Director's News

Teaching Our Learners HOW to Think Not WHAT to Think

During the Professional Learning days this week, our faculty worked collaboratively on the many matters that arose during the self-study last year, ahead of our re-accreditation visit by MSA (Middle States Association) and CIS (Council of International Schools) next March. There were also sessions that focused on refining strong pedagogical practices. One such session centered around how best to strengthen inquiry-based learning through visible thinking. The strategy of visible thinking improves deep learning through inquiry, with a focus on HOW to think as opposed to WHAT to think. This approach, which is at the center of the IB curriculum framework, is already commonplace at AISL and indeed many parents have commented that this approach is why their children study at this school.
Teaching Children How to Think not What to Think is a crucial skill and the very nature of education in the 21st Century in our world today. Enjoy the article.

---

And To Consider
A Poem
How Joy Works
You could not stop it
if you tried--
how this blessing
begins to sing
every time it sees
your face,
how it turns itself
in wonder
merely at the mention
of your name.

It is simply
how joy works,
going out to you
when you least expect,
running up to meet you
when you had not thought
to ask.

 - Jan Richardson

Wishing you all a peaceful weekend.
Dr. Oli Tooher-Hancock
Director
​American International School