Approaches to teaching refers to the way we present the course approaches to learning is about the way it is received. To receive the knowledge presented by the teacher a student must have certain skills, these can be classified in 3 ways:

• Cognitive - thinking skills, problem solving, understanding concepts.
• Metacognitive - an awareness of the different thought processes required for different tasks, thinking about thinking.
• Affective - handling emotions and behaviour.

The IB document Approaches to teaching and learning classifies these skills into 5 overlapping areas:

• Thinking skills
• Communication skills
• Social skills
• Self management skills
• Research skills

This is a huge topic and I do not intend (and can't) go into great detail but, when creating units for your unit planner you need to be able to identify which skills are being developed, so its worth thinking about how these skills relate to what we do in our physics labs.