New Internal Assessment
Wednesday 23 December 2020
First run through for the new syllabus
As we say farewell to the old math(s) studies course, many of us are winding up for our first run through the Internal Assessment cycle for the new AI course. There are more than a few pressure points on this that I know I am feeling acutely. I have a class of 19, which is big for me, but I know plenty of you out there have more. This is the class of 2021 who have probably been worst affected by the disruption from the pandemic and there is possibly even more uncertainty on the horizon. There are no changes to their assessment schedule (thats another post) and all their coursework will be externally moderated. As well as this there is the extra pressure that, maybe, like last year, it will carry a lot of weight in determining the final grade. All of this is also against the backdrop of it being the first run through a new syllabus and for those of us used to the old studies criteria, it means getting our heads around some new criteria. Not much to think about then! This post runs through some thoughts and resources to help us think about that!
External Moderation
As I hope all of you know, there is no change to the assessment schedule for the class of May 2021. The IB have promised 'In Session Mitigation' to compensate for the disruption there has been to this classes education. That is a huge can of worms and I am not going to speculate or dwell on that. It is out of our control and I will hope that it means the benfit of doubt will be given to our students. In addition, we will be required to mark, annotate and upload ALL Internal Assessment as opposed to the sample that we might normally expect. In theory this is the same as last year but with the important difference that everybody is getting a much longer run up. Still, it will add a bit of extra work and pressure, certainly in my case. Here is the process I will be going through...
- Complete, check and mark the Internal Assessments
- I will, as I normally do, insert a page at the front of the IA that includes my detailed justifcations for the marks I gave
- I will then export as a PDF and then annotate (I do this on my Ipad with a stylus) the work to point out specific parts of the work that I have used to justify the marks. This cross references with the notes I have made on the fist page.
- The requirements state clearly that there must a be a separate document uploaded that includes all the justifications. Last year, we were told that this could simply be a document that pointed to the notes already included. This year, I will just take a copy of the notes I wrote ont he first page.
My understanding is that examiners are MODERATING and NOT MARKING COLD. This means that they should be reading and checking the justifications we have used. Last year I experienced some frustration when I wondered whether or not my comments were read at all and, at the same time, I am sympathetic to the incredible load that was taken on last year by examiners at short notice. As I said, with a run up, we should all be able to be better prepared.
Mark Schemes
I have done a lot of work this year on the Internal Assessment Center - For students and I'd like to point you in the direction of one page in particular, How is it marked?, which runs through in the detail the criteria. It is written with a student voice, but with teachers using these criteria for the first time very much in mind. Check it out.
Example pieces
Please make sure you have seen New 'Exploration' Internal Assessment page where our experienced examiner Oliver has written lots of detail about the criteria and how it compares with maths studies. Significantly, it includes 5 example IAs that have been marked with both the old studies criteria and the new AI criteria. This is a great way to help us see how the changes play out.
Internal Moderation
Dont miss the opportunity to do some of this with your colleagues across the maths courses. One of the aims of the curriculum review was to bring all the maths IAs inline with each other. The criteria are mostly not new to teachers of the old SL and HL courses. For that reason there will be lots of useful experience in your department. Agree that you will all prepare a couple of sample pieces for discussion. Make sure you allow enough time to get stuck in. Less pieces in more depth would be my preference. There is a lot to be gained form these discussions that you can apply to the rest of your marking.
MYIB
Make sure you get a look at the 29 marked examples on the program resource centre. This is a great cross section of work. Whilst there are never a lot of details about the justification and often a few debatel points, it is a good way to get your radar in place and an execellent exercise in thnking about the whole thing. I like to quote examples from the PRC in my justifcations.
I hope these ithoughts and resources are helpful. There will be more in the new year as this comes in to sharper focus. In the mean time, I wish you all a well deserved rest and happy holidays where ever you are and what ever you are doing. Take care, see you next year,
Jim
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