Two statements where provided:

The International Baccalaureate (IB) aims to develop inquiring, and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. The IB offers high quality programmes of international education to a worldwide community of schools. Statement 1

and

It is the only High School qualification that is recognised by Universities world-wide. Statement 2

Then Seminar 6 task was to:

  1. Visit the IB Australasia Website and browse the site, keeping in mind the two statements above.

  2. Read Chapter 7 of Churchill et al. (2013)1 and reflect on your Seminar 6 experience.

  3. Watch the IB Interactive powerpoint (available on CANVAS) and respond to the following two questions. Post your 250 word response to your e-portfolio.

    • How is assessment within the IBDP different from other systems?
    • Why is formative assessment essential for assessment within the IB?

How is assessment within the IBDP different from other systems? The IBDP typically has a very heavily weighted external assessment component (~75%), usually an exam, compared with SACE (~30%). The IBDP grades on a 1-7 scale, different to the letter grades SACE uses. The IBDP is also moderated and criterion-based, but SACE actually shares these characteristics now.

Why is formative assessment essential for assessment within the IB? I think formative assessment is essential regardless and I don’t see anything that makes it particularly more essential in IB than in any other context. In general however, I think formative assessment is essential primarily as a way to provide feedback which is a crucial thing for student achievement, as Masters (2014)2 and Hattie (2007)3 emphasise. Another context in which formative assessment is essential is in pre-testing, to inform the teacher about what the students know and think at the beginning of teaching to direct the teacher on what and how they should individualise their teaching for the particular students they are teaching.

References:

  1. Churchill, R., Ferguson, P., Godinho, S., Johnson, N. F., Keddie, A., Letts, W., Mackay, J., McGill, M., Moss, J., Nagel, M. & Nicholson, P. (2013). Teaching: Making a difference. ↩

  2. Masters, G. N. (2014). Assessment: getting to the essence. ↩

  3. Hattie, John (2007). The power of feedback. Review of educational research, 77(1):81-112. ↩