AKA collaborates on IB pre-conference day

The International Baccalaureate (IB) Conference of the Americas 2016 kicked off on Thursday, 14 July 2016 in Toronto, Canada with a pre-conference day titled Understanding difference: Many Muslim voices, hosted at the Aga Khan Museum.

The Aga Khan Academies, in collaboration with the Aga Khan Museum, developed an inspiring and experiential agenda, beginning the day with opening remarks by Ruba Kana’an, Head of Education and Scholarly Programs at the Aga Khan Museum, followed by a presentation by Professor Diane Moore, Director of the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School. Professor Moore’s presentation, titled “Cultivating deep democracy: Religious literacy, pluralism and critical thinking,” focused on how educators can enhance the capacity for expressions of deep democracy to flourish and how critical thinking can promote religious literacy.

Participants then had the opportunity to tour the Museum and engage in an interactive, hands-on session led by education leaders from both the Academies and Museum, where participants accessed the Museum’s collection to explore how object-based learning can be utilised within IB programmes to explore cultures. Participants were provided with a teaching resource developed collaboratively by the Academies and the Aga Khan Museum titled “Treasures of the Silk Routes,” which aims to engage students in object-based learning and provides educators with ideas around how to help students discover the stories behind objects.

In the afternoon, Naheed Bardai, Head of Middle Division at Upper Canada College, explored the idea of pluralism and the need for educators to promote pluralism through pedagogy and the use of ‘debatable questions’ in his presentation titled “Pluralism and the power of the debatable question.” The pre-conference concluded with a plenary where participants had the opportunity to consolidate their learnings and identify major themes of the day through a question and answer session with all of the speakers who had led sessions throughout the pre-conference.

The IB Conference of the Americas 2016 continued at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel from 15–17 July 2016.

By Karina Hussein