Snapshot of an IB Diploma Programme Course
- Two years in length.
Ex. 20th Century Topics, the second year of IB History, spends the entire year on only the 20th century up to approximately the mid 1970s, giving students more time to engage with specific events at an evaluative level, including the study of historiography.
- Assessed in multiple ways by the IBO.
- Oral recordings in Language Acquisition
- Field work in Geography
- Laboratory work in the Sciences
- Recordings of performances and productions in the Arts
- Investigations in Mathematics
"Is there a correlation between the hours of sleep a student averages
per night and his GPA?" (former MHS Math Studies Investigation)
- Focused on teaching skills of analysis and evaluation.
Ex. “Assess the contribution of economic instability and lack of a united opposition to the rise to power of two leaders of single-party states, each chosen from a different region.” (History 2 – 20th Century Topics exam 2012)
- Emphasize writing in most disciplines.
“At HL students are required to submit two written tasks, each 800–1,000 words in length.” (IBO Language and Literature Guide)
Year 1 of the course looks at more of textual mimircy that reveals understand of language used for a certain topic. For example, one student wrote a diary entry that focused on how gender is portrayed in different cultures, and her purpose was to reflect on the diary author's opinion (textual mimircy) about the differing societal norms pertaining to gender and how the norms create an image of a culture or group.