IB LEARNER PROFILE

from the International Baccalaureate Organization, 2013

The International Baccalaureate® (IB) learner profile describes a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that go beyond academic success.

They imply a commitment to help all members of the school community learn to respect themselves, others and the world around them.

The profile's aims to develop learners who are:

Inquirers:

We nurture our curiosity, developing skills for inquiry and research.  We know how to learn independently and with others.  We learn with enthusiasm and sustain our love of learning throughout life.

Knowledgeable:

We develop and use conceptual understanding, exploring knowledge across a range of disciplines. We engage with issues and ideas that have local and global significance.

Thinkers:

We use critical and creative thinking skills to analyze and take responsible action on complex problems.  We exercise initiative in making reasoned, ethical decisions.

Communicators:

We express ourselves confidently and creatively in more than one language and in many ways.  We collaborate effectively, listening carefully to the perspective of other individuals and groups.

Principled:

We act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness and justice, and with respect for the dignity and rights of people everywhere.  We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences.

Open-minded:

We critically appreciate our own cultures and personal histories, as well as the values and traditions of others.  We seek and evaluate a range of points of view, and we are willing to grow from the experience.

Caring:

We show empathy, compassion, and respect.  We have a commitment to service, and we act to make a positive difference in the lives of others and in the world around us.

Risk-takers:

We approach uncertainty with forethought and determination; we work independently and cooperatively to explore new ideas and innovative strategies.  We are resourceful and resilient in the face of challenges and change.

Balanced:

We understand the importance of balancing different aspects of our lives—intellectual, physical, and emotional—to achieve well-being for ourselves and others.  We recognize our interdependence with other people and with the world in which we live.

Reflective:

We thoughtfully consider the world and our own ideas and experience.  We work to understand our strengths and weaknesses in order to support our learning and personal development.

APPROACHES TO LEARNING

from the International Baccalaureate Organization, 2013

Approaches to teaching and learning are deliberate strategies, skills and attitudes that permeate the teaching and learning environment. These approaches and tools, intrinsically linked with the IB learner profile attributes, enhance student learning and assist student preparation for DP assessment and beyond.

The development of skills such as thinking skills and communication skills is frequently identified as a crucial element in preparing students effectively for life beyond school. A 2007 survey of 400 hiring executives of major US corporations identified their top four requirements of new recruits as being oral and written communication skills, critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, professionalism and work ethic, and teamwork and collaboration skills (Trilling and Fadel 2009).

The term “skill” is therefore used in a broad sense in the DP to encompass cognitive, metacognitive and affective skills.

Cognitive skills include all the information-processing and thinking skills, often called “study skills” in a school environment.

Affective skills are the skills of behaviour and emotional management underpinning attitudinal factors such as resilience, perseverance and self-motivation, which often have a large role to play in educational achievement.

Metacognitive skills are the skills that students can use to monitor the effectiveness of their learning skills and processes, to better understand and evaluate their learning.

The next five sub-sections of this document will explore each of the five ATL skills categories in turn. They will identify some of the specific skills that make up these categories, discuss what these skills look like in students, and discuss strategies for their development.

THINKING SKILLS:

The term thinking skills refers to a cluster of a large number of related skills, and in the DP particular focus is placed on skills such as metacognition, reflection and critical thinking. In this way, while a crucial element of developing students’ thinking is helping them to build up a toolkit of skills, it is equally important to cultivate dispositions such as open-mindedness and curiosity.

…in essence metacognition “refers to higher-order thinking which involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning” (Hattie 2009). In many ways, improving metacognition is foundational for improving all other skills. Improving students’ metacognitive awareness will help them to become more aware of the ways in which they process information, find patterns, build conceptual understandings, and remember key facts and ideas. Once they are aware that they are using techniques and strategies to perform even the most basic learning tasks, students can be encouraged to consider if there are more effective or efficient ways to achieve those same outcomes. They can then be encouraged to try new ways of learning and to evaluate the results.

Higher-order thinking

DP subjects place a premium on the development of higher-order thinking skills rather than on simple memorization of content…Most DP subject guides provide a list of command terms, and it is important that teachers familiarize students with these terms so that students have a clear understanding of what they are expected to demonstrate in their responses.

• Remember: Recognize, recall
• Understand: Interpret, exemplify, classify, summarize, infer, compare, explain
• Apply: Execute, implement
• Analyze: Differentiate, organize, attribute
• Evaluate: Check, critique
• Create: Generate, plan, produce

Visible Thinking: Embedded thinking into the culture and everyday life of the school

Connect, extend, challenge 

(Routine to help students make connections between old knowledge and new knowledge.)

Generate–sort–connect–elaborate 

• (Concept-mapping routine.)

• (Routine to help effective reflection on how and why their thinking has changed.)

• (Routine where students write a newspaper-style headline to capture the essence of an idea, event, topic, etc.) 

• (Routine for exploring claims. Students make a claim, identify support for that claim, then ask a question related to that claim.)

• (Routine where students think individually, then share/compare their thinking with a partner.) 

COMMUNICATION SKILLS:

The term communication skills is very broad and consists of a cluster of different skills and forms of communication. The University of Melbourne, in association with Cisco, Intel and Microsoft, produced an influential white paper as the foundation document for their “Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills” (ATC21S) project, in which they state that the most essential communication skills for adolescents are as follows (Binkley et al. 2010):

• The ability to communicate, in written or oral form, and understand, or make others understand, various messages in a variety of situations and for different purposes. 

• The ability to listen to, and understand, various spoken messages in a variety of communicative situations, and to speak concisely and clearly. 

• The ability to read and understand different texts, adopting strategies appropriate to various reading purposes (reading for information, for study or for pleasure) and to various text types. 

• The ability to write different types of texts for various purposes. To monitor the writing process (from drafting to proofreading). 

• The ability to formulate one’s arguments, in speaking or writing, in a convincing manner and take full account of other viewpoints, whether expressed in written or oral form. 

• The skills needed to use aids (such as notes, schemes, maps) to produce, present or understand complex texts in written or oral form (speeches, conversations, instructions, interviews, debates). 


All of these communication skills play a crucial role in the DP. For example, within the three elements of the DP core, students need to communicate in a number of different ways:

• in TOK, students undertake both an essay and an oral presentation, and need to be able to formulate arguments clearly and coherently in both formats;
• in the extended essay, the skill referred to above of monitoring the writing process from drafting to proofreading is particularly vital;
• and in CAS, students often, for example, undertake service activities that require effective interaction and communication with members of the local community. 


Strategies to develop communication skills

Mendler(2013) identifies eight simple tips for encouraging good communication in the classroom:

1. Model a good conversation, particularly with students who struggle conversationally. 

2. Encourage physical cues. 

3. Challenge put-downs or hurtful comments. 

4. Ask open-ended questions. 

5. Put thinking ahead of knowing. 

6. Have informal conversations. 

7. Make eye contact. 

8. Encourage turn-taking. 


SOCIAL SKILLS:

Collaboration

Collaborative learning has been found to improve understanding of facts (Fall et al. 1997), increase student motivation and engagement (Cumming 2010), improve academic performance for lower-ability students (Saner et al. 1994), and to produce higher satisfaction in learning (Klein 1992).

An example of a method that can be used to help plan effective collaborative tasks is the spider web discussion method created by Alexis Wiggins (2011). The name is an acronym, describing the specific aspects of the group task and its process.

• synergetic—a collaborative, group effort with a single group grade

• process—a process that must be practised and honed

• independent—students work independently; teacher observes and gives feedback
• developed—a developed, sustained discussion that aims to “get somewhere”
• exploration—an exploration of ideas, texts or questions through discussion with a ...
• rubric—a clear, specific rubric against which the students can self-assess.

SELF-MANAGEMENT SKILLS:

This skill category breaks down into two separate areas.

• Organization skills—managing time and tasks effectively, goal-setting, etc. 


• Affective skills—managing state of mind, self-motivation, resilience, mindfulness, etc. 


RESEARCH SKILLS:

Research today often requires much more comparing, contrasting and validating available information, and winnowing down the volume of data into a manageable quantity. However, fundamental research skills, such as formulating focused and precise research questions, are as crucial today as they always have been.

For most students today, the independent, self-regulated research involved in inquiry-based learning involves internet-based research. Four key internet research skills most students need training in are browsing, being aware, searching and monitoring (Bates 2002):

• Browsing (or surfing)—this is the skill that most students already have in abundance, characterized by a general initial direction of inquiry followed by a willingness to be distracted in almost any other direction at all. The problem with browsing is that it often takes place when more directed research needs to be carried out.
• Being aware—this is more of a critical-literacy skill, and essentially means being aware of all the unsolicited information in our environment, scanning it for relevance but not paying specific or direct attention to it. As a part of DP language and literature courses, students are encouraged to develop this skill.
• Searching—using Boolean operators and search limiters to refine searches through search engines of the general type (Google, Yahoo) and the more specific or scholarly type (university library, commercial database, Google Scholar).
• Monitoring—employing RSS readers to collect together all internet content (feeds) relevant to school subject lines of inquiry, scanning through all collected feeds on a regular basis looking for topics of value, finding the relevant information and downloading, sharing, posting or filing the important data.