Learning
2023 is an important year for the IB DP Sciences. We started planning the updates to our teaching & learning and study & revision resources early on to be able to support teachers for the first teaching of these new courses.
Our overall objective has been to understand the changes to IB Diploma Biology, Chemistry and Physics, and to apply them to our banks of resources so they will be current and enable you and your students to succeed. In this short piece, we describe how we are applying these changes.
Teaching & Learning
To create the updates, we first carried out a thorough review and comparison of the existing syllabus with the new documentation released by the IB. We’re pleased to make this comparison available to be downloaded and edited for your own use.
Download IB DP Biology Syllabus Map
Download IB DP Chemistry Syllabus Map
Download IB DP Physics Syllabus Map
This served as the basis for writing briefs, so that our subject matter experts would know what changes to make to our resources. We took into consideration the overall aims of the course updates, i.e., to facilitate the creation of deep knowledge by:
- reducing the emphasis on factual recall,
- promoting more inquiry,
- taking a more conceptual approach to teaching and learning via content that is structured around overarching concepts and themes,
- making the skills that students need to demonstrate more explicit, and
- reflecting the revised assessment model.
We followed the organisational structure of the new guides, focusing on the essential ideas, understanding, applications and skills to achieve complete syllabus-matching.
Once the updates are completed (this work is still underway), they will go through a robust review process, firstly by IB teachers and examiners, and then by our editorial team. We have a tremendous group of contributors from IB schools all over the world who ensure that we reflect the diversity of the IB community and that the resources are to the point.
One of our chief objectives is to enable student success in the updated courses.
Online Assessment
Our in-built DP Exam Question Bank gives you access to ready-made IB and Pamoja exams for Biology, Chemistry, Physics and the two Mathematics courses. It also allows you to curate your own exams – by selecting individual questions from all available exams and by adding your own questions.
In readiness for the new Sciences, we are mapping all exam questions in the Exam Question Bank to the new courses so you will be able to start preparing students for IB-style assessments immediately.
Study & Revision
OSC Study continues to be a comprehensive resource for you and your students. For study, we include Theory Videos and Flashcards. For revision, we offer Revision Guides and Practice Exams consisting of official IB past papers and Pamoja exams. Picture this as the Exam Question Bank for study mode.
Teachers have exclusive access to selected exams in the Online Assessment environment, ensuring Passport can be used to deliver fresh assessments.
All exam questions are sortable by teaching and difficulty level and are accompanied by fully worked, step-by-step answers and video solutions. This adds a previously inaccessible dimension to past papers for students.
The different formats accommodate students’ individual study styles, and because everything is being updated and mapped to the new courses, students will be able to easily access any of these resource types whilst studying any given topic. We’ll soon be adding recommendations for study pathways, providing support to those students who prefer a more structured approach to their study and revision time.
One thing is common to all our resources: they are written and developed by IB educators who are experts in the IB courses and pedagogy, thus ensuring that they respond directly to your and your students’ needs.
Let’s Meet Some of Our Authors
Dr. Paul Muskett
Teaching at Munich International School in Germany, is the Biology flashcards author.
“My aim is to make the cards as concise as possible, while still covering all the syllabus understandings, applications and skills. Once students understand the biological concepts, it is easier for them to draw links between topics.”
Dr. Christopher Martin
Head of Chemistry at Sevenoaks School in the UK, is our Chemistry author.
“The flashcards are different to the typical study and revision guides; they give students a clear grasp of what is going to be examined, and in what format. Students can easily use the cards throughout their IB course and not just for the final exam, for example at the end of a unit or topic.”
Cora Henderson
Head of Science at Dubai American Academy, is working on updating the Physics flashcards.
“The benefit of flashcards is that they motivate us to reach into our memory to find the right answer. They prompt us to think about how well we truly know and understand something, and they can encourage us to review those concepts we’re not confident in.”
The aim of Theory Videos is to anchor conceptual knowledge with crisp and clear definitions and examples, and to give students who may have missed content classes (or need the reinforcement) the benefit of a teacher explanation. We have a talented group of Educators collaborating on the Theory Videos:
Cheryl Hickman, Science Teacher at the International School of Belgrade for Biology; Dave Paddock, retired Head of Sciences at Cameron Heights Collegiate Institute, for Chemistry; and Mitch Campbell, formerly a Physics and Mathematics Teacher and now the VP of OSC, for Physics.
We look forward to keeping you updated as the new content rolls out.
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