Reflections on Module 2

So the focus this week has been on transdisciplinary learning, understanding key concepts and the ATL skills. I feel like up until now I had a decent understanding of what all of these are and how they might relate to practice, if not a very deep way that is not always easy for me to thoughtfully apply in my lessons.
The activity based on TDL definitely helped me in how to explain the idea to parents, especially looking at the ideas of some of the others. I myself have long thought of them as an excellent concept that makes so much sense as a lens for teaching, especially in primary school- it is, sometimes tricky to explain to new parents.
Going into detail with planning central ideas though concepts did open my eyes as to how truly "central" those concepts should be. All too often it's tempting to plan via a topic and then try to  connect up the key concepts at the end, but I'm now beginning to find that first brainstorming many topics related to the unit and then not moving forward at all with planning until you have found one that links all of your concepts together right from the start. This feels far more authentic and it means that the concepts run deep into guiding everything that you do.
The ATL skills are aspects that I am particularly interested to focusing more on. I have previously struggled to cultivate learners who are truly independent, and I think going forward I may have regular standalone lessons that deal with particular ATL skills, particularly focused on how to research independently. Many of the issues I've had with developing student agency could be related to lack of skills to truly act independently.

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