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Students who want to improve their Extended Essay writing skills can now register for a new free FutureLearn course. The University of Leeds in the UK has designed this online course with the title “The IB Extended Essay: Managing your Research Project”. It is targetted specifically at IB Diploma students embarking on their Extended Essay and lasts for approximately two weeks. The course is intended for individual students to study on their own but is also suitable for teachers who want to improve the advice they give to their students. The IB has collaborated with Leeds University and FutureLearn in the development of this course and it is advertised by the IB in their latest free subscription monthly Global newsletter.

The course covers:

• Choosing a topic and a research question
• Finding sources
• Time and project management
• Critical thinking
• Writing effectively
• Preparing to write the essay

By the end of the course it is claimed that students will have

• developed transferable study skills that can be directly applied to the IB extended essay (and later to undergraduate study)
• learned how to explore techniques by which to narrow an area of interest into research questions
• learned how to evaluate the suitability of a range of sources and research material
• learned how to accurately reference sources
• developed simple project management techniques to manage their time effectively
• learned how to plan, structure and write an extended research project
• learned how to produce a reflective log throughout the process of planning, writing and managing a research project.

Full details of the course and how to apply can be found here.