The first of our three main education goals.
Learning is one of our three main education goals.
The feedback we received from our community has helped inspire a series of objectives to elevate and expand our learning opportunities, in the column on the right.
Our conversations revealed opportunities for TKS to:
Improve alignment across the school in all subject areas in order to ease transitions between grade levels, divisions and IB programs.
Provide more hands-on real world learning experiences for students.
Use analysis of the learning data to inform each student’s class placement and provide recommendations for placement in High School courses.
Incorporate robust program choices that match student interests and appropriate level of challenge.
Enhance the school’s relationship with KAUST University and provide more partnership opportunities.
To help unlock and realize this potential, we’ve identified key objectives against which we’re measuring our progress.
TKS has adopted a definition of high-quality learning that states: At TKS, high quality learning is a dynamic process driven by clearly defined goals. It is meaningful to the learner and empowers them to think deeply, make connections and apply their understanding.
We have also adopted a set of Learning Principles that guide the teaching and learning process.
The TKS learning and teaching architecture ensures a focus on learning and continuous improvement.
● Pedagogical architecture to ensure our approach to instructional design is consistent and that planning includes opportunities for voice and choice for students, appropriate challenge for all students, and high levels of engagement based on the relevancy of topic.
● Curriculum architecture to ensure every component of the curriculum is clear and transparent to all teachers and students. This includes standards, concepts, instructional agreements and disciplinary practices.
● Contact architecture to ensure there is a high degree of collaboration across teachers both horizontally and vertically as well as K-12 instructors and administrators.
These architecture documents provide guidance and coherency to the leadership and teachers for how we conduct teaching and learning at TKS to ensure our students receive a consistent learning experience. This means our teaching and learning process is comprehensive in nature and that there is a structure to support the on-going development of high-quality learning at TKS.
This addresses any inconsistencies and helps to align our pedagogical practices across the school to ensure alignment across the different subject areas, divisions within the school (KG, GES, GSS) and IB Programs (PYP, MYP, DP). The architecture documents also provide structures to ensure that the TKS guiding statements are practically implemented in student learning. This reinforces our identity as a school and enables us to onboard and orient teachers effectively, for them to understand their shared responsibility in delivering on these Learning Principles.
We will:
● Create phase-based instructional agreements to identify the key tools and strategies which guide instruction in each subject.
● Support teams to use the K-12 instructional agreements and disciplinary practices to gather data about areas of strength and opportunities for growth within teams and to develop further consistency across divisions.
● Align teaching expectations to the Learning Principles.
● Review the guidelines to our Language and Assessment Policies to further improve consistency, clarity and continuity for students.
These standards cover the logical and research-based progression of knowledge, skills, and understandings that should be attained at each grade level. By adopting these standards, teachers have greater guidance on what content and skills should be covered in a grade level subject area based on what they have learned in previous years and what they will learn in the future.
It helps ease the transition process for students between grade levels, divisions, and IB programs. This also ensures a greater coherency in the K1-12 learning progression for all subject areas.
3. Increase student voice and choice to allow students to lead and engage in innovative, real-world learning opportunities.
At TKS, we use an inquiry-based approach to instruction which naturally allows students to follow an area of their interest within the scope of the learning outcomes for a given unit of study. Our teachers continue to strive to strike the balance between direct instruction of content standards, conceptual understandings, and allowing students the time and space to investigate independently in areas that are of interest to them.
The importance of student voice and choice in the teaching and learning process is that it increases their engagement, which ultimately improves student performance.
Our grade level teams and departments are:
We’re also striving to engage more deeply with KAUST to provide hands-on real world learning experiences for students.
I worked with the IT Security Department to raise awareness about possible cybersecurity risks. This took the form of presentations, advertisements, and videos. It helped supplement my learning because I am interested in the world of computers. It also enriched my work experience which is particularly important when applying to universities. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet people whom I otherwise might have not met.
Teachers are using multiple measurements to identify the best level of challenge for each student.
This allows the learning to be much more personalized and appropriate for each child.
We’ve introduced:
The Secondary School has a flexible academic program which allows students to choose from a set of robust course choices.
TKS and KAUST have expanded opportunities and identified the following ways to collaborate:
1. Networking - conversations, information exchange and developing relationships.
2. Coordination/cooperation - a simple interaction to share knowledge or information with students.
3. Collaboration - some elements of the activity are shared; curriculum aligned and/or extra-curricular (opportunity to enhance the curriculum with unique learning opportunity).
4. Co-creation - the program or activity is developed jointly by TKS and the University/community and some elements are co-created; curriculum aligned and/or extra-curricular (augmented but separate).
5. Partnership - the program or activity aligns with the strategic plan, and ideas and plans are generated from the working partnership; all elements are fully delivered by a TKS and University/community team; fully integrated in the TKS curriculum and University planning.
Through shared understanding, we create a single, common reference point for collaborations between TKS and the University.
There were always many ideas from both KAUST and TKS about ways we could collaborate to provide authentic learning experiences.
Now with dedicated personnel resources and understanding the levels of collaboration, we have a common language and framework for initiating, communicating and planning partnerships.
We’ve adopted a three-tier system to identify students and ensure they receive the appropriate programming:
Universal Design is the delivery model that TKS has adopted for Learning. By June 2022, all teachers have engaged in some professional development on this approach to address the tiered needs of our students.
Students will be served according to their level of need and the areas required. We’re serving students who need additional challenge and enrichment through additional programming, online courses, and acceleration when appropriate.