Three day IB DP History workshop, Category 3, Day 3
Melbourne. 02/05/15 – 04/05/15.
Workshop leaders: Colin Aitken and Jenny McArthur
Group page on Google+ (closed, invitation only)

Notes for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3

Session 9: Internal Assessment
• What has changed and why for the Internal Assessment?
Session 10: IA continued
• Putting the changes to the Internal Assessment into practice
Session 11: Approaches to Teaching and Learning
• Overview of ATL, Key Elements and Skills
• Unit Plans
• Course Planning revisited
Session 12 (finishes at 4:00): Clarification and Reflection
• Clarifying issues
• Further Questions and Answers

Session 9: Internal Assessment

• IA must be in three sections with a bibliography.
• Points no longer deducted for a lack of a bibliography, An IA without a bibliography is now considered malpractice.
• Two good documents on the OCC are the Academic Honesty and effective citing and referencing.
• Each section may be subdivided.
• The word allocations are only suggestions: Identification and evaluation 500 words, investigation 1300 words, Reflection 400 words
• Give students the IA guide, see page 90 – 92 of new guide.

IA Section 1: Identification and evaluation of sources

• Clearly state the question they have chosen to investigate.
• This section requires students to analyse in detail two of the sources that they will use in their investigation. The sources can be either primary or secondary. (See page 86).
• Include a brief explanation of the nature of the two sources.
• With reference to the origins, purpose and content, the student should analyse the value and limitations of the two sources in relation to the investigation.
• This section is NOT an introduction. It is NOT the same as A of the old course. This is more similar to C. There is no more scope and method.
• The students can do this on a specific chapter, not the whole source/book.
• Strongly suggest that their question has an analytical command term. No “How” or “Why”. See page 97 of the new guide.

From the new guide:
This section requires students to analyse in detail two of the sources that they will use in their investigation. The sources can be either primary or secondary sources. In this section students must:

• clearly state the question they have chosen to investigate (this must be stated as a question)
• include a brief explanation of the nature of the two sources they have selected for detailed analysis, including an explanation of their relevance to the investigation
• analyse two sources in detail. With reference to the origins, purpose and content, the student should analyse the value and limitations of the two sources in relation to the investigation.

A crucial element of this section of the internal assessment task is formulating an appropriate question to investigate. The six key concepts for the history course (causation, consequence, continuity, change, significance and perspectives) can be a very useful starting point in helping students to formulate a question.

IA Section 2: Investigation

This section of the internal assessment task consists of the actual investigation. The internal assessment task provides scope for a wide variety of different types of historical investigation, for example:

• a historical topic or theme using a variety of written sources or a variety of written and non-written sources
• a historical topic based on fieldwork, for example, a museum, archeological site, battlefields, places of worship such as mosques or churches, historic buildings.
• a local history study.

The investigation must be clearly and effectively organized. While there is no prescribed format for how this section must be structured, it must contain critical analysis that is focused clearly on the question being investigated, and must also include the conclusion that the student draws from their analysis. In this section, students must use a range of evidence to support their argument. Please note that students can use primary sources, secondary sources, or a mixture of the two.

• No fewer than 6 sources
• Students must use a range of evidence to support their arguments. There MUST be a conclusion.
• This should not be in dot points. I can be done as a single essay. No bullet points are not acceptable anymore, anywhere in the IA
• Subheadings and bibliography are not included in the work count.
• The investigation must be clearly and coherently organised, but there is no prescribed format.
• It is now OK to used the first person pronoun.

IA Section 3: Reflection

From the guide (see page 87)
This section of the internal assessment task requires students to reflect on what undertaking their investigation highlighted to them about the methods used by, and the challenges facing, the historian.
Examples of discussion questions that may help to encourage reflection include the following:

• What methods used by historians did you use in your investigation?
• What did your investigation highlight to you about the limitations of those methods?
• What are the challenges facing the historian? How do they differ from the challenges facing a scientist or a mathematician?
• What challenges in particular does archive-based history present?
• How can the reliability of sources be evaluated?
• What is the difference between bias and selection?
• What constitutes a historical event?
• Who decides which events are historically significant?
• Is it possible to describe historical events in an unbiased way?
• What is the role of the historian?
• Should terms such as “atrocity” be used when writing about history, or should value judgments be avoided?
• If it is difficult to establish proof in history, does that mean that all versions are equally acceptable?

Note, you mark this on the mark bands, not on what you think should be there. You must stick to the mark bands only.
Some examples below. The one on Tito was given a 4, the one on ‘Strength through joy’ was given a 2 or a 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Session 10: IA continued

The works cited is no longer given a mark as it is an expectation that all students will clearly acknowledge their sources. If not correctly cited, there is a potential academic honesty issue. This is a line being taken across all DP subjects.

In terms of word count, there is no minimum word count as answers which are really short are self-penalising.
If the students go over the maximum word (2500 words) then teachers and moderators are instructed to simply stop reading. This could mean the conclusion is not read and there would be a corresponding loss of marks.

We marked more sample IAs. Again there were some surprising results.
There is a very clear tendency to award marks for what is there, rather than penalise students for what is NOT there. The participants in the workshop were often surprised by higher than expected marks during trial marking. There seems to be a push towards generosity. The rationale (and a valid one in my opinion) is that the top mark band should be achievable and should be awarded. A strange culture of being very harsh and demanding has crept in History in the last course, and the IB is trying to change this culture. The new mark bands for Paper 2 and 3 are a big improvement on the old course.

Session 11: Approaches to Teaching and Learning

• Five approaches to learning: Thinking, social, communication, self-management and research skills
• Six approaches to teaching: teaching that is inquiry-based, conceptually focused, contextualized, collaborative, differentiated and informed by assessment.

• Approaches to teaching and learning underpin the course. See page 93 of new guide. There is some info on the OCC in the Teacher Support Materials. More to come, is still fairly new so under development.

Suggested curriculum document headings: Timeline, Syllabus content, SL/HL, Syllabus Reference, Appr to T and L, Assessment, TOK, international mindedness, learner profile, Resources. Make a table that contains these headings for your IB course planner.

There is a “Approaches to teaching and learning in the Diploma Programme (pre-publication)” on the OCC.

New concepts that will be emphasised in IB DP History: causation, consequence, change, continuity, significance and perspectives.

The workshop finished with a general discussion and a Q and A session with Jenny Gillett, the curriculum manager for IB History, TOK, Philosophy and I am sure many other things, she is quite amazing. Jenny Gillett was very impressive as she knew how to answer every difficult question that was lobbed at her.
Our workshop leaders Jenny McArthur and Colin Aitken were knowledgeable, clear, organised and helpful. Overall this workshop was a great experience and one that has left me feeling very confident and positive about the new syllabus.