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This petition should be signed!


sarahaction

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Hi there!

You are doing a great job since most of you were in lock down due to COVID-19. 

I would welcome everyone to sign this petition: 

https://www.change.org/p/ib-make-the-international-baccalaureate-organization-ibo-to-reduce-content-for-m2021?recruiter=915042427&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=abi_gmail&utm_campaign=address_book&utm_term=280af2aecb4e45b695526ec8026a2982&recruited_by_id=16e6dd50-eae1-11e8-9d35-e3bf6fb89d7b

In fact, the aim of this petition is to reduce the content of what class of 2021 students should learn in the IB. Due to online learning which seems to be ineffective for most of the students, this petition helps students to learn more efficiently.

Less content means that we can have more time to focus on other work such as our IAs and it also reduces the burden. 

Have a nice holiday! :)

 

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just out of curiosity, how do you imagine this could work? I mean some schools have done already some content that others didn't probably, so some would be negatively affected, e.g. when for chemistry topics 18, 19, 20 are cancelled for HL and a shool has done this but hasn't done the topics 14, 15, 16 (for some reason) then students from that school would be disadvantaged (as the topics they have done wouldn't be useful and still have to do topics)

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1 hour ago, ChocolateAndVanilla said:

just out of curiosity, how do you imagine this could work? I mean some schools have done already some content that others didn't probably, so some would be negatively affected, e.g. when for chemistry topics 18, 19, 20 are cancelled for HL and a shool has done this but hasn't done the topics 14, 15, 16 (for some reason) then students from that school would be disadvantaged (as the topics they have done wouldn't be useful and still have to do topics)

Teachers always start by teaching from chapter 1, then move to other chapters because you should gain skills from chapters at start in order to learn other chapters. Chapters at the beginning contain basic skills, therefore if you don't know them, you can't understand other chapters. 

That is why students would not get disadvantaged from not learning chapters at the end, as you mentioned. In addition, chapters at the end are harder than chapters at the beginning. So students will take more time to revise chapters at the end, as well as coping with other workloads such as IAs, EE, and TOK, if the content is not reduced. 

It is better to fully understand specific chapters clearly, rather than going too fast and not having time to fully understand everything in the syllabus.

In conclusion, that is why I think that this petition can work. 

Edited by sarahaction
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8 hours ago, sarahaction said:

Teachers always start by teaching from chapter 1, then move to other chapters because you should gain skills from chapters at start in order to learn other chapters. Chapters at the beginning contain basic skills, therefore if you don't know them, you can't understand other chapters. 

That is why students would not get disadvantaged from not learning chapters at the end, as you mentioned. In addition, chapters at the end are harder than chapters at the beginning. So students will take more time to revise chapters at the end, as well as coping with other workloads such as IAs, EE, and TOK, if the content is not reduced. 

It is better to fully understand specific chapters clearly, rather than going too fast and not having time to fully understand everything in the syllabus.

In conclusion, that is why I think that this petition can work. 

well, I don't agree with you. don't say that teachers always start, because you probably don't know all teachers in all IB schools and some of them have different methods of teaching and may do the topic in a different order, your assumption is way too generalised.

for example, we did 9 and 19 topics for chemistry, but haven't done topic 4 and 14 for instance, because this is how our teacher said would be the best way.

same goes for biology, we did e.g. topic 9 and 10, but haven't done topic 6 (which I believe is actually more difficult)

so this petition would work probably only if by any chance we knew about the pandemic at the start of IBY1 so in August-September 2019 and so teachers could adjust the content. or, if the current situation continues for a longer period of time, it could be a solution to the class of 2022 possibly.

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9 hours ago, ChocolateAndVanilla said:

well, I don't agree with you. don't say that teachers always start, because you probably don't know all teachers in all IB schools and some of them have different methods of teaching and may do the topic in a different order, your assumption is way too generalised.

for example, we did 9 and 19 topics for chemistry, but haven't done topic 4 and 14 for instance, because this is how our teacher said would be the best way.

same goes for biology, we did e.g. topic 9 and 10, but haven't done topic 6 (which I believe is actually more difficult)

so this petition would work probably only if by any chance we knew about the pandemic at the start of IBY1 so in August-September 2019 and so teachers could adjust the content. or, if the current situation continues for a longer period of time, it could be a solution to the class of 2022 possibly.

Generally, teachers do their lesson from chapters at the beginning, even though it can differ from school. 

Even though certain chapters are studied, you still need to study them because you won't remember 100% of the content so it takes more time than when the content is not reduced. 

Not reducing content leaves us less time for revision because you should do workloads that you didn't finish in IBY1 in YBY2.

Also, reducing content can bridge the gap between schools that have done the online school and schools that didn't do the online school. 

My coordinator told me that schools in certain states in the US (he didn't precise which states were), teachers were not allowed to assign work and to do online classes for students. Doing all the content that they did not do and the workload for those students in IBY2 is more overwhelming to them, compared to other students that did the online school. 

It causes more burden for the students and for the teachers because they are behind schools that have done online classes. There is still time to think about this solution.

Edited by sarahaction
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It would be easier for everyone as it would exclude certain chapters and no matter if you have done them already or not it would be easier to study less, however, the disadvantage created makes it almost impossible for the IB to actually go for it. There is a bigger chance that they might be more lenient with grading or simply do nothing...

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9 hours ago, acere said:

It would be easier for everyone as it would exclude certain chapters and no matter if you have done them already or not it would be easier to study less, however, the disadvantage created makes it almost impossible for the IB to actually go for it. There is a bigger chance that they might be more lenient with grading or simply do nothing...

IB won't "simply do nothing", it is a prestigious program that educates students to prepare for their universities. 

The grading system is not lenient since grade boundaries of each year are similar. 

Even though we don't know what is the response of the IB for reducing content, it is better to learn less things rather than making tons of petitions to lower the grade boundaries for the final exam in 2021.

Lowering the grade boundaries does not have a significant impact on our final scores, which decide our university

 

Kind regards :) 

Edited by sarahaction
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1 hour ago, sarahaction said:

IB won't "simply do nothing", it is a prestigious program that educates students to prepare for their universities. 

The grading system is not lenient since grade boundaries of each year are similar. 

Even though we don't know what is the response of the IB for reducing content, it is better to learn less things rather than making tons of petitions to lower the grade boundaries for the final exam in 2021.

Lowering the grade boundaries does not have a significant impact on our final scores, which decide our university

Kind regards :) 

look at what happened to M20 grades, many students got way lower score than their predicted grades and thus many didn't get into their top choice unis. and if they asked for remarks, usually it didn't work with assumptions that IB sometimes didn't even read their IAs because they sent it back after a few hours.

to me it makes me think that they won't do anything, so I would advise just to go and study, you've got nothing to lose ;)

Edited by ChocolateAndVanilla
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52 minutes ago, ChocolateAndVanilla said:

look at what happened to M20 grades, many students got way lower score than their predicted grades and thus many didn't get into their top choice unis. and if they asked for remarks, usually it didn't work with assumptions that IB sometimes didn't even read their IAs because they sent it back after a few hours.

to me it makes me think that they won't do anything, so I would advise just to go and study, you've got nothing to lose ;)

For M20, it was different. They didn't do their final exam at all, so IB didn't have good ways to predict scores for many students. However, it was based on their IAs and their coursework. From my understanding, a lot of students didn't do well on their IAs. 

For M21, there is a final exam, since the online schooling is not as effective for a lot of students, they are demanding to reduce the content for the final exam. IB has a good method (final exam) to grade students. 

We don't know what is going to happen, and the majority of students are working hard during the lockdown. Online schooling is less effective than traditional schooling, according to the general opinion of students. They are more behind with online schooling than they should be with traditional schooling. :) 

Edited by sarahaction
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15 minutes ago, sarahaction said:

For M20, it was different. They didn't do their final exam at all, so IB didn't have good ways to predict scores for many students. However, it was based on their IAs and their coursework. From my understanding, a lot of students didn't do well on their IAs. 

For M21, there is a final exam, since the online schooling is not as effective for a lot of students, they are demanding to reduce the content for the final exam. For this, IB has a good method to grade students. 

We don't know what is going to happen, and the majority of students are working hard during the lockdown. Online schooling is less effective than traditional schooling, according to the general opinion of students. They are more behind with online schooling than they should be with traditional schooling. :) 

yeah, probably you're right that online classes are less effective than traditional classes, I also don't like them personally.

I'm just saying that, looking at M20 experience, they may just not care at all, because otherwise if they did, they might have found a better way to assess M20. then your understanding is wrong probably because why would they get 6s or 7s for their IAs and be given a 3 or 4 in the end? and why would so many students do badly on their IAs compared to years before? (which you could see e.g. by looking at the number of people who got 40+, way lower this year)

but I see you're kinda ignoring what I'm saying as if you were a robot with already prepared statements 😂 and not really willing to listen to another opinion... so this discussion doesn't make much sense to me. 

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31 minutes ago, ChocolateAndVanilla said:

yeah, probably you're right that online classes are less effective than traditional classes, I also don't like them personally.

I'm just saying that, looking at M20 experience, they may just not care at all, because otherwise if they did, they might have found a better way to assess M20. then your understanding is wrong probably because why would they get 6s or 7s for their IAs and be given a 3 or 4 in the end? and why would so many students do badly on their IAs compared to years before? (which you could see e.g. by looking at the number of people who got 40+, way lower this year)

but I see you're kinda ignoring what I'm saying as if you were a robot with already prepared statements 😂 and not really willing to listen to another opinion... so this discussion doesn't make much sense to me. 

No, I don't talk like a robot and I replied to your comments so I am not "kinda ignoring what you were saying". 

Other teachers access the IAs of M2020 too, so maybe they didn't have the same standards as school teachers of students. 

In this case, IAs are marked by external people. 

Focus on M2021, because this is the principal subject of this discussion, because talking about M2020 is going off topic. M2020 and M2021 students don't have the same conditions.

Reducing the content of the final exam by keeping the similar grade boundaries as when students normally have done their final exams (ex: 2019) could make students' grades higher than when it is not reduced. 

Edited by sarahaction
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