IB Docs (2) Team
Principles of course design
There are four guiding principles the IB wants you to think about when designing your course: variety, integration, autonomy, and accountability. While there are restrictions and requirements – you can’t just do whatever you want – there is so much flexibility in the content you present to your students, the overall organization of the entire course, and the approach you take.
Importantly, assessments are not tied to areas of exploration and students have a wide variety of options and choices of what to do especially when selecting works/texts in the Individual Oral and the Higher Level Essay.
Downfalls exist with this flexibility. A poorly thought-out curriculum – that does not take into consideration the areas of exploration, concepts, and global issues in relationship to overall time spent on each unit of study in connection to assessment tasks and when they will be completed – will most likely fall flat.
The upside though far outweighs these real risks. The IB has empowered you as a teacher. They are trusting you. They believe in your ability to deliver an amazing course. They just ask that as you construct a course, you take the four guiding principles of course design seriously.
Variety – Diversity is the first word that comes to mind here, in all its forms. You will want diversity in your non-literary text types to prepare students for Paper 1. You will want diversity in the voices you present to your students taking gender, race, class, ethnicity, geography, time period, form, and more into consideration for both literary works and non-literary texts.
Integration – How will you help students connect all they learn in the course? This principle forces you to make sure students make contextual and comparative connections between texts and works. The less you think of the areas of exploration or the concepts in isolation and the more you think of them as interconnected, the easier you will find this principle of course design.
The three areas of exploration and seven concepts serve as helpful threads to make this happen. The learner portfolio is also a great place for students to explore their thinking about the interconnectedness of texts and works and some assessment tasks – Paper 2 in particular – require comparative work.
Autonomy – Students get to choose what they want to do for many (most) of the assessment components of the course. While we can and should guide them – and tell them “No!” when their idea doesn’t work – they have a lot of freedom. We need to nurture and harness that autonomy. For example, students are able to select the work and text used for the Individual Oral. They get to choose what they want to do for the Higher Level Essay. To a certain extent, there will be some choice going into Paper 2.
Again, this doesn’t mean it is a complete free-for-all with no direction from us. Instead, it means we don’t tell them what exact literary work and non-literary text to select for their Individual Oral. Instead, we guide them in their thinking and decisions. Self-directed learners who are able to make decisions for themselves is a worthy and laudable goal here.
Accountability – Simply put, don’t cheat! Abide by the rules and regulations in the guide. Teach six literary works at Higher Level. Don’t talk yourself into only teaching five because you believe you don’t have the time. That’s cheating. You know the rules. This goes for students too. Academic honesty is essential and they are held to strict standards (as they should be). The IB is trusting us to do the right thing. We are up to the challenge.
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