Bad Bio Teacher = Bad Class?

[Conscienceness]

Hey guys, so I'm new to the site, the programme, and so is everyone else I know. My school just started offering IB a year ago, and many of my teachers have never taught the classes before. With nothing to go by but the words of our dear administrators, my class is scared silly that we're doing everything wrong.

In particular, I'm concerned about my HL biology teacher. She's taught Advanced placement classes before, but is infamous for not preparing her students for the exams. She's very fond of labs- if she was actually documenting all the hours we've put in, we'd have almost twice as many as the required amount, for both years. She pulls all of her teaching material from sources on the internet, and sticks by Pearson Baccalaureate 's assessment criteria textbook like they're the word of god. Most of the time, my class feels like she really doesn't understand what she's doing, and makes up for that fact by assigning us three labs a week.

Tomorrow, we start our first science IA, and I'm scared out of my wits. She's stuck by that nobody should consult her, or anybody else, for that matter, on what to do, but every other teacher in the school has said otherwise. She has taught us very little about what we're supposed to do, and insists that this is what the programme wants.

Is this really right, or should I prepare for the worst when she sends off our IAs? For that matter, are bad exam grades probably in my future?

[Sandwich]

Hey guys, so I'm new to the site, the programme, and so is everyone else I know. My school just started offering IB a year ago, and many of my teachers have never taught the classes before. With nothing to go by but the words of our dear administrators, my class is scared silly that we're doing everything wrong.

In particular, I'm concerned about my HL biology teacher. She's taught Advanced placement classes before, but is infamous for not preparing her students for the exams. She's very fond of labs- if she was actually documenting all the hours we've put in, we'd have almost twice as many as the required amount, for both years. She pulls all of her teaching material from sources on the internet, and sticks by Pearson Baccalaureate 's assessment criteria textbook like they're the word of god. Most of the time, my class feels like she really doesn't understand what she's doing, and makes up for that fact by assigning us three labs a week.

Tomorrow, we start our first science IA, and I'm scared out of my wits. She's stuck by that nobody should consult her, or anybody else, for that matter, on what to do, but every other teacher in the school has said otherwise. She has taught us very little about what we're supposed to do, and insists that this is what the programme wants.

Is this really right, or should I prepare for the worst when she sends off our IAs? For that matter, are bad exam grades probably in my future?

I also had a really rubbish Biology teacher who was teaching off the wrong syllabus etc. and my words of advice are that you take matters into your own hands. Download a copy of the Biology syllabus from the Files section of this website, print it out and sit in your lessons going through it. The likelihood is that the Pearson Baccalaureate book shouldn't be too far out, but push her to teach from the syllabus. We used to refuse to learn things our teacher couldn't prove was on the syllabus - stick your hand up and ask her which topic it's from, if you can demonstrate to her that it cannot be found in the syllabus document if she's any sort of reasonable person she ought to move on.

Get a decent textbook. The Pearson one is okay but it's not as concise and easy to use as other textbooks. The Biology Course Companion and Study Guide by Allot & Allot are both really worth having.

Then if your teacher truly is rubbish, just go through the syllabus with the textbook and learn it that way. You can teach yourself Biology pretty easily, to be honest: for hard concepts just ask her questions.

As for the IA, they aren't meant to help you, no. Your Biology teacher is quite correct. However, as you can probably see even within your school, teachers across the world interpret this very differently. Some of them will actively mark you down for every bit of advice they give you (grrr) and others help you anyway. The IBO doesn't enforce any of their guidelines, so really it's about how lucky you are with the teachers you get. Get a copy of the mark scheme for IAs and follow this to the letter

No need to get bad grades if you have a policy of keeping yourself on track.

[GeorgieC]

Our teacher went on maternity leave for a term, and we got a teacher who wasn't IB trained and wasn't even a decent biology teacher. We didn't do an IA for a whole term and our class ended up making power points and going through the syllabus details ourselves. We're catching up on our IA's now because our good teacher is back. You can teach yourself form a few good text books and the syllabus points and like sandwich said by fulfilling all the criteria for the IA's. Good luck! I'm sure you and your class will pull through.

[Arrowhead]

The IB school I went to was ****ty personified. Some of my teachers were trained and knew what they were doing, but others were just...yeah.

My EE teacher was possibly the worst. She stuck to the syllabus like glue, she never even taught us how to write lab reports, and she got all her information from past exam papers and the internet. To top it all off, she was a terrible teacher in general. Halfway through term I quit her class. I created a huge scene and simply walked out because she was wasting my time and I spent four months doing independent study for my exam.

As you can see, I only managed a 5 in ES, but what most people like to gloss over is that my 5 was the highest grade in the past three years at that school in that subject. After me, 2 fellow classmates got 4s and everyone else had 3s and 2s.

Doing independent study is a lot of work, but sometimes it is a necessity. If your teacher sucks and is killing you with labs, you have every right to be scared witless because you might just be in trouble for exams. My ernest suggestion would be to look through IB guides, past exam papers, and loads of memorising on your own time. You just have to suck it up and do it yourself and if you're disciplined and focussed enough, it will work out for you.

[Jaymi]

I think that to an extent, having a bad bio teacher can mean bad grades, unless you actually do something about it. My teacher doesn't teach us a single thing, he sits there at his desk, either gives us a lab, or a worksheet which consists of everything in the particular topic we're doing. In other words, hes not teaching us a single thing, just giving us worksheets. I say take it into your own hands. Get the full syllabus from your teacher. If you are unable to get it from your co-ordinator, google it. The syllabus is the same since 2009. Once you have the syllabus, just go through the syllabus using your textbook or internet sites. Thats what im doing, im actually making notes for my class because my teacher gives us insufficient notes which does not cover the whole topic which we'll be doing. (Yep, im a team player).

Or you could do what we did with out math teacher? Everybody in her class was failing, my class and the IB1 group she teaches. So everybody wrote complaint notes and e-mailed it to the co-ordinator. Presto! it worked, they found a new teacher and everybody's passing. Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands.But since your school just started IB, i don't actually think that that will work. Just see what happens, then go from there.

Good luck!

X

[Guest kenshi64]

i'd like to begin by saying 'Teachers are like relationships' they come and Go! so don't let it ruin your future, would you let a heart- break mess with your head? No. Well get cracking on self-evaluation and studying as has been pointed out. This works well, if the teacher is a **** don't there her word for anything positive or negative, just judge where you think you stand in Bio. And read the text book casually like a novel that way you'll familiarize yourself with it and was breeze through this easy subject.

[SoCleo]

Don't panic. I don't recall my HL Biology teacher ever giving 3 labs a week. We had a lab about once a month. She should be following the IB syllabus for biology. Along with, many schools that just throw teachers into IB teaching, isn't right. The IB has strict standards, and they should be hiring a teacher that has atleast taught the program for 2+ years.

But, I'm going to give you some tips on how to pass along with some site my Biology teacher gave us for extra study guides. As what most of us said above- download the syllabus from IBO.org, and bring it to class with you. (You should have it anyways, teacher should've given it to you).

The Pearson book should be alright for now, but it's not what she should be teaching out of. She should be making up her own slides and fulfilling, exceeding the knowledge requirements of the IB for you Biology students. The Study Guide books of Allot & Allot are amazing, stick by those.

Don't panic, you will pass. we are here and your teacher should pass you anyways.

~Cleo