I Communication skills: Exchanging thoughts, messages and information effectively through interaction

Inquiry focus: How can students communicate through interaction

• Give and receive meaningful feedback
• Use intercultural understanding to interpret communication
• Use a variety of speaking techniques to communicate with a variety of audiences
• Use appropriate forms of writing for different purposes and audiences
• Use a variety of media to communicate with a range of audiences
• Interpret and use effectively modes of non-verbal communication
• Negotiate ideas and knowledge with peers and teachers
• Participate in, and contribute to, digital social media networks
• Collaborate with peers and experts using a variety of digital environments and media
• Share ideas with multiple audiences using a variety of digital environments and media

Inquiry focus: How can students demonstrate communication through language?

II Collaboration skills: Working effectively with others

Inquiry focus: How can students collaborate?

• Use social media networks appropriately to build and develop relationships
• Practice empathy
• Delegate and share responsibility for decision-making
• Help others to succeed
• Take responsibility for one’s own actions
• Manage and resolve conflict and work collaboratively in teams
• Build consensus
• Make fair and equitable decisions
• Listen actively to other perspectives and ideas
• Negotiate effectively
• Encourage others to contribute
• Exercise leadership and take on a variety of roles within groups
• Give and receive meaningful feedback
• Advocate for your own rights and needs

III Organization skills: Managing time and tasks effectively

Inquiry focus: How can students demonstrate organisation skills?

• Plan short and long term assignments; meet deadlines
• Create plans to prepare for summative assessments (examinations and performances)
• Keep and use a weekly planner for assignments
• Set goals that challenging and realistic
• Plan strategies and take action to achieve personal and academic goals
• Bring necessary equipment and supplies to class
• Keep an organized and logical system of information files/notebooks
• Use appropriate strategies for organizing complex information
• Understand and use sensory learning preferences (learning styles)
• Select and use technology effectively and productively

IV Affective skills: Managing state of mind

Inquiry focus: How can students manage their own state of mind?

• Mindfulness
• Practice focus and concentration
• Practice strategies to develop mental quiet
• Practice strategies to overcome distractions
• Perseverance
• Demonstrate persistence and perseverance
• Practice delaying gratification
• Emotional management
• Practice strategies to overcome impulsiveness and anger
• Practice strategies to prevent and eliminate bullying
• Practice strategies to reduce anxiety
• Practice being aware of body-mind connections
• Self-motivation
• Practice analyzing and attributing causes for failure
• Practice managing self-talk
• Practice positive thinking
• Resilience
• Practice ‘bouncing back’ after adversity, mistakes and failures
• Practice ‘failing well’
• Practice dealing with disappointment and unmet expectations
• Practice dealing with change

V Reflection: (Re-)considering what has been learned; choosing and using ATL skills

Inquiry focus: How can students be reflective?

• Develop new skills, techniques and strategies for effective learning
• Identify strengths and weaknesses of personal learning strategies (self-assessment)
• Demonstrate flexibility in the selection and use of learning strategies
• Try new approaches to learning and evaluate their effectiveness
• Consider content (What did I learn about today? What don’t I yet understand? What questions do I have now?)
• Consider ATL skills development (What can already do? How can I share my skills to help peers who need more practice? What will I work on next?)
• Consider personal learning strategies (How efficiently and effectively am I learning? What can I do to become a more efficient and effective learner? How can my understanding of personal strengths and weaknesses help me develop my own strategies for learning?)
• Consider ethical, cultural and environmental implications
• Keep a journal to record reflections

VI Information literacy: Finding, interpreting, judging and creating information

Inquiry focus: How can students demonstrate information literacy?

• Collect, record and verify data
• Access information to be informed and inform others
• Make connections between various sources of information
• Understand the benefits and limitations of personal sensory learning preferences when accessing, processing and recalling information
• Use memory techniques to develop long term memory
• Present information in a variety of formats and platforms
• Collect and analyse data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions
• Process data and report results
• Evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on their appropriateness to specific tasks
• Understand and use technology systems
• Use critical literacy skills to analyze and interpret media communications 

VII Media literacy: Interacting with media to use and create ideas and information

Inquiry focus: How can students demonstrate media literacy?

• Locate, organize, analyse, evaluate, synthesize and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media [including digital social media and online networks]
• Demonstrate awareness of media interpretations of events and ideas [including digital social media]
• Make informed choices about personal viewing experiences
• Understand the impact of media representations and modes of presentation
• Seek a range of perspectives from multiple and varied sources
• Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats
• Compare, contrast and draw connections among (multi)media resources

VIII Critical thinking: Analyzing and evaluating issues and ideas

Inquiry focus: How can students think critically?

• Practice observing carefully in order to recognize problems
• Gather and organize relevant information to formulate an argument
• Recognize unstated assumptions and bias
• Interpret data Evaluate evidence and arguments
• Recognize and evaluate propositions
• Draw reasonable conclusions and generalizations
• Test generalizations and conclusions
• Revise understanding based on new information and evidence
• Evaluate and manage risk
• Formulate factual, topical, conceptual and debateable questions
• Consider ideas from multiple perspectives
• Develop contrary or opposing arguments
• Analyse complex concepts and projects into their constituent parts and synthesize them to create new understanding
• Propose and evaluate a variety of solutions
• Identify obstacles and challenges
• Use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues
• Identify trends and forecast possibilities
• Troubleshoot systems and applications

IX Creativity and innovation: The skills of invention – developing things and ideas that never existed before

Inquiry focus: How can students be creative?

• Use brainstorming and mind mapping to generate new ideas and inquiries
• Consider multiple alternatives, including those that might be unlikely or impossible
• Create novel solutions to complex problems
• Use lateral thinking to make unexpected connections
• Design improvements to existing machines, media and technologies
• Design new machines, media and technologies
• Make guesses and generate testable hypotheses
• Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products or processes
• Create original works and ideas
• Practice flexible thinking – arguing both sides of an argument
• Use visible thinking strategies and techniques
• Propose metaphors and analogies 

X Transfer Utilising skills and knowledge in multiple contexts

Inquiry focus: How can students transfer skills and knowledge among disciplines and subject groups?

• Utilize effective learning strategies in subject groups and disciplines
• Apply skills and knowledge in unfamiliar situations Inquire in different contexts to gain a different perspective
• Compare conceptual understanding across multiple subject groups and disciplines
• Make connections between subject groups and disciplines
• Combine knowledge, understanding and skills to create products or solutions
• Transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies
• Change the context of an inquiry to gain different perspectives