IB Induction Project

In the first week back after the summer holidays:

• Students in Grade 11 will be placed into teams and will come off timetable to take part in a "themed event" involving various IB subject groups.
• Teachers involved in the event will provide a one-hour lesson investigating the positive and negative legacies of World War Two in relation to their particular subject specialism.
• Co-ordinators involved in the event will then help each team of students tie these various lessons together in an overall thesis which forms the basis of
  • A group presentation, which is judged by senior teachers and
  • An individual "open homework" project marked using a "choose your own mark scheme" approach, the results of which are recorded in the student reporting system as a baseline assessment.
  • Students will also be given multimedia resources to help them prepare their resource.

The event will:

• give a sharp focus and purpose to the induction period and help students bridge the gap between Grade 10 and the rigours of IB
• provide a distinct 'event' to start the IB course rather than simply plunging into the normal timetable of lessons from Day 1.
• encourage students to see horizontal links between the 6 subject groups which may otherwise remain abstracted (the "IB Circle")
• serve as a valuable team-building exercise and help to integrate new students especially into the school
• provide students with the raw material for a TOK essay, internal assessment or extended essay
• provide teachers with a prompt and detailed snapshot of the strengths and weaknesses of each student in terms of presentational, research and written skills.

Wednesday AM
Students will be involved in a 'treasure hunt' around Toulouse based on the concept explained in this blogpost.

The Treasure Hunt consists of several parts:

Stage 1 (c. 45 minutes)

Treasure Hunt 1 (completed by ALL teams)

Stage 2 (c. 45 minutes)

As soon as a team has completed their first Treasure Hunt worksheet, they should return to collect their second task sheet, which consists of another Treasure Hunt but in a specified part of town (so teams don't overlap with each other and have a temptation to cheat):

Individualised Treasure Hunts:
Team A | Team B | Team C | Team D | Team E

• Student groups use lesson time in the following week to deliver their debates with teachers as judges.

• Start with the first theme (e.g. "Economics"). One team will propose the view that World War Two was a period of progress and development; then an opposing team will present a conflicting interpretation.
• IMPORTANT NOTE about audience participation: As these presentations are in the form of a debate, with pairs of teams pitted against each other to argue for/against process on particular themes, the audience should be encouraged not merely to make notes, but challenged to provide a synthesis which successfully reconciles the points made in each presentation (e.g. progress in the short- but not the long-term; progress in one part of the world/society, but not in another).
• After each of the two teams has finished speaking, members of each team can ask questions of the other to generate some genuine debate and further insights (don't allow questions during the presentation unless these are simple requests for clarification).

Teachers are looking for such things as:
• A thematic argument based on a clear definition of progress, not one based on a ‘subject by subject’ approach
                  • Each person in the team having a clear contribution
                  • Engagement with the audience (direct eye contact, asking for involvement)
• Slides which are not simply packed with text that is read out; rather, the slides should provide essential stimulus that is developed by the presenter.

• Following the debates, all students complete a peer assessment slip to measure the contribution of each person in their team. Supervising teachers collect these in, and use them to spot if any student has been 'carried' by the rest of the team and follow-up on this as appropriate.

Task 1: Deciding on the most “important” factors

• After discussing as a class how we define “important” in history, you should work individually for this task. Write down your view of the FIVE most important ‘impacts’ of World War Two.
• Use the presentations from the induction event to help you, and be prepared to explain your choices.
• Compare your ideas with a partner, then with the class.  

• Can these impacts be linked in any meaningful way?
• As a class, start this process by considering which words we could add to the following list:
Cause | Result | Therefore | Exacerbated | Accelerated | Consequence | Highlighted
• Then, produce a flow diagram linking your factors together. At this stage you might start considering which developments were positive, and which were negative.

• Co-ordinators round off by explaining the next stage of the project (an individual "open homework" project marked using a "choose your own mark scheme" approach, the results of which are recorded in the student reporting system as a baseline assessment).

There are just a few essential pedagogical points to remember to cover in your sessions - beyond this, feel free to cover whatever content, in whatever format, that you think most appropriate!

• Cover both NEGATIVE and POSITIVE effects of World War Two upon your subject specialism within your presentation. This is very important - the students will be debating this and so it's important they have varied perspectives.
• Ensure that students appreciate the difference between CORRELATION and CAUSATION (a nice link to TOK and logical fallacies!). The fact that an event simply FOLLOWED World War Two does not mean that it was CAUSED/ACCELERATED by it. Last year, too many students were simply listing things that happened after World War Two without making it clear how World War Two acted as a catalyst for them.