The IB’s six approaches to teaching and five approaches to learning (ATL) support the  IB’s mission and serve as guideposts for IB World School communities.  The main function of ATL is to help students experience learning as an active, dynamic process.  ATL skills are developed incrementally and provide a common language for staff and students to use to strategically plan and reflect on the development of these skills.  This blogpost will consider how approaches to learning skills might support the achievement of the school’s strategic goals.

Understanding the Approaches to Learning Skills

There are five interrelated skill categories that make up the IB continuum’s ATL skills.  The skill categories are: Thinking, Communication, Social, Self-management, and Research skills.  These specific skills, attitudes, and strategies are a seamless part of IB teaching and learning.  Within each skill category are subskills that further delineate the desired outcomes, including inquiry, agency, and students learning how to learn.   

The IB document, “What is an IB education?” describes ATL skills as  “the five categories of interrelated skills [that] aim to empower IB students of all ages to become self-regulated learners who know how to ask good questions, set effective goals, pursue their aspirations and have the determination to achieve them.” 

In a rapidly changing world filled with new technologies and uncertainties, educating students for success in their future requires innovation in approaches to learning.  Students need to be prepared for jobs that may not yet exist and have opportunities to develop the competencies and skills for the 21st century. ATL skills can be transferred into new contexts enabling students to be lifelong learners.

How ATL Skills Support Strategic Goals and Student Success

According to the Pew Research Center’s 2023 study, 80% of U.S. schools’  indicate that preparing students for their future beyond high school is part of their mission statement. The Office of Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) found that students need “knowledge, skills, and attitudes” that will help them become lifelong learners.  As the world becomes more complex and uncertain, students need to be able to think, communicate, and research effectively.   Social and self-management skills are also necessary in order to thrive in this ever-changing context.  

These factors must be considered as schools connect their strategic goals to their school’s mission.  Because many schools’ mission statements have a student-centered stance, helpful information can be found in organizations and research projects that employ a learner-centered perspective.  One example is the OECD PISA High Performing Systems of Tomorrow (HPST) project. Currently in Phase Two, this project is studying what these needs (knowledge, skills, and attitudes) mean for schools.  Below are six of the questions that are central in their work and can also serve as inspiration for schools’ connecting ATL skills to their strategic goals.

• What does it mean for humans to flourish? 

• How should education support human flourishing, at every stage of life? 

• How should education systems be designed to promote human flourishing for all? 

• What learning goals and competencies should people strive for? 

• What learning environments would best support them? 

• How should the teaching profession evolve to facilitate their learning? 

Olli-Pekka Heinonen, Director General of the International Baccalaureate (IB)  and contributor to the HPST project, was featured in the January 21, 2025 Times Educational Supplement (TES) article, “Why the ‘human capital theory’ era of education is over”.  He shares the project they are considering, “what would education look like if the goal is human and planetary flourishing?”  He goes on to list three areas that he deems as foundational, including core skills.  He also reveals that the IB conducted exploratory research into “competencies of the future”.  He notes that these findings, released in 2024, are being utilized to connect teaching approaches to curriculum updates.   

Since ATL skills help students learn how to learn, demonstrate learning, and provide a common language for educators and students to reflect on learning, they can be looked upon as important tools for strategic planning.  Selected ATL skills can help students develop self-knowledge, a sense of agency that empowers them to meet challenging work in all their subjects, and the IB learner profile attributes. These skills are transferable to new and unfamiliar situations which are important in problem-solving and for critical and creative thinking skills. Educators can collaborate and design learning with guiding questions such as:

• How will these skills be explicitly taught?

• What tasks will build proficiency in these skills?

• How will students demonstrate mastery of the skills?

• What is the connection between the skills and the assessment in units of instruction?

The dual focus of content and process promotes student engagement, deep understanding, and the transfer of knowledge.

Empowering Instructional Planning with ATL Workshops

In the ATL workshop, educators gain an understanding of how to think about, plan, and teach the skills students need to assess, evaluate, and apply knowledge; communicate in various ways; explore concepts and ideas; and engage in creation, problem-solving, research, and collaboration.  Knowing that the ATL skills are backed by current research provides a foundation that encourages educators to move forward in ways that best serve students.  The workshops activities evolve from provocations that allow participants to construct understandings about skills-based learning by exploring how ATL skills support other elements of an IB education, such as collaborating with other learners to share ideas, revelations, questions, and resources.  

One of the workshop objectives is to, “develop a deeper understanding of ATL as a way for students to acquire and use skills developed over time in order to access learning.”  This objective highlights the value of ATL skills across the curriculum and grade levels. 

In the strategic planning process, a school determines by whom and when specific skills will be taught. Schools also select school-wide ATL skills that benefit every community member.  One example is to choose the ATL skill “work effectively with others”.  This transferable skill is taught and reinforced inside and outside of the classroom. It also has wider implications, including supporting the growth of the IB learner profile attributes of caring, communicating, and open-mindedness. In a broader sense, this choice also impacts strategic goals for well-being, anti-bullying initiatives, creating a sense of belonging, and lowering negative behaviors. Consequently, class productivity will increase.  Metrics for measuring the impact of this goal could be tied to behavioral incident data and survey results.  This type of thinking, process, and action can also be applied to a Programme Development Plan (PDP). The ATL workshop prepares participants to integrate these skills into all aspects of strategic planning and the larger school community.

Strengthening Strategic Goals Through the IB Knowledge Framework and ATL Skills

ATL skills are an integral part of an IB education.  The IB Programme standards and practices framework has the ATL skills and subskills peppered throughout, and they are specifically mentioned in the “Learning” section’s “Lifelong Learners” standard.  They are meant to be taught incrementally and opportunities for implicit practice can be carefully crafted to yield increases in academic and social performance. Once the central idea of a unit sets the focus for the assessment, implementation of corresponding ATL skills enable students to be successful. 

In “MYP: From Principles into Practice” the IB states, “The learner profile is the IB’s mission in action.” ATL skills integrate with the learner profile, approaches to teaching, and assessment to help bring the IB mission to life.  For example, collaborative student work that involves the ATL social skills for collaboration, thinking, and research also engages the students in multiple attributes of the IB learner profile, including becoming inquirers, communicators, thinkers, reflective, and knowledgeable. ATL skills and the IB knowledge framework are intertwined and mutually supportive. 

The Significance of Professional Growth in Enhancing ATL Skills

On the IB’s webpage “Meeting PD requirements”, the IB encourages schools to have a “strong commitment to professional learning aligned with focused programme development efforts and school strategic goals” to benefit their IB programme(s).  They further state, “Schools are encouraged to develop comprehensive professional learning plans for all teachers.”  

Imagine two schools with different mindsets about professional development.  School A has adopted the advice of the IB and has a professional learning plan that considers the professional growth of each educator as well as the support needed to develop the capacity to deliver an excellent IB programme which contributes to the achievement of strategic goals.  School B does not have a comprehensive plan for professional learning and only sends the minimum number of educators to the minimum required workshops.  In these two scenarios, one might reflect on which could produce the best opportunity to bring the IB mission through the IB frameworks to life for the benefit of students and the school community.  

Earning Recognition Through IB Workshops

IB educators are recognized for each official IB workshop that they complete.  Following the workshop, a certificate for that specific professional learning experience is issued to the participants and the school coordinator.  

Planning for educators to Attend a Workshop

IB workshop planning to ensure that every educator on staff is provided with opportunities to build their capacity to deliver the programme with excellence is a proactive approach to the continuous improvement of the school’s programme(s). Keeping accurate records of the past IB workshops for each person on staff is an important step.  Analyzing those records will give guidance for professional learning deficits in departments, grade levels, leadership, and individuals.  Staff can also advocate for their professional learning needs via surveys designed to capture this information. Once the PD needs are determined, the budget can be applied with the intention to respectfully prepare staff and deliver and sustain a world class IB programme(s).

Conclusion: Advancing Your ATL Path with CASIE Support

The world keeps changing.  It continues to become more complex and uncertain.  The explicit and strategic teaching of approaches to learning skills to equip students for success in all aspects of their lives is necessary so they have the ability to apply knowledge and skills in various and unfamiliar contexts. Approaches to learning skills are keys to lifelong learning.

The more staff members that have the capacity, knowledge, understandings, and confidence to collaboratively execute a strategic plan that includes explicit and implicit approaches to learning skills instruction, the more  efficacy the school will achieve.  According to Dr. John Hattie’s work on the effect size of practices on student achievement, collective teacher efficacy (CTE) has an extremely high return on investment in application and effort. 

Engaging with CASIE events and IB workshops will enhance your approaches to learning planning and implementation.  Register for our upcoming, in-person or virtual IB continuum Approaches to Learning IB workshop, tailored consulting, other IB workshops, and events at our IB Workshops and CASIE Events webpages.  If you have questions, please contact us at info@casieonline.org and we will be happy to assist.