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Lenny Dutton
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AtL Shake-Up

31/1/2020

 
I've been doing a lot of work with our MYP teachers to make our AtLs more relevant, useful and to have an actual reflection of what goes on in the classroom.  I inherited an AtL chart which had teachers/students covering 242 AtL skills in a year. There was also not a balance across subjects or skills. I am pretty sure that the previous document was not a reflection of what was actually happening in the classroom:
A small team of DP teachers last year decided on a handful AtLs for DP teachers to focus on, so I decided to carry this idea down to the MYP, with all subjects picking just ten AtLs to focus on. The AtLs would have to be linked to the objectives, and should be things they are naturally doing anyway. ​

We will also have AtL skills covered in advisory/homeroom (with a strong focus on self-management and social skills). AtLs can also come up naturally in a unit, or be needed for a particularly cohort, so they can also be added into our units too.


For example:
Design Objective:
Ai. Explain and justify the need for a solution to a problem.
AtL:
Practice Empathy.
[Social skills]
We use empathy to understand client/target audience problems, and the exercises we do around this include the use of empathy maps and empathy interviews. Therefor, we are already explicitly teaching this skill and linking it to the objective. This means that design teachers can easily articulate how we do this, when and we can talk about the progression. We don't have to refer to our units or whip out the AtL chart, because this is our bread and butter - something we know and do often. Also by picking an AtL for an objective, it does not mean that you have to use that AtL every time you use the objective....just often!

Here are some other obvious examples:
Art Objective
A iii. use acquired knowledge to purposefully inform artistic decisions in the process of creating artwork.
AtL: Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products or processes [Thinking: Creative Thinking Skills]

Math Objective
Ci. use appropriate mathematical language (notation, symbols and terminology) in both oral and written explanations
AtL: Understand and use mathematical notation [Communication skills]

Individual and Societies Objective:
Ciii document sources of information using a recognized convention.
AtL: Create references and citations, use footnotes/endnotes and construct a bibliography according to recognized conventions [Research: Information Literacy Skills]

For Language Acquisition, they decided to pick out ten AtL skills based on the Phase 4 objectives. We also tried to keep the exact wording that the IB provided, by re-worded a science and an art skill.
Here are the AtLs all subjects picked. Click on the tabs at the bottom to see the different subject selections.


I also worked with my husband to make some nice posters for each subject. These posters are now printed A3 sized and are in every classroom that teaches a certain subject (which means some classrooms have three different posters in). I will hand out some for staff rooms too and have emailed the learning support team a booklet with them all in. Now we need to work on documenting what we are already doing.
​Here are the posters:
Is anyone else doing anything similar in their schools?
How are you making sure teachers aren't just writing in AtL skills that they touch on, instead of ones they are actually teaching, and skills which are linked to the objectives? How are you making sure the AtL chart is an actual reflection of what is going on in the classroom, and not something that sits on a shelf/in a folder.
Share your tips in the comments!
Mary Jaison
31/1/2020 01:16:45 pm

These resources are amazing. Thank you.

Lenny Dutton
1/3/2020 11:31:48 am

Thanks :)

Louise Harrison
31/1/2020 07:19:22 pm

This is great. Thank you so much.

Lenny Dutton
1/3/2020 11:31:27 am

You are very welcome

Natalie Martino
3/2/2020 01:40:03 am

Greetings Lenny! We are in a K-12 AtL inquiry this year, and are so happy to see these excellent resources you've provided. After heading to a Lance King workshop this past November, we had planned to do something similar, so it is very helpful to see the road you've paved. Do you happen to be at a continuum school? I am curious if the PYP teachers are doing something similar. We've noticed that there are differences in the AtL "categories" and "clusters" from PYP to MYP, however the process looks useful for PYP teachers as well. Cheers, Natalie

Lenny
1/3/2020 11:31:02 am

We are! We have PYP, MYP and DP.
I'm working with the PYP team next. Firstly we just chose some AtLs to ease with Grade 5/6 transition. I've also shared a bunch of resources with them and I'm working on a PYP AtL toolkit

Cherry Siddall
4/2/2020 11:43:43 am

What a great resource, thanks so much for sharing!

Susan Kammerer
4/2/2020 02:26:04 pm

This material and approach is wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing.

Lenny Dutton
1/3/2020 11:29:49 am

You are welcome :)

Silvana Harba
29/2/2020 12:13:01 pm

Am I able to get a copy of what you have done with the ATL for each subject and the posters?

Lenny Dutton
1/3/2020 11:29:28 am

If you click the link to the spreadsheet, it has a tab for each subject.
I don't have editable copies of the posters I'm afraid

Marithe Benavente-Llamas
10/3/2020 12:20:38 am

Lenny: as always, big fan of your work. I am wondering what the process looked like. I imagine that your small team of teachers were invested and really wanted to see something manageable/achievable. What about those who were not part of the initial team? How did they buy in?

I love what you have here. Thanks so much!

Glen Fleury
4/5/2020 01:43:42 am

Hi Lenny
Thanks so much for doing this. I'm MYP Coordinator in a candidate school and we are starting the process of grappling with mapping and articulating the ATL skill - so this is really helping us simplify things and with our decision making. Do you have a list of the generic skills that are taught during your advisory programme and as part of other CORE elements such as service and the projects?
Thanks
Glen

Monica
14/9/2020 11:56:27 am

Great work Lenny!

Are these 10 ATL skills for all the Years?
Can you please share some activities that address the ATL's and meet the objectives?

Lenny
17/9/2020 01:09:45 pm

Example would be for Ai - Design, we do Empathy Maps, we also do client interviews, and perspective taking activities :)

Hannah
6/10/2021 05:34:25 am

Thank you so much. I was trying to create ATLs for all department to focus on but I think it's a better idea for each to concentrate on 10.

Should there be 10 focus per year group or per subject for the a academic year.

I would like to show progression in each group.

Hannah
6/10/2021 05:56:07 am

Please can you share posters and google sheets. I would like to implement with my team.


Comments are closed.

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