interactive map with links to newspapers from around the world.

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Newspaper Map | find and translate all newspapers in the world

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Help the students to know and aware of their understanding and how to communicate that in different ways.

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The Red Light, Yellow Light routine helps learners:

become more aware of specific moments that hold signs of possible puzzles of truth

build sensitivity to spotting potential puzzles within:

claims

ideas

conclusions

generalisations

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The Red Light, Yellow Light routine helps learners: become more aware of specific moments that hold signs of possible puzzles of truth build sensitivity to spotting potential puzzles within: claims...

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Thinking Skill - Critical Thinking Skill

Purpose

This strategy first encourages critical thinking skills, as learners create questions for the opposing team. The second part encourages collaboration, open-mindedness and reflection, as learners make decisions about whether to answer based on their own understanding or whether to work as a team.

Use this strategy when you want students to demonstrate inquiry or open-mindedness as it supports IB pedagogical principles of inquiry-based learning and collaboration, and fosters thinking and self-management skills.

Instructions

This strategy works well as a whole class activity.

1. Divide the class into two teams.

2. Assign numbers to members of both the teams. For instance, Team A & Team B each have student 1, student 2, student 3 and so on.

3. Ask learners to come up with a name for their team.

4. Give time to both the groups to prepare questions on the topic.

5. Student 1 from Team A asks their question to Student 1 from Team B.

6. The responding student can choose whether to answer the question themselves or work with their team to figure out the answer.

7. Scores are calculated based on whether the questions are answered individually or with the help of the team.

In the virtual learning environment

Use breakout rooms to create teams and to prepare questions, then carry out the questioning activity back in the main session.

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The IB Approaches to Learning (ATL) embody the main pedagogical principles that underpin delivery of the IB programmes. The IB Approaches to Learning are skills and attitudes that allow students to develop as self-regulated learners, able to set and meet learning goals, generate motivation, self-interrogate, show perseverance, be resilient and reflect on their achievements.

In the wake of COVID-19, when so many of us suddenly found ourselves teaching in unfamiliar contexts, educators have faced a the challenge of incorporating teaching ATLs in the virtual learning environment.

It could be argued, however, that it has never been more important to deliver learning experiences that foster the IB ATLs through inquiry-based and collaborative approaches.

In this blog, you'll find flexible adaptive strategies to develop the ATLs across different learning settings, subjects and age ranges in MYP, DP and CP classrooms, whether face-to-face or online.

1. Clock Buddies
Purpose
Clock buddies can be used over multiple lessons to quickly assign partners for experiential learning or project based-learning outcomes.

This strategy encourages organisational, self-management and collaborative skills as students work together to perform the activity.
Instructions
Give students a blank clock and ask them to circulate around the room to find partners for each clock hour. Once students have made appointments by filling in their clock, you can quickly pair up students for future activities by saying things like: "Everyone stand up and find your 2 o'clock partner. Instead of a clock template you could use Map Buddies, Compass buddies or Shape buddies.
In the virtual learning environment
Use a group making tool like this one from Instant Classroom or breakout rooms in Zoom.

2. Stump my Partner
Purpose
This strategy first encourages critical thinking skills, as learners create questions for the opposing team. The second part encourages collaboration, open-mindedness and reflection, as learners make decisions about whether to answer based on their own understanding or whether to work as a team.

Use this strategy when you want students to demonstrate inquiry or open-mindedness as it supports IB pedagogical principles of inquiry-based learning and collaboration, and fosters thinking and self-management skills.
Instructions
This strategy works well as a whole class activity.

1. Divide the class into two teams.

2. Assign numbers to members of both the teams. For instance, Team A & Team B each have student 1, student 2, student 3 and so on.

3. Ask learners to come up with a name for their team.

4. Give time to both the groups to prepare questions on the topic.

5. Student 1 from Team A asks their question to Student 1 from Team B.

6. The responding student can choose whether to answer the question themselves or work with their team to figure out the answer.

7. Scores are calculated based on whether the questions are answered individually or with the help of the team.

In the virtual learning environment
Use breakout rooms to create teams and to prepare questions, and then carry out the questioning activity back in the main session.

3. Socratic Seminar
Purpose
This strategy encourages higher-order thinking skills and self-management as students follow a sequenced protocol to explore open-ended questions. Use this strategy when you want students to be reflective and open-minded.
Instructions
This strategy works well as a whole class activity.

1. Select a topic that you want students to understand more thoroughly. It works well to set a required reading task for the students prior to the seminar.

2. Before the seminar, prepare interpretive questions that do not have a right or wrong response, but will instead invite thought and expression. This template is a useful resource to support the writing of questions.

3. Up to 15 students sit in a circle. For a larger class, students could take turns sitting in the "inner circle" that is observed by the "outer circle" of students.

4. Set rules for the seminar including:

Each student should participate. You may want to start the discussion with a Round Robin so that each student has an initial opportunity to participate.

Students speak directly to each other (one at a time) so there is no discussion leader.

Students should provide evidence for each statement they make and identify its source (personal experience, reading, etc.).

Students can disagree with others in a respectful manner.

Optionally, you can use a "talking piece" - something a speaker must be holding to have the floor.

5. Pose an open-ended question to the group that you want them to think about thoroughly. Some example questions include:

How is _______ similar to [another subject we've discussed]

What do you think another point of view would be on this issue?

What does it mean to be human?

In the virtual learning environment
Flipgrid is a tool designed to capture the voice of every student. This is ideal for sharing student responses to open questions. It can also be used when students are absent or unable to participate in the socratic seminar.

4. Know your partner
Purpose
This strategy encourages affective skills as students learn about each other and develop respect for others' opinions and choices. It also encourages emotional well-being through the development of authentic connections with one another.
Instructions

1. Ask students to gather around a table and form an inner and outer circle.

2. Ask the students to sit facing each other, so they form partners.

3. Have each team member share a unique trait about themselves to the partner which is not known to the class. Consider using a sentence starter such as: "One thing you can't tell by looking at me is..." or "One thing I am really good at is..."

4. Once the discussion is done, partners share each other's unique traits to the whole class.

5. This activity can be adapted to explore different hobbies, likes and interests.

In the virtual learning environment
Word Clouds by Mentimeter can be used to capture commonalities - the biggest words are the ones that are entered the most frequently by the group.

Zoom backgrounds are a great way to invite students to show their unique interests and experiences - ask them to use a photo of their favorite holiday destination, their favorite animal or their funniest meme.

Finally, add a bit of fun to your online classes by asking students to dress up by themes: you'll be surprised what you can learn about one another when wearing your most eccentric headwear or your cosiest sweater.

5. Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges
Purpose
This strategy encourages critical thinking, reflection and open-mindedness. It supports students to reflect on different perspectives in local and global contexts. It also fosters research skills.
Instructions

1. Students discuss a series of pictures based on race, class, gender or environmental problems.

2. After the discussion, students reflect their thoughts and discussions in a writing journal.

3. Then students use their journal responses to synthesize and take action to break barriers they have identified in their own world.

4. Finally, students read the topic and discuss how the topic relates to the pictures they discussed.

Examples:

In a science classroom, pictures of climate change or pollution can be used where students synthesize solutions to these problems.

In an Individual and Societies classroom pictures of different governments can be used to understand the topic of Governing bodies in the world, so students can criticise the strengths and weaknesses of these governments.

In a Language and Literature classroom, this strategy helps to provoke thoughts during a novel study.
In a virtual learning environment
Capture students' ideas and reflections in a visual way on Padlet.

6. Learning Circles
Purpose
This strategy encourages students to receive and give meaningful feedback, and respect the opinions and choices of others. It also fosters reflection, collaboration and communication skills as students are encouraged to share their thinking with the group.
Instructions

1. Prepare open-ended questions in advance, e.g. "What makes this topic interesting?"

2. Students form circles in small groups (3-5 students).

3. Present the first question to the class (read aloud or post on the board).

4. Students reflect in writing on large post-it notes and then share out their answers verbally one by one.

5. Other members of the group then take turns to give feedback, comments or ask questions.

6. Students stick their post-it notes up on the wall to create a gallery of ideas, from which students can read about the views and discussions that happened in different groups.

In the virtual learning environment
Check out Wonder.me as an alternative to the usual video conferencing platforms. Students can move themselves around between groups and strike up conversations as they go.

Jamboard is a great tool for collecting ideas and reflections on specific topics or questions.

7. Assess Me
Purpose
Metacognitive formative assessments are used to help students reflect on their process and progress. Students receive feedback from peers and instructors. It provides a chance for students to practice self-regulation and make changes to future behaviors. Use this strategy to foster resilience, affective and self-management skills.
Instructions
Use formative assessments that are metacognitive. Consider these examples.

1. Muddiest point (one minute paper)

What do you understand/not understand after today's class?

What one question do you still have?

2. Exam wrappers

How did you study this time, what worked/didn't work, how would you study differently?

What did you get wrong on the exam and why? Where did you find the answer, could you solve/answer a new problem on the same topic now?

3. Redo

Pick a questions you answered incorrectly on the test.

Explain what you were thinking when you wrote/selected that answer.

Explain how you figured out the correct answer.

In a virtual learning environment
Use assessment tools as AssessPrep, Quiziz or Kahoot to gamify assessment and capture student reflections afterwards using Padlet.

8. Doodle express
Purpose
This strategy encourages creative thinking and reflective skills. Use this strategy with students who prefer to communicate with artistic expression over words.
Instructions
Ask students to express their thoughts in the form of art rather than words. Students reflect what they understood in a lesson through a doodle activity. Read more about the benefits of doodling on student learning here.
In the virtual learning environment
Encourage student's creativity online with Sketchnoting or use Mural for collaborative mind mapping and visualisation activities.

Alternatively, take the work offline and ask students to use the ManageBac built-in mobile scanner to upload an image of their product.

9. Secret Code
Purpose
This strategy encourages communication and thinking skills. This strategy works particularly well with students learning subject specific terminology.
Instructions
Create terminology cards where the cards contain part but not all of a word. For example, if students are learning the term "semi-lunar valve" this could be split into three cards: semi, lunar, valve.

This could be made more challenging by using sounds: se, mi, lu, nar, val, ve

Deal the deck of cards so each student has multiple pieces. Students circulate around the class to 'crack the secret code' and find the pieces of their word.
In the virtual learning environment
WebQuest is an inquiry-based activity where students are given a task and provided with access to online resources to help them complete the task.
Sign up or login to MiniPD to book a session with the author! References
Chowning, Jeanne Ting (2009). "Socratic Seminars In Science Class: Providing a structured format to promote dialogue and understanding." Science teacher (Normal, Ill.) vol. 76,7: 36-41.

Gutierez, Sally. (2017). Breaking barriers: Research-based collaborative professional development between in-service teachers and university researchers. New Trends and Issues Proceedings on Humanities and Social Sciences. 4. 261-269. 10.18844/prosoc.v4i1.2264.

Saibhavya Prabu started her career as a researcher at the Oral Cancer Institute (ACTREC) and moved into teaching over a decade ago with the aim of enhancing equity in education. Currently she works at Ebenezer International School, Bangalore India.

An an experienced education practitioner, Saibhavya has built her own repertoire of practices for teaching learning. Being a digitally certified educator, she embraces technology to enhance the teaching and learning process. Saibhavya is also an examiner for IB Diploma and CAIE, a NEASC-CIE, joint NEASC-CIS accreditation team visitor and an IB Workshop facilitator.

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Strategies for fostering the IB Approaches to Learning (ATL) in MYP and DP classrooms - ManageBac

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The IB Approaches to Learning are skills and attitudes that allow students to develop as self-regulated learners, able to set and meet learning goals, generate motivation, self-interrogate, show perseverance, be resilient and reflect on their achievements.

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Resource Toolkit - Class Feedback Strategies

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Resource Toolkit - Class Feedback Strategies

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Link form Lenny Dutton's Google Sheet.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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The reasons to write a reflective journal:

1. To understand the things that have happened.

2. To reflect on why it happened this way.

3. To align future actions with your values and lessons learned from your past experiences.

4. To share and get your thoughts and ideas out of your head.

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What is a Reflective Journal?

A reflective journal is a place to write down your daily reflection entries. It can be something good or bad that has happened to you that you can self-reflect on and learn from past experiences.

A reflective journal can help you to identify important learning events that had happened in your life. The events include your relationships, careers and personal life. By writing a reflective diary, you can find the source of your inspiration that defines you today. A reflective journal also provides a better understanding of your thought process.

Reasons to Write a Reflective Journal

1. To understand the things that have happened.

2. To reflect on why it happened this way.

3. To align future actions with your values and lessons learned from your past experiences.

4. To share and get your thoughts and ideas out of your head.

There's no time like the present - download Journey app today!

How to Reflect Effectively

According to Schön, there are two types of reflection, one during and one after an activity or event.

Reflection In-Action

When you are thinking about or reflecting while you are in an activity, you are using reflection in-action. Some reflection include:

Experiencing

Thinking on your feet

Thinking about what to do next

Acting straight away

Reflection On-Action

You can do reflect-on-action once the activity has finished based on what you can remember about it. Step back into the experience, explore your memory and retrieve what you can recall. Reflect and understand what has happened and draw lessons from the experience.

Thinking about something that has happened

Thinking what you would do differently next time

Taking your time

Examples to Reflect Effectively

Before the Experience

Think about the things that could have happened.

What are the things that you feel might be a challenge?

The things that you can do to prepare for these experiences.

During the Experience

Observe what is happening at the moment, as you make a particular decision.

Is it working out as expected? Are you dealing with the challenges well?

Is there anything you should do, say or think to make the experience successful?

After the Experience

Describe your thoughts immediately after, and/or later when you have more emotional distance from the event.

Is there anything you would do differently before or during a similar event?

What are the takeaways from this experience/lesson?

There's no time like the present - download Journey app today!

How to Write Reflectively

Use the three "W"s to write reflectively. The three "W"s are What, So What and What next.

What (Description)

Recall an event and write it down descriptively.

So what? (Interpretation)

Take a few minutes to reflect and interpret the event.

What is most important / interesting / relevant / useful aspect of the event, idea or situation?

How can it be explained?

How is it similar to/different from others?

What's next? (Outcome)

Conclude what you can learn from the event and how you can apply it next time.

What have I learned?

How can it be applied in the future?

Reflective Journal Prompts

Here are the 10 writing prompts to guide you in self-reflection and self-discovery.

1. What makes you unique?

2. Name someone that means a lot to you and why?

3. Write a letter to your younger self.

4. What is something you can do to focus more on your health and well-being?

5. What makes you feel at peace?

6. List 10 things that make you smile.

7. What does it mean to live authentically?

8. What is your favourite animal, and why?

9. How do you maintain your physical/mental health? What can you do to improve the methods of recovery?

10. List the things that you want to achieve this week.

There's no time like the present - download Journey app today!

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How to Write a Reflective Journal with Tips and Examples | Journey.Cloud

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A reflective journal is a place to write down your daily reflection entries. It can be something good or bad that has happened to you that you can self-reflect on and learn from past experiences. A reflective journal can help you to identify important learning events that had happened in your life.

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Stimulates student learning through movement and discussion and promotes agency.

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I used to use See Think Wonder to engage in critical thinking. I think I can use to use "What? How? Why" method to have deeper observation.
For self-management, I will use "I used to think..., but now I think..."

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Here are rubrics based on the five ATL skills for use in the MYP.

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Independence and self-regulation are important skills for all learners, not least if you follow the Approaches to Learning (ATL) methodology for the IB Middle Years Program. Below you'll find rubrics for students to fill in for each of the 5 ATL skill categories.

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Independence and self-regulation are important skills for all learners, not least if you follow the Approaches to Learning (ATL) methodology for the IB Middle Years Program. Below you'll find rubrics for students to fill in for each of the 5 ATL skill categories.

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Communication & Thinking Skill

SECRET CODE

Purpose

This strategy encourages communication and thinking skills. This strategy works particularly well with students learning subject specific terminology.

Instructions

Create terminology cards where the cards contain part but not all of a word. For example, if students are learning the term “semi-lunar valve” this could be split into three cards: semi, lunar, valve.

This could be made more challenging by using sounds: se, mi, lu, nar, val, ve

Deal the deck of cards so each student has multiple pieces. Students circulate around the class to ‘crack the secret code’ and find the pieces of their word.

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Thinking Skill -  Comparing and contrasting, reasoning, creative thinking, evaluating

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World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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How can you develop your students' thinking skills? Rosie Tanner and Liz Dale have an activity that might help, taken from their book, CLIL Activities.

Outline: Learners change 'skinny' questions into 'fat' questions.
Level: B1 and above

Age: Any

Time: 30 minutes

Language focus: Questions

Language skills: Reading and writing

Thinking skills: Comparing and contrasting, reasoning, creative thinking, evaluating

Preparation: Skinny questions usually require factual, short answers; fat questions help learners to think more and use more language than skinny ones, so they are great for CLIL. Choose a text with skinny questions or write five skinny questions to accompany the text.

Procedure

1. Draw a 'skinny' question mark on the board, and ask learners a subject question which requires a short, factual answer (e.g. geography: What is the average temperature in summer in your country? ).
2. Draw a 'fat' question mark on the board, and ask learners a subject question which requires a longer answer, and makes them think (e.g. geography: How does the average temperature change during a typical year in your country?). Discuss the difference between the two questions with your class, and introduce the terms skinny and fat questions .

3. Put learners into pairs and hand out the text and skinny questions. Ask the learners to change each skinny question into a fat question. They should also write their own model answers for each fat question on a different piece of paper. The answers to the questions might be found in the text, or between the lines.

4. Form groups of four from two pairs. The pairs give their fat questions to each other, keeping the answers to themselves. They answer each other's fat questions.

5. The pairs give their answers to each other and discuss any differences between their answers.

6. Ask each group to choose the best question (i.e. the question that really made them think and use lots of language in their answer). Share and discuss these together.

Skinny questions
(lower-order thinking skills,
short answers)

Fat questions
(higher-order thinking skills,
longer answers)

What happened when I added the acid?

Can you explain the shape of the graph?

What is electricity?

How could we use our work on electricity to design a winter lighting system for a greenhouse?

What is the greenhouse effect?

How might the greenhouse effect affect the lives of your children and grandchildren?

Give me 10 different words starting with in- .

What do you think the prefix in- means? How many other prefixes can you think of which mean the same?

Have you read Chapter 8?

What is your opinion of Chapter 8?

What did David Livingstone discover?

How do you think David Livingstone's early life affected his career? Describe a day in the life of David Livingstone in Africa.

Subject examples

Most texts can be used for this activity.

Follow-up

Learners write their own fat questions about a different text.

Tips for cross-curricular cooperation between subject and language teachers

Before the lesson: The language teacher practises question forms with the learners.

After the lesson: The language teacher gives feedback on common mistakes made in formulating questions.

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Skinny and fat questions and thinking skills | Cambridge English

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How can you develop your students' thinking skills? Rosie Tanner and Liz Dale share an activity from their book, CLIL activities, suitable for any age.

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Independence and self-regulation are important skills for all learners, not least if you follow the Approaches to Learning (ATL) methodology for the IB Middle Years Program. Below you'll find rubrics for students to fill in for each of the 5 ATL skill categories.

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Independence and self-regulation are important skills for all learners, not least if you follow the Approaches to Learning (ATL) methodology for the IB Middle Years Program. Below you'll find rubrics for students to fill in for each of the 5 ATL skill categories.

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scroll down and download on X_ Student IB Quarterly Self Assessment.pdf

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International Baccalaureate

Approaches to learning

A unifying thread throughout all MYP subject groups, approaches to learning (ATL) provide the foundation for independent learning and encourage the application of their knowledge and skills in unfamiliar contexts. Developing and applying these social, thinking, research, communication and self management skills helps students learn how to learn.

Approaches to Learning skills help students prepare for, and demonstrate learning through, meaningful assessment. They provide a common language that students and teachers can use to reflect on and articulate on the process of learning. ATL skills are most powerful when teachers plan and students engage with them in connection with significant and relevant content knowledge to develop transferable understanding.

Every MYP unit identifies ATL skills that students will develop through their inquiry and demonstrate in the unit's formative, if applicable, and summative assessments.
There are 5 major categories to Approaches to Learning:

1. Communication
2. Social
3. Self Management
4. Research
5. Thinking
Students self-monitor their progression in these skills every quarter on their IB Self-Assessment Report Card. These should be signed and shared with parents quarterly (an example is attached below).

Also attached are the Scope and Sequencing of Approaches to Learning Skills that are introduced, practiced, and eventually mastered across the 5 years of the Middle Years Programme.

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As we are always working on our ATL skills just as our students are its important not to give our skills or lack there of a number or letter score. Instead acknowledging the skills we need improvement in and finding ways to improve in those skills will be far more useful.

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I feel that assessment is linked to our assessments of the milestones in Early Years, but not exclusively assessed. I feel this is an area that we could develop further, perhaps incorporating the ATLs in our written termly reports.

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I'm still coming back to the discussion about penalising children twice for the impact that poor ATL skills have on their learning of their subject knowledge and how this can be overcome. Interesting discussions about reporting ATLs to parents and how much weight is put on it by parents, students and teachers.
I have enjoyed looking at the resources but throughout the two days the things that I have enjoyed the most are the discussions with colleagues, sparking ideas and insights and raising more questions to answer (or to work towards answering).

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What are you thinking and reflecting on regarding ATL assessment following our last session?

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What are you thinking and reflecting on regarding ATL assessment following our last session?

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We should let the students pre- and post-assess themselves on every unit to make the ATL learning process meaningful.

In regard to the academic and ATL in the report, there may be some questions on how these two might be interdependent with each other however, I personally think that one cannot be achieved without the success of the other.

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assessing ATL can be done by the teachers, students (self) and pair. There are cases where the result of their academic record and their ATL is not in line which sometimes create argument on which one to focus on. We can identify students ATL progress as early as we started our unit, giving them a checklist on what have they done and which part need to be improved will help them doing a self-reflection to give additional information and evidence of their learning process.

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We ended up discussing ways to enrich the maths course through the use of inquiry and some great Maths specific resources.
Also focusing on how notetaking in Maths can be improved to give agency to the students and also responsibility for their own learning.

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Making ATLs built in to my teaching and how to assess them as I'm going along

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In the Early Year assessment, the ATL is actually assessed through the self-assessment, checklist and rubrics, but it was not explicitly written.

Open-ended assessment also can be done in the Early Years by giving choices to the students.

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- We are assessing ATL skills implicitly through formative and summative assessments.
- Pupils can use skill checks from MYP books.
- Teachers need to have ATL skills to be able to identify student progress of ATLs

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Since signing up for this PD, I have been wondering what 'assessing' ATL personal development skills could look like. I am now thinking the ideal iteration of assessment would be a system where the evaluation of the skills are handed over to the students in a structured, scaffolded, fashion.
Pre-assessment of selected sub skills the students would need to utilise to through an inquiry and then a post assessment where students provide evidence to justify their assessment would make the personal skills more personal.
As teachers we assess them against the criteria - how can we truly, accurately, assess skills that are not always visible?

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What are you thinking and reflecting on regarding ATL assessment following our last session?

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What are you thinking and reflecting on regarding ATL assessment following our last session?

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Now I know: I will find a way to explicitly connect some ATL skills with the strands in the MYP Mathematics criteria.

Questions to answer:

As there are dozens of ATL skills, how will I decide which ones to connect with the strands? Do I simply go over each and every one of the ATL skills and map whichever I can to a strand? How will I justify the connections I make? Wouldn't this be highly subjective?

If my goal is to create "2.0" versions of assessment tasks I have, I'd need to be more objective in the process. The question is how? Or maybe that's a question for the "2.1" version of those assessment tasks...

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I know that measuring progress in ATL will need to be assessed within a familiar context, specifically on a topic or concept that students have been learning. Also, assessing of an ATL needs to occur after students have had sufficient time to practice the specific skill you would like to assess.

I like the idea shared by other teachers in our group which states that students should be self-assessing themselves on their ATLs and the role of the teacher would be to give feedback on their self-assessment.

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What are you thinking and reflecting on regarding ATL assessment following our last  session?

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What are you thinking and reflecting on regarding ATL assessment following our last  session?

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I agree
1. To check the development and progress of learners’ skills
2. To create opportunities to give learners feedback to improve their performance
3. To teach learners how to accurately judge the quality of
their own work and how to self-assess and improve.
4. Teaching learners how to notice what they can’t do yet, is far more useful than having them prove what they can do.
5. to assess the effect of ATL skills
development on each learner’s mastery of their subject disciplines.
6. Learner self-assessment of ATL proficiency completed pre and post-inquiry unit, unit of work, or time period.
7. Designing assessments so that success requires the use of specific ATL skills at the appropriate level of proficiency
8. Ask your learners to self-report on how well they think they did in the assessment, what they thought they did well, and what they could have done better.
9. Give them feedback on their content, their ATL use and importantly the accuracy of their self-assessment

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I was having a big question on my head "Do we really have to assess the ATL skills since in the PYP we have PYP Learning Continuum which do not mention about the ATL skills at all?". Then, after having discussion with Tim, (again please correct me if I am wrong...) we can assess the ATL skills along the way the unit (it is like a process from the beginning when we introduce the students about an unit (for example: what they will learn, what they will do in the formative, how they reflect themselves in the unit). We can also give feedback verbally the progress of the ATL skills to the students.

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Teacher can support and give a chance for students to make self-assessment and peer assessment, because it will important to develop their skills. ATL assessment just like a process, so not only focus for the result, and important to know what effect for the students.

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Making sure that students can actually use their ATL skills may take a lot of time, and having an assessment that either measures the ATL skill directly or measures how well the ATL skill is implicitly incorporated into the subject is another matter.

But if we as teachers are able to set clear expectations and provide support along the way, especially for MYP lower grade (6–8), then kids can do it. Giving students a rubric or list of the ATL abilities required for the unit itself and asking them how they did might help you gauge the students' growth in their ATL skills before and after the unit.

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What are you thinking and reflecting on regarding ATL assessment ? 

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What are you thinking and reflecting on regarding ATL assessment ? 

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I think the ATL assessment is necessary to find out to what extent that the students have acquired the ATL skills. I learnt that there are many strategies to assess both for formative and also summative assessment. It also challenges the teachers to embed the ATL in the formative / summative assessments. Learning from the discussion made me think whether it is necessary to have an ATL report.