How to 'market' CAS - a key presentation

Coordinator Notes:

1. Title page

2-3. What is it?

The CAS Guide states: "The three elements of the Diploma Programme core (TOK, CAS and the extended essay) were introduced by the original curriculum designers of the Diploma Programme as a way to educate the whole person." The IB is seeking to make closer links between these three elements of the Core in order to underline that the DP is about educating the whole person and is not just a course of study.

CAS is very much about experiential learning - learning through and from experiences. The experiences students have in CAS allows them to develop their personal and interpersonal skills. As the CAS Guide states “A meaningful CAS programme is a journey of discovery of self and others. For many, CAS is profound and life-changing."

A CAS experience is a specific event in which the student engages with one or more of the three CAS strands (Creativity, Activity, and Service). A CAS experience can be a single event or may be an extended series of events. An experience must have the potential for personal growth and provide opportunities to develop the Learner Profile attributes.

Successful completion of CAS is a requirement for the award of the IB Diploma.

4-6. Aims: Common ams to the Core and specific aims of CAS.

These aims are the generic aims of all three aspects of the Core (TOK, EE & CAS). How does CAS achieve this?

• Supporting and being supported by subjects: service learning opportunities could build on what students have learnt in their subjects and in return the service learning could develop new underatandings and meanings in their subject.
• Fostering international-mindedness: the ultimate goals of international mindedness is to develop responsible global citizens. CAS can do this if the CAS project reflects an issue of global significance which is then explored from a local perspective.
• Developing self-awareness and a sense of identity: each element of the Core encourages students to reflect on their values and their place in the world. CAS encourages students to evaluate their commitent to helping those in need as well as exploring the concept of advocacy.

CAS has been described as the IBs's 'qualitative difference'. The following quote by Alec Peterson (the first Director General of the IB) is a good provocation to start discussing CAS: "...if you believe in something, you must not just think or talk or write, but must act. (Alec Peterson, Schools Across Frontiers).

7. What does 'CAS' stand for?

The CAS Guide states: "As a shining beacon of our values, CAS enables students to demonstrate attributes of the IB learner profile." (page 8)

Students engage in CAS experiences involving one or more of the three CAS strands.

• Creativity: creativity in all aspects of life: artistic, leadership, learning new skills etc.
• Activity: physical challenges, encourages a healthy lifestyle (if you aren't sweating it isn't activity!)
• Service: Must (a) have learning benefits, (b) involve real responsibility, (c) involve helping people.

8. Creativity: Students are encouraged to extend themselves into unfamilar areas and tackle new challenges. If they are already proficient at a skill or art form they could build on that but take on more challenges and develop new skills. Alternatively they could experience new forms of creativity. The key is to be challenged, extend oneself and be creative, original. Students may evidence their creativity in a whole variety of ways:for example, through a recording, a presentation, an exhibition, social media or shared discussion.

Reflection is at the heart of CAS. Students may wish to reflect their creativity through music, art, a blog posting, photos etc.

9. Activity: Key concept here are activities that promote lifelong healthy habits related to physical well-being. Experiences could be individual and team sports, aerobic exercise, dance, fitness training etc. If a student already partakes in many physical activities they should consider looking for new challenges and set new personal goals within that activity.

10. Service:

• Service is often seen as one of the most transforming elements of the DP. It is all about engaging with the community, giving of yourself in order to help others.
• However, it is important that students do not see this as just an opportunity to make themselves feel better. This is why we speak about 'service learning'. Service is an educational activity in which students need to meet the authentic needs of the community in which they are serving. This means they need to follow the stages framework to investigate and carry out research into what the community is telling them is an actual need. Then planning how to meet that need, reflecting on the service they are giving. As the CAS Guide says: "The community may be the school; however, it is recommended that service experiences extend beyond the school to local, national and/or international communities. Community involvement includes collaboration with others, as students investigate the need, plan and implement their idea for service."
• Four types of service action which students are encouraged to engage in: making a meaningful contribution to your community and society through: (a) direct service; (b) indirect service; (c) advocacy, and/or (d) research (see page 22 of the CAS Guide for a fuller description of these types of service action).

11. Student Expectations

CAS is very much about experiential learning - learning by doing. Students need to understand that they definitely need to take a personal interest and be proactive. It is not about learning something from a book or experts. It is very much about involving oneself in experiences and learning personally from them.

12. CAS Stages

How are students to plan and execute these experiences? The CAS stages have been adapted from Cathryn Berger Kaye’s “five stages of service learning”, 2010. These stages provide a framework as students plan their CAS experiences. They are also helpful in a more generic sense and can help students in many aspects of their life.

• Investigation: identify their interests, skills and talents to be used in considering opportunities for CAS experiences
• Preparation: clarify roles and responsibilities, develop a plan of actions to be taken, identify specified resources and timelines, and acquire any skills needed to engage in the CAS experience;
• Action: implementing their idea / plan'
• Reflection: this is when they describe what happened, express feelings, generate ideas, and raise questions;
• Demonstration: when they make explicit what and how you learned and what you accomplished.

Note how these stages should help to reflect, increase in self-awareness, metacognitively learn how to learn and recognise perosnal development.

13. CAS Project

A CAS project is a collaborative, well-considered series of  sequential CAS experiences, engaging students in one or more of the CAS strands (Creativity, Activity, Service).

The main issue about a CAS Project is to ensure a student participates in sustained collaboration over a period of time (i.e. CAS is not about collatin a host of individual experiences). As the CAS Guide (page 24) says: "Through this level of engagement students may discover the benefits of teamwork and of achievements realized through an exchange of ideas and abilities. A CAS project challenges students to show initiative, demonstrate perseverance, and develop skills such as those of cooperation, problem-solving and decision-making."

A CAS project has to:

• have a clear purpose
• be a collaborative experience
• include all CAS stages
• take place over at least a month
• include elements of international mindedness and global engagement

Note on service projects: they must focus on the authentic needs of the community they are trying to help; if the service project is going to happen outside the local context the student(s) must take into account the possibility for continuation (e.g. by the next cohort of CAS students).

14. Interviews

There has to be a minimum of THREE interviews between each student and the CAS coordinator/adviser. TWO should occur in the first year and the THIRD in the second year. Feedback from these interviews needs to be recorded by CAS coordinator/adviser.

• Interview 1: discuss student interests, ensure student understands CAS requirements, explain CS stages and portfolio etc.
• Interview 2: this is normally held at end of first year of DP to assess student progress in CAS so far.
• Interview 3: which is a summative interview focusing on the students' achievement against the CAS learning outcomes.

15. Reflection

Being reflective is one of the IB Learner Profile attributes. It is defined in the following way: "We thoughtfully consider the world and our own ideas and experience. We work to understand our strengths and weaknesses in order to support our learning and personal development." (IB Learner Profile).

In CAS we specifically focus on affective reflection. Affective reflection looks at what students feel as a result of their experience. How has this experience changed their attitudes or opinions or sensitivities? The intention of reflection in CAS is to:

• deepen learning
• consider relevance of experience
• explore personal and group values
• recognise the applicaion of knowledge, skills and attributes
• identify strengths and areas for development
• gain a greater understanding of self and others
• place experience in a larger context
• generate relevant ideas and questions
• consider improvements in individual and collective choices and actions
• transfer prior learning to new situations
• generate and receive constructive feedback
• develop the ongoing habit of thoughtful, reflective practice

Students are not expected to reflect on every CS experience - it is the quality not the quantity of reflection that is important. They should choose significant moments to reflect upon. Students may use any media they wish in which to reflect (videos, photographs, blogs etc.). Don't forget is is primarily through the quality of their reflection that CAS coordinators can determine whether students are meeting the learning outcomes for CAS.

16-17. CAS Portfolio: the showcase of a students' achievement and reflections on them. It can be in any format, althoygh the CAS Guide does suggest three useful titles: Profile, Experiences, Evidence (CAS Guide pages 30-31).

Although CAS is not formally assessed students provide evidence of achieving the following seven learning outcomes AT LEAST ONCE in their CAS Portfolio. Some of these learning outcomes will be achieved on many occasions, some on some occasions. Note that not all CAS experiences will lead to a learning outcome. The student needs to work with the CAS Coordinator/Adviser to agree what evidence is needed for the portfolio. Often the evidence is in the reflections students make on their experiences. Use ManageBac to build the CAS Portfolio.

1. Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
5. Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
7. Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

18. CAS links with TOK and Extended Essay

• TOK: (a) in CAS students develop personal knowledge through gaining awareness of the world as well as shared knowledge of how communities construct knowledge; (b) CAS experiences can provide basis from which knowledge questions arise; (c) their involvement in, for example, creative activities, will give them a greater understanding of different ‘ways of knowing’ (e.g. imagination); (d) CAS helps students consider their ethical choices.

• Extended Essay: The CAS Guide (page 6) states: “Through CAS experiences, a student’s exposure to particular global issues at a local level may give rise to an interest in furthering their understanding of these issues through academic research. Both the extended essay and the world studies extended essay allow students to explore the issues that may have arisen during CAS.”

19. CAS & Subjects

The IB encourages each subject group to make links to CAS experiences. The CAS Guide (page 5) provides examples of what these could be. For example: “Group 3 students could record the oral histories of people living in elderly residential facilities and create family memoirs, create a social enterprise addressing a community need or collaborate on a community garden.” Additional suggestions on the links between Diploma Programme subjects and CAS can be found in the Creativity, activity, service teacher support material.

20. CAS: a personal journey of self-discovery

This returns to the beginning of this presentation when we looked at how CAS is all about experiential learning.