Niko LewmanLast week in The Hague, I had the privilege of joining thousands of fellow educators for the IB Global Conference. The theme, “Our Humanity, Connected,” was far more than just a slogan on a banner; it was a pedagogical call to action that resonated through every session I attended.
I walked away with a mind buzzing with ideas, but more importantly, with a clear, actionable thread connecting them all. If our goal is to build a more connected and humane educational experience, our path forward lies in four key areas: Inquiry, Concepts, Agency, and Collaboration.
My Conference Schedule
To provide context for these reflections, here are the sessions I had the opportunity to attend:
Thursday
- Pre-conference workshop 6: Unpacking inquiry: Designing questions, spaces and pathways for deeper learning
- Coordinator Forum: PYP Programme: Authorized Programmes
Friday
- Cultivating connection: The role of learning walk-throughs in collaborative teaching communities
- AI governance in schools: A leadership guide to policy, compliance and ethics
- The PYP: Deep dive into programme developments
- IBEN meeting
Saturday
- Concepts in action: Designing concept-driven lessons
- Inquiry based learning using everyday objects
- Approaches to learning in action: Fostering student agency through dynamic portfolio reflection
The “Why” and “What”: Inquiry and Concepts
For years, we’ve wrestled with moving from “what” students need to know to “why” it matters. Dr. Agustina Lacarte’s sessions provided a powerful one-two punch to guide this work.
In “Unpacking Inquiry,” she framed Essential Questions (EQs) as the “engine” of a unit. These aren’t simple hooks; they are the big, open-ended questions (e.g., “How does conflict lead to change?”) that drive sustained investigation. In “Concepts in Action,” she gave us the “compass” for that engine: Specified Concepts (like change, system, or perspective).
By starting with a powerful concept, we can design inquiry that moves students from simple factual recall to deep, transferable understanding. The concept is the destination; the inquiry is the path.
The “How”: Agency and the ATLs
But who drives this inquiry? If we, the teachers, are the only ones asking the big questions, we’ve missed the point. This is where the session on “Approaches to Learning (ATLs) in Action” provided the critical link.
Presenters Monique Palmer and Inese Grike argued that genuine student agency—the ability to set goals, self-regulate, and take ownership of learning—is built on the foundation of concrete skills. These are the ATLs.
Their solution was brilliant: shift student portfolios from being subject-based (a folder for “Math” and “Art”) to be skill-based (a folder for “Thinking Skills” and “Self-Management Skills”). This immediately helps students see how a skill like “research” is transferable across all subjects. Using a simple reflection model like SEED (Skill, Evidence, Explain, Development), students document not just what they learned, but how they learned it. This makes portfolios a powerful tool for self-assessment and the centerpiece of student-led conferences.
The “Our”: Collaboration and Community
This kind of deep, student-driven learning is complex. It’s not work to be done in isolation. The session “Cultivating Connection: The Role of Learning Walk-Throughs” addressed this directly.
Paul Morris and Merve Korkmaz detailed a non-evaluative, data-driven process for educators to connect, observe, and grow together. By anchoring peer observations in the school’s shared “Definition of Learning” and using simple tools to gather data, they’ve built a system for continuous, collaborative improvement.
It was a powerful reminder that if we want to build a connected community for our students, we must first model it as a faculty.
The Path Forward
The “PYP Deep Dive” session confirmed that this is the clear direction the IB is heading. This message was reinforced in the Coordinator Forum, where the “unconference” discussions naturally gravitated toward the new Subject Guides and, most notably, the new Inquiry Learning Progressions.
This alignment between formal presentations and coordinator-led discussions shows a powerful consensus. The IB is providing the framework to support this vital work, and coordinators are clearly ready to implement it.
The thread connecting all these sessions is clear. We build “Our Humanity, Connected” by:
- Connecting ideas (through Concepts).
- Connecting learning to the world (through Inquiry).
- Connecting students to their own learning (through Agency & ATLs).
- Connecting educators to each other (through Collaboration).
I leave The Hague inspired, and more importantly, equipped. I look forward to exploring with my colleagues how we can weave these threads deeper into the fabric of our own school community.
