The review of the current Group 4 curriculum is currently underway to produce a new curriculum for teaching starting in September 2014 with the first examinations in May 2016. One report on the first meeting has already been published (see my earlier blog) but in true political style leaks are beginning to appear on the further progress that has been made even though no further official reports have been produced yet.

At The Hague IBAEM conference in late October David Jones, the Curriculum Area Manager for Group 4, gave a presentation on the proposed changes. This is available on line as a pdf file. Shortly afterwards Fiona Clark, the Curriculum Subject Area Manager for Chemistry, gave a similar presentation in Mumbai, India. It is not clear exactly what is definite and what is still in the proposal stage but the following significant changes appear to be likely for all the main Group 4 subjects: Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

• The number of options will be reduced from 2 out of 8 to 1 out of 4 for both SL and HL
   
• The number of written papers at SL will be reduced from 3 to 2
   
• There will be a new internal assessment at SL and HL
   
• The nature of science is to be the overarching theme in Physics, Chemistry and Biology
   
• The Group 4 project will continue with an emphasis on collaboration between schools 
   
• Physics, Chemistry and Biology will continue at both HL and SL but there will be a new science course at SL only. (The philosophy of this new course is “to bring forth through student centred activities, the wonder of science, its power to change the world for good or bad and its concomitant limitations.” It will explore six big ideas in Science which illustrate the nature and methodologies of the subject. These ideas are: The Universe, Atomic Theory, Medicine & Health, Evolution, Radiation, and Earth Science.)

Changes to the IA.

What will affect teaching most are the proposed changes to the Internal Assessment. The Chemists met again in November and the detailed proposals for Chemistry are still to be released but it does seem as though the IA changes will be subsumed into the new Chemistry HL and SL programmes. According to David Jones, “The model proposed is for one, open-ended practical investigation with new generic criteria that will allow both a wider range of activities satisfying the varying needs of the three subjects and more agreement on the marks awarded as a result of the application of the criteria. It would comprise 20% of the overall assessment. The criteria would need to reflect the learner profile and the overarching Nature of Science theme for the new group 4 courses.”

It appears that the practical activities programme will remain at 40/60 hours and the group 4 project will also remain and be assessed, as now, with the criterion personal skills. 

The Assessed task will be one investigation/scientific exploration. It will be presented as written task. It is expected that the task will allow a wider range of activities than the present traditional hands on practical investigation.  As well as more qualitative work being allowed these tasks might include

• Using a spreadsheet for analysis and modelling
   
• Extracting data from a database and analyzing graphically etc
   
• Simulations –which must be interactive and open ended
   

The present traditional hands-on investigation would remain as a possible IA task (but the detailed assessment of specific aspects of it would be undertaken in the written papers). The tasks produced would be complex and commensurate with the level of the course. They would require a purposeful research question and the scientific rationale for it and a cognitive component - critical scientific thinking element (thinking like a scientist).

The one assessed investigation/scientific exploration will have the same assessment criteria for SL and HL but may have different grade boundaries or weighting. The draft criteria for this assessment are Context, Analysis, Communication, and Reflection, each on a possible 0-4 point scale.

The rigour of the IA will be maintained by ensuring the criteria reflect the demanding conceptual understanding required by making the nature of science (NOS) the overarching theme. The moderation will probably be based on e-portfolios and e-moderated by seeding. 

My comments

This is clearly a major change from current practice and has the potential to be exciting and innovative. It also has the very real potential to cause similar unhappiness with the moderation process that currently exists so the assessment model will need to be carefully planned beforehand.  There is also serious potential for academic dishonesty as this one investigation will be worth 20% of the total final marks. The four criteria as proposed do not seem to be awarding creativity which is a missed opportunity. Hopefully, as the concept is developed, it will address the different ways in which Chemists, Physicists and Biologists practice their science so that different types of investigations are possible in the different disciplines. My initial thought is that it is verging much more on an Extended Essay in the subject compared to the current method of internal assessment. Will this encourage or act as a disincentive to students choosing an Extended Essay in Chemistry? Indeed, will there still be a need for Extended Essays in science?