52 replies to this topic

[mikel]

Hi,
Looking for advice about the investigation please! How long?when? what? argh! any tips on making life easier for the students as well, as it appears that all of their courseworks are due in at the same time here!!
Thanks
Jane

We do ours about half-way through the first year partly to avoid exactly the sort of 2nd-year overload you're talking about. I HATE the IA with a passion! And in the teacher survey done right before the recent curriculum review, it was the most criticized of all the elements of the program. I especially dislike the totally artificial division between "evidence" and "analysis". I don't understand how or why they should be split and have trouble explaining this to the kids.

I would suggest that you have a look at Richard Jones-Nerzic's site (http://www.internati...sment/index.htm) for some excellent examples of his it should be done... If your school has a subscription to ActiveHistory, there's a useful guide on how to write the IA there.

Good luck!

[Jenjane]

Hi,
Looking for advice about the investigation please! How long?when? what? argh! any tips on making life easier for the students as well, as it appears that all of their courseworks are due in at the same time here!!
Thanks
Jane

We do ours about half-way through the first year partly to avoid exactly the sort of 2nd-year overload you're talking about. I HATE the IA with a passion! And in the teacher survey done right before the recent curriculum review, it was the most criticized of all the elements of the program. I especially dislike the totally artificial division between "evidence" and "analysis". I don't understand how or why they should be split and have trouble explaining this to the kids.

I would suggest that you have a look at Richard Jones-Nerzic's site (http://www.internati...sment/index.htm) for some excellent examples of his it should be done... If your school has a subscription to ActiveHistory, there's a useful guide on how to write the IA there.

Good luck!

FANTASTIC! just the right thing to help me! You are a genius!
Jane

[Lou Phillips]

bloody hell Nick, talk about an obscure topic! Is that HL history of asia? I've never met any IB teachers doing that. I did some stuff on 19th china in uni, I can see what I have for you. It was an economic history module and I still have some books- will look but may take a while as still not unpacked from moving. Read Wild Swans!- first section on life in imperial china, footbinding etc is good.

[BarbaraH]

How were your results? We've just got our first set and the HL results for History were good, but there seem to be so many ways kids can miss their university offers. One, who has got 44 points, technically has missed his offer because he didn't get 7 7 7 at HL, dropping a point in maths! Not expecting this to be a problem, but still...
Also EE and TOK results seem dodgy. Is this common in first time schools? Looking at one of the EE for History (which I didn't supervise) from an excellent candidate, it got marked down for, I think, not conforming to the technicalities, which my colleague had missed. Should the kids be getting all three of these core marks with correct guidance? I feel too many of ours got 1 or even 0.
I would be interested in comments from more experienced centres.

[Lou Phillips]

have started a facebook group for IB History:

http://www.facebook....gid=26850633708

[cathwar]

How were your results? We've just got our first set and the HL results for History were good, but there seem to be so many ways kids can miss their university offers. One, who has got 44 points, technically has missed his offer because he didn't get 7 7 7 at HL, dropping a point in maths! Not expecting this to be a problem, but still...
Also EE and TOK results seem dodgy. Is this common in first time schools? Looking at one of the EE for History (which I didn't supervise) from an excellent candidate, it got marked down for, I think, not conforming to the technicalities, which my colleague had missed. Should the kids be getting all three of these core marks with correct guidance? I feel too many of ours got 1 or even 0.
I would be interested in comments from more experienced centres.

Hi Barbara,

I mark IB EE in History and far too many students lose out marks for technicalities. From the IB point of view, the EE is an exercise in research and the proper presentation of findings - the History aspect is incidental. Under the current system (just about to end) 24 marks are for general qualities and only 12 for History specific aspects.
There are 2 marks available for the abstract - not for the quality of what is written but whether it contains all 3 elements (RQ, scope of research & conclusion reached).
3 marks are available for the proper presentation - title, word count, contents page, page numbers, footnotes, presentation of bibliography etc
No-one should lose these marks.
Another 2 marks are for whether the RQ is suitable & another 2 for the conclusion being in line with the overall findings of the essay.
This is a total of 9 marks for fairly basic stuff, yet you'd be surprised how many lose marks because they write an introduction instead of an abstract, or the bibliography is not alphabetical.

My school is just starting the IB & I've become the EE co-ordinator because I've marked the essays for over 10 years. I make no claims for it being anything wonderful but I did write a booklet for my students about the IB EE and I put it on the OCC - it's called RGS student booklet. The appendix lays out the new criteria.

I'd also recommend Bruno Cass's guide, also on the OCC

Cathy.

[Richard Smart]

Can anyone help? I'm teaching Chinese History (18th and 19th century) next year for the IB. Any resources/SoW and pointers would be gratefully received!

Hi Nick...
I have some materials that may be helpful to you from World History AP... although I will have to go to school to get them. Do you have a curriculum, or content objectives I could see??

Richard

PS I read China, A New History by John King Fairbank last summer... pretty engaging and comprehensive... (but it starts at the beginning!)

Edited by Richard Smart, 21 July 2008 - 02:16 AM.

[BarbaraH]

How were your results? We've just got our first set and the HL results for History were good, but there seem to be so many ways kids can miss their university offers. One, who has got 44 points, technically has missed his offer because he didn't get 7 7 7 at HL, dropping a point in maths! Not expecting this to be a problem, but still...
Also EE and TOK results seem dodgy. Is this common in first time schools? Looking at one of the EE for History (which I didn't supervise) from an excellent candidate, it got marked down for, I think, not conforming to the technicalities, which my colleague had missed. Should the kids be getting all three of these core marks with correct guidance? I feel too many of ours got 1 or even 0.
I would be interested in comments from more experienced centres.

Hi Barbara,

I mark IB EE in History and far too many students lose out marks for technicalities. From the IB point of view, the EE is an exercise in research and the proper presentation of findings - the History aspect is incidental. Under the current system (just about to end) 24 marks are for general qualities and only 12 for History specific aspects.
There are 2 marks available for the abstract - not for the quality of what is written but whether it contains all 3 elements (RQ, scope of research & conclusion reached).
3 marks are available for the proper presentation - title, word count, contents page, page numbers, footnotes, presentation of bibliography etc
No-one should lose these marks.
Another 2 marks are for whether the RQ is suitable & another 2 for the conclusion being in line with the overall findings of the essay.
This is a total of 9 marks for fairly basic stuff, yet you'd be surprised how many lose marks because they write an introduction instead of an abstract, or the bibliography is not alphabetical.

My school is just starting the IB & I've become the EE co-ordinator because I've marked the essays for over 10 years. I make no claims for it being anything wonderful but I did write a booklet for my students about the IB EE and I put it on the OCC - it's called RGS student booklet. The appendix lays out the new criteria.

I'd also recommend Bruno Cass's guide, also on the OCC

Cathy.

Many thanks for this - I've circulated it to my students and hopefully this year's lot will take note!
Barbara

[ignoramous]

How were your results? We've just got our first set and the HL results for History were good, but there seem to be so many ways kids can miss their university offers. One, who has got 44 points, technically has missed his offer because he didn't get 7 7 7 at HL, dropping a point in maths! Not expecting this to be a problem, but still...
Also EE and TOK results seem dodgy. Is this common in first time schools? Looking at one of the EE for History (which I didn't supervise) from an excellent candidate, it got marked down for, I think, not conforming to the technicalities, which my colleague had missed. Should the kids be getting all three of these core marks with correct guidance? I feel too many of ours got 1 or even 0.
I would be interested in comments from more experienced centres.

I agree with you totally. I have been teaching at an IB school for over 6 years now and I found that the EE results were all over the place this year. Having marked these for so long I do know what constitutes an A grade and yet still many of our essays were returning below expectations [remarks to follow!]. With regards to the exam paper itself I feel that Papers 1 and 3 went very well but Paper 2 was very low in points awarded.

[Lynn Cat]

Hi

My school will be teaching the IB from September 2009 and I missed the training in Athens as I'm being sent on the training next summer just before I start teaching the course !!!

Any tips or guidance about how to write SoW would be fab.

We are covering:

Route 2
Causes.Practices and effects of wars
Origins and development of single Party states
Hl - Americas

Thanks ever somuch

Lynn

[Jenjane]

I have just been on the training in Athens after teaching IB since January (see my earlier posts). My top tips that I have learned from the training: overlap as much as possible, they encourage it a lot, and you do not need to teach one paper then another, as you would at GCSE/A-level.For example Mao works as a single party ruler and his death links to paper 1, and he is in Asia (another region!), whereas Stalin is also a single party ruler, and he comes up in the cold war on paper 2, and the cold war overlaps well with the collapse of communism on paper 1, and i believe there is also a section on America and the cold war on p3 for higher. Overlapping can really cut down what you need to teach.
The courses are designed so that you teach history rather than exams, so do this. Stick to the rules as far as coursework/EEs are concerned, and they are REALLY hot on plagarism.
Also, standard really means standard and higher does mean higher, so think carefully about who does what. In a nutshell if you don't think they would cope well with A-2 then they will struggle to get good marks at higher, and this could stuff them up later in the course as I'm not sure how easy it is to swap, and it could stuff up their whole diploma.
Read all of the stuff on the IB CC especially if it is talking about marking as the marking has to be learned, and although they will give you lots of examples next year it might be good to go with some questions. Of course, schoolhistory are ace too.
I would also say that they don't expect the students to have an in depth knowledge of everything for p1+2, it's impossible, so A-level texts for example can be too detailed. This is where i fell down this year. They need a braod sweep of knoweldge and to be able to compare and contrast regiemes for p2, so again consider this when you plan your SoW. They need the detailed examples for p3 (higher), so consider this when buying texts. Also remember that there are a massive range of schools who teach IB across the world so it would be unreasonable for IB to expect them to have read very widely...although they are very keen that students are independant workers- think about what the students are taking on!
Hope this helps
Jane
PS the official training is excellent: I now understand IB!

Edited by Jenjane, 12 August 2008 - 02:12 PM.

[BarbaraH]

I'm interested in what you say about standard and higher level as my understanding has been, and this is borne out by the results of my first cohort this year, that paper 2 is the hardest paper and picking up marks on paper 3 can result in better results at HL than at SL.
On another point, one of my candidates missed a Cambridge place by two points, but re-marks for SL French and EE came in very quickly and she has now got two extra points and the place has been confirmed.

[mikel]

I think there's some confusion here, Barbara. SL students don't DO paper 3. That's only for HL. For the first time in 2010, HL and SL candidates will also be marked according to different standards for papers 1 and 2, but no one's sure how this will work until they've seen the sample papers which are due out next month...