IA Injustice?

[Sandwich]

Hopefully this is the right location for this discussion!

I was thinking about how bizarre all of our IB IAs have been, at least where I am. Even between departments we had massive discrepancies in terms of how IA terms were delivered. Some subject teachers allowed drafts to be written for Science subjects, and therefore for improvements to be made, whereas other Science teachers used any questions you asked them as an excuse to drop marks from your final IA grade, and certainly would never consider a draft anything short of cheating. I know it definitely changed my grades for those subjects to have considerable help with one, and nothing short of negative help for the other.

Similarly some deadlines which I've observed being kept reasonably strictly on here, such as Maths IA deadlines, were allowed to run a little over at my school. Some people on here seem to have been given a preferential choice (or selection) for their A1 Oral Novels/Plays/Poems, whereas we all spent weeks trying to commit 4 works to memory whilst simultaneously doing all our coursework! Had we only had a week for the IA, or been allowed a choice for Literature we really didn't want to come up, again I feel it would've made a big difference to our grades - perhaps not only to the grades for the Oral or Maths IA, but also to the work we were meant to be doing alongside them.

All in all, I wonder-- how do people feel about IAs? Were/are they conducted fairly, or at least within reasonable limits? Or do they stray too far from each other in standards to really be true reflections of students as opposed to evidence of the individual practice of teachers? Is it the problem of the schools (and teachers) or of the IB? Is the standard not laid out clearly enough, or that is it laid out but simply not enforced? O:

I'm curious as to what people think to the whole thing, as (in my opinion only, of course) it's one of the big failings of the IB that it has extremely low regulation of internal assessments, at least in practice.

EDIT: I thought I'd add that even if your school is fair, having seen how other schools conduct their IAs, do you feel it's fair to put your marks up against their marks on the same level?

Edited May 17, 2009 by Sandwich

[Abu]

I like the IB1 exam option. Would be much more uniform across the world, because there are schools (ahem 9 45ers in Singapore in the school that had their exams the first time) that cheat and help their students do their IAs. Help can be in a multitude of options.

[Vvi]

I agree with Sandwich, some teachers help you in my school and some don't. For Math Studies portfolios, we handed in first drafts and still got to ask the etacher for help with calculations afterwards, whereas the Math SL students had a real ****er for a teacher who refused to agree with the IB guidelines that students be allowed to hand in a first draft, and when they wanted to change one calculation after it was handed in, he said he would take off 6 marks if they did so. They ended up having to write an entire new Mtah portfolio if they wanted full marks.

Then there's one teacher (Economics/Psychology/Geography) who asks you to send him your work by email, rewrites huge chunks of it and sends it back to you. The Biology teacher is useless at explaining any IB rules (her first language isn't English so she just confuses people). And our IB coordinator was strict about the TOK and EE: one draft, looked at by one teacher. You could ask classmates and people/adults outside school to read it and help you out, but only one teacher in school would read your draft. I actually asked another teacher to read my EE, and she gave me retarded suggestions anyways (being a Chemistry teacher, even though one from England, obviously gave her no brilliant ideas for my English A1 EE).

And for French, we had some help but not a whole lot. Honestly depends on the actual teacher and how much time they're willing to give you/what they think of IB rules in general.

[deissi]

Its pretty much like that in every school, although some schools are just completely corrupt. I guess it depends a lot on the IB Coordinator, and how he/she feels about bending the rules. Unfortunately it is very easy for schools to cheat in IAs, which hurts those schools that do everything by the book. A great example of IA cheating is the TOK presentation, where one needs to achieve 19 points (out of 20) for an A. In practice, this means that people receive such high grades for TOK presentations in most schools (too leniently, I'm certain) that the honest schools suffer severly because they actually grade against the descriptors instead of giving everyone an A.

And yeah, it really seems unfair to see how some people do their A1 orals, where I guess cheating is very easy. For example, a friend of mine in another Finnish IB school was told by her teacher to bring an extract with her to the IOC because the teacher couldn't be bothered to find one for her. Not surprisingly, this level 5 student got a 7 in the IA component. In contrast, most people in my school spent at least hours if not tens of hours preparing for the orals. But that's IB, I just wonder when they will realize that they should change their practice.

This being said, my school doesn't always go strictly by the book either (but let's not get into that), but at least I think we're fairly honest in general.

[Tilia]

We do drafts for social sciences and WLs, everything else (portfolios, lab reports) is just handed in and marked directly. T don't like the idea about IB 1 exams, since you should practise other stuff than just writing tests, such as lab reports, essays etc.

Maybe the IBO should try to specify it a bit more, I don't really know what the regulations are. But I think it says in the philosophy guide that teachers are allowed to comment on the IA draft, but only once. Then it would be stupid by the techers to not do that.

[master135]

OMG the english IAs in my school were conducted horribly. There was so much discrepancy in the standard of marking between the different teachers at my school (this is bad for moderation) and the passages for the IOC were not given randomly...instead 3 people in a row would get this same extract (this can lead to problems...). I also dont agree with the moderation system because someone elses IA can really screw up your mark - IB should either mark all IAs externally or choose much larger samples, treating IAs marked by different teachers seperately rather than as one class.

[Jakebert]

I tend to like how my school does it (FOR MOST SUBJECTS), especially for the IOC. All three English teachers mark you and they HAVE to agree on your mark. Same for TOK essays, your teacher marks it, then the other three do, and they all decide on a mark (it takes them a long time, haha). My Biology teacher doesn't have that safety catch and so our labs are completely screwy. I did two design labs the exact same way, I got a 6/6 on one, and a 1/6 on the other. No consistency.

[biochem]

I have an amazing biology teacher. I could not stress that enough, and I will refrain from the compelling urge to capitalize my sentences in order to get the point across. Just know, its unheard of for someone to be so great. Its no joke that she got the teacher of the year award.

The IA she conducted was like, a major week process and it was perfect. Everything was crystal clear and everyone did really great. She tries her hardest to make us succeed.

Other teachers on the other hand, are horrible. They dont understand how to explain the international standards we are asked to have - and grade from a pedestal of an educational degree. For example, chemistry simply makes no sense to me when it comes to IAs. I know its similar to biology, but the grading is sooo different. We get attacked on issues that have to do with not the rubric, but research scientist perspective. None of us are capable of breaking down the walls of the grading in that class. We simply dont know enough.

My spanish teacher grades as harshly as possible and has the "no 7" rule. I abhor people who do this! IBO simply has a way of checking the bias that might come up. you dont take out a policy like that in order to make sure your scores dont go down. If you grade the right way, IBO wont disagree with a 1 point or 2 point difference. What they do care about is, if you are giving someone half the score they deserve. I really dont get it. some teachers appear brain dead. And the same stringent teacher files her nails when the not-so secret spanish students go up to do the oral. You know how you are suppose to ask questions in the end? well she just says - 100%. next...

I think IAs are a great idea - but I cant help but to think that some teachers are not capable of doing the work they should. or rather are lazy. this is why i dont think anyone deserves a raise nationally. who cares if generally, they feed you knowledge? Why give a raise to someone who doesnt deserve it? I think money bonuses should be given to those who do outstanding - not the trolls who spend valuable class time talking about a show or complain about how things are not going the way they should be.

[idIB]

My french teacher is seriously biased. She marked our orals based on what marks we usually get in class and was more preoccupied with getting the computer to work than listening to the actual presentation. She also tends to "overlook" grammar mistakes if she like what you're saying...

But all the other teachers are pretty fair, although my ToK teacher is a much easier marker than my friends

I like having an IB1 exam for it, but I'm not sure how practical it would be for the examiners to listen to ever single speech and commentary etc for every student in the world.

[sweetnsimple786]

I have an amazing biology teacher. I could not stress that enough, and I will refrain from the compelling urge to capitalize my sentences in order to get the point across. Just know, its unheard of for someone to be so great. Its no joke that she got the teacher of the year award.

The IA she conducted was like, a major week process and it was perfect. Everything was crystal clear and everyone did really great. She tries her hardest to make us succeed.

Other teachers on the other hand, are horrible. They dont understand how to explain the international standards we are asked to have - and grade from a pedestal of an educational degree. For example, chemistry simply makes no sense to me when it comes to IAs. I know its similar to biology, but the grading is sooo different. We get attacked on issues that have to do with not the rubric, but research scientist perspective. None of us are capable of breaking down the walls of the grading in that class. We simply dont know enough.

My spanish teacher grades as harshly as possible and has the "no 7" rule. I abhor people who do this! IBO simply has a way of checking the bias that might come up. you dont take out a policy like that in order to make sure your scores dont go down. If you grade the right way, IBO wont disagree with a 1 point or 2 point difference. What they do care about is, if you are giving someone half the score they deserve. I really dont get it. some teachers appear brain dead. And the same stringent teacher files her nails when the not-so secret spanish students go up to do the oral. You know how you are suppose to ask questions in the end? well she just says - 100%. next...

I've had a similar experience. I've only completed IB1, but the English IOP was, I think, conducted perfectly. The teacher set guidelines, looked over skeletal outlines, and left the rest to us.

For our biology labs, the teacher did a nice job of giving us instructions. He gave us two weeks to do the first lab report so we could ask questions. Of course, most of us waited until the last 48 hours... hehe. He said that he'd be grading easier for the first time, but what he really meant is that he'd be grading harder for the next lab. I felt like I didn't deserve the grades I got on the two lab write-ups I've done so far, but I say that about a lot of stuff.

However, for Spanish B SL, the teacher was overly helpful, to put it one way. I think she gave us advantages because she felt we needed them. We had a banquet for one part of the IA. It was totally staged. totally. completely. wholly. okay, I guess you get the point. For the oral, she asked us to give her five or so questions and she might use them during the oral. This made up for the lack of preparation/practice (We did nothing IB related 98% of the time during the two years. 2% of the time we reviewed the subjunctive and she told us how to write a letter properly in Spanish.)

For Physics SL, the teacher felt bad that he rushed what should have been done throughout the year into 3 effin' days--three! So he told us to do our labs and he called us all together after class and went over two of our labs. He told us exactly what he would have taken off for, gave all the labs back, and gave us an extra two days to redo them. I would have gotten like an 18/40 [due to lack of experience] the first time but he gave me an expected grade of 6 after the 2nd lab.

Some IAs are done fairly, while others are seriously botched up. I feel that the botched up ones outweigh the good. Also with the math IA, while the teacher was quite fair, like many people have pointed out, it's not hard to cheat. In addition, even if the student didn't cheat, I don't feel that the two projects portray the student's work holistically.