New DP Science Courses: What to Expect

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• Biology
• Chemistry
• Physics

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The new DP Biology course is here for first teaching in 2023 and assessment in 2025. While any change is daunting, this change may be especially challenging for some, as there has not been a curriculum change in almost seven years. So what can teachers look forward to? ManageBac has undertaken a thorough review of and comparison of the content in the new guide which can be downloaded and edited for your own use.

Download IB DP Biology Syllabus Map

Content The content has changed a lot in some places and remained the same in others. The first change you will notice is that the options have been removed; more on this below with assessment changes. Some of the option content has been subsumed, and other content deleted. The Teacher Support Material, coming out in August 2023, will contain a list of additions and deletions. The syllabus statements have become more descriptive so that teachers will now have a better idea of what specifically needs to be taught. The intention is that there will be less implied knowledge than the legacy guide (LA 2024). The “skills in the learning of biology”, which is a descriptive list of skills students need to know, should help clarify what students need to be able to do in the internal assessment and in the data analysis questions on Paper 2. The other big change is the move towards conceptual, networked learning. The IB roadmap, taken from the IB DP Biology guide and shown in Figure 1, provides two possible concept-based pathways, a theme-based sequence and a level of organisation sequence, in which the course could be taught. They DO NOT need to be taught in either order. The IB encourages teachers to create their own roadmaps that match their circumstances and needs. The new organisational structure and changes in the arrangement of the content is to highlight and encourage the development of conceptual knowledge in biology with the intention that this will help with student understanding. Note that both syllabi are currently available in the ManageBac Unit Planner for the transition year, allowing you to switch across any planned units with only a few clicks.

Figure 1: The Road Map

External Assessment The external assessment also received an overhaul but in essence has not changed significantly. The removal of the options has allowed the IB to consolidate the three papers into two papers, Paper 1 and Paper 2. Paper 1 will have section A and section B. Section A will be multiple choice (what the Legacy Paper 1 was) organised by levels of organisation (horizontal in Figure 1). Section B will look a lot like section A in Legacy Paper 3 and will be organised by themes (vertical in the Figure 1 above). In Paper 2, Part A will have unfamiliar data-based material similar to the Legacy Paper 2, and will not assess factual recall but may have questions related to the nature of science and/or skills in the learning of biology. The short answer section, again similar to the Legacy Paper 2, will be organised by levels of organisation and themes. Finally, part B, similar to part B in the Legacy Paper 2, will have extended response questions organised by linking questions. The teacher support material will contain examples of Paper 1 and Paper 2. Internal Assessment The essence of the internal assessment has not changed; it is still a 10-hour project that accounts for 20% of the student's final IB grade. The criteria have changed though and a 3,000 word limit has been added. The most significant change is the removal of personal engagement and communication and the splitting of the conclusion and evaluation. The conclusion and evaluation sections will now have their own criteria, which basically means that the conclusion and evaluation will account for more of the student’s overall grade. The IB has also added the option of collaboration within the IA which would be done very early in the process and under certain conditions. I am excited about the changes in DP Biology, and I hope this blog helps you as you start to grapple with the changes. All the best to you and your students as you start planning for the new guide!

More information on Concept Teaching can be found in our DP Science Concept Guide.

More information on Concept Teaching can be found in our DP Science Concept Guide. If you would like to brighten up your classroom then there is a nice Biology Concepts Poster you can download from here by the artist Gary Goodwin.

The new chemistry subject guide was released in February 2023 and I hope you have had a chance to look over it. As with any curriculum change, there will be some uncertainty or apprehension about the changes but please don’t be worried, there are lots of exciting things to look forward to and, due to the nature of the subject, the content material is pretty much the same. ManageBac has undertaken a thorough review of and comparison of the content in the new guide which can be downloaded and edited for your own use.

Download IB DP Chemistry Syllabus Map

When you look at the guide, you will no doubt start looking at the content which has been reordered and put into a roadmap. The roadmap reflects the way that the IB would like you to teach the course. The backbone to this is that they would like you to teach the course conceptually using both the new slimmer Nature of Science statements and the five ATL attributes. The course is split into two broad concepts of ‘Structure’ and ‘Reactivity’ that are then linked by smaller sub-concepts such as S2.1 The Ionic Model or R3.3 Electron Sharing Reactions. Inside each of these smaller sub-concepts there are the syllabus statements that link the concept together.

Figure 1: Chemistry Roadmap, Chemistry Guide (FA 2025), IBO, p25.

It’s a new way of doing things but the more I look at it and think about it, the more sense it seems to make. Just remember, chemistry is chemistry – things may have moved around but the content has not drastically changed. The other new important piece of information to make you aware of is that the IB has introduced skills. The good news is that they replace the mandatory labs that are in the legacy course, but the bad news is that there is a lot to cover. Please don’t be lulled into a false sense of security with these; the more I think, reflect, and speak to colleagues at the IB the more I realise how important these are. I will go out on a seemingly unrelated limb here, but you may have also noticed that the options have been removed and that some of the non-option content has been removed but very little added, yet the teaching time is the same. Why is this? Well, perhaps now the significance of the skills begins to become more apparent. The IB has given us more time to teach these ideas.

Figure 2: Skills for Chemistry. Chemistry Guide (FA 2025), IB p28

There is a long list of these skills (guide p.28-31) but please do not be worried or overwhelmed by this. All the IB has done is formalise what many of us already did anyway. When you run through the list of skills there will be a few you probably do not teach but you will be reassured to see that most of them you teach already anyway. A similar thing happened nine years ago when the new course was released, and we were introduced to the Nature of Science. Initially, many of us were overwhelmed by the number of statements but it was only with time and reflection we realised that the IB had formalised something that we did anyway and most of the statements were present in our teaching without us even realising it. Finally, the IA (or Scientific Investigation, or SI) has had an overhaul. The criteria have changed and been slimmed down to four:

1. Research design (6 marks)
2. Data analysis (6 marks)
3. Conclusion (6 marks)
4. Evaluation (6 marks)

The total marks of 24 now equates to 20% of the final grade. It is now possible for the students to collaborate (with caveats, for example, only three candidates at a time can work together and the research questions must be their own) and the report needs to be a maximum of 3000 words (not 12 pages). That said, it is worth remembering that 3000 words is three-quarters of an EE so it is not a small report! I hope this overview gives you a feel for the new course and that you are excited to teach it. Keep a look out for the Teacher Support Material (due to be released in September) as this will contain some useful support material as well. More information on Concept Teaching can be found in our DP Science Concept Guide. If you would like to brighten up your classroom then there is a nice Chemistry Concepts Poster you can download from here by the artist Gary Goodwin.

The new DP Physics course has arrived, for first teaching in 2023 and first assessment in 2025. There are changes, but no need to be apprehensive – the changes in content are not dramatic and although there are changes in style, this is nothing to phase an IB Physics teacher! ManageBac has undertaken a thorough review of and comparison of the content in the new guide which can be downloaded and edited for your own use.

Download IB DP Physics Syllabus Map

What is there to look forward to? Well, there is a general move to a more interconnected course and towards a more conceptual approach. The old “options” are out. The criteria for the individual investigation have been simplified and there is a new approach for what we will be calling “Physics skills”. The course moves away from the old division into 12 topics plus options and into a neat set of five themes:

• Space, Time and Motion
• The Particulate Nature of Matter
• Wave Behaviour
• Fields
• Nuclear and Quantum Physics

Source: Physics Guide (FA 2025), IB, 2023, p25. Within each theme there is SL and HL content, clearly differentiated. Within any theme you will find much to recognise from the old course. Some of the old option material has been brought into these new themes, and some of the old SL material has been removed. Although the hours for the whole course remain the same, there is a sense that there is less content to rush through. An important new addition to the course guide is the “linking questions”. Through these, a web is spun that connects and draws in aspects of the five themes. This aids the drive towards conceptual understanding: now the concepts do not stand alone but are linked, compared and contrasted. The process of comparing and contrasting helps to build what we aim for – conceptual learning. These are found at the end of each section of content in the guide. You will notice that the old “topic 1” has disappeared. Those more mathematical and data-analysis skills are now incorporated into what is called “Physics skills”. These skills include not only the technical mathematical and numerical-analytical “tools”, but also everything needed for the “inquiry process” which includes designing experiments and explaining findings. In this new course we weave the development of all of these skills into each of the themes. Careful planning will be needed! Final assessment is similar to the previous model but with just two written papers. (No options so no options paper!). The criteria for the individual investigation are reduced to four categories, each equally weighted. I hope you will enjoy teaching this new course. With its renewed emphasis on revealing the fundamental concepts, on connecting topics within the course and with some reduction in the wide range of content, I think we are in for good times! More information on Concept Teaching can be found in our DP Science Concept Guide. If you would like to brighten up your classroom then there is a nice Physics Concepts Poster you can download from here by the artist Gary Goodwin.