IB Induction Project

 
 

IB Induction Project: "Was World War Two a period of progress and development?"

Overview

Description: http://www.ibo.org/img/imagebank/dp_eng_reduced.jpgIn the first week back after the summer holidays:

  • Students in Grade 11 will be placed into teams and will come off timetable to take part in a "themed event" involving various IB subject groups.
  • Teachers involved in the event will provide a one-hour lesson investigating the positive and negative legacies of World War Two in relation to their particular subject specialism.
  • Co-ordinators involved in the event will then help each team of students tie these various lessons together in an overall thesis which forms the basis of
    • A group presentation, which is judged by senior teachers and
    • An individual "open homework" project marked using a "choose your own mark scheme" approach, the results of which are recorded in the student reporting system as a baseline assessment.
    • Students will also be given multimedia resources to help them prepare their resource.

Objectives

The event will:Preparing for battle: As ground crewmen inspect a Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane in a deserted field outside of London in 1941 pilots discuss their strategy for fighting in the air

  • give a sharp focus and purpose to the induction period and help students bridge the gap between Grade 10 and the rigours of IB
  • provide a distinct 'event' to start the IB course rather than simply plunging into the normal timetable of lessons from Day 1.
  • encourage students to see horizontal links between the 6 subject groups which may otherwise remain abstracted (the "IB Circle")
  • serve as a valuable team-building exercise and help to integrate new students especially into the school
  • provide students with the raw material for a TOK essay, internal assessment or extended essay
  • provide teachers with a prompt and detailed snapshot of the strengths and weaknesses of each student in terms of presentational, research and written skills.

Carousel of Subject Workshops / Preparation of Presentations (Monday / Tuesday)

Monday

Pd

Teams A / B / C

Teams D / E / F

2

Assembly (based around this PowerPoint presentation and these presenter notes)
• Outline of the IB Learner Profile and the IB Circle
• Definition of ‘development’ and ‘progress.
• Outlining the shape of the event, organisation of the teams, timetable
• Activity - overview of WW2 using a ‘trivia challenge’ as a framework [student version | teacher answers]

3

Group 5
(maths)
Maths

Group 4
(experimental sciences)
Science

4

Group 4
(experimental sciences)
Science

Group 3
(individuals and societies)
Business

5

Group 6
(the arts)
Music

Group 5
(Com. Sci)
ICT

6

Group 3
(individuals and societies)
Business

Group 3
(individuals and societies)
Geography

Tuesday

1

Group 5
(Com. Sci)
ICT

Group 5
(maths)
Maths

2

Group 3 (EC7-30)
(individuals and societies)
Geography

Group 2 (P01)
(second language)
French

3

Group 2
(second language)
French

Group 6
(the arts)
Music

4

EC7 Auditorium Assembly
• Students return to Secondary Hall for debriefing and an outline of the next phase of the project "Was World War Two a period of progress and development?". Half the teams will be providing a case for “YES”, and half a case for “NO” (to be decided randomly during the assembly).
▪ Each of the “YES” teams has to focus on one a different theme (e.g. cultural, technological, political, economic, social, diplomatic – these could be discussed and decided upon by the group themselves OR decided by the roll of a die: this is also a good opportunity to define those terms). The “NO” teams take responsibility for a counter-argument for the same themes.
▪ Each team then has the remainder of the day to prepare their case.

• The presentations themselves will take the form of a debate between pairs of opposing teams, with the audience taking notes and producing a synthesis statement based on the argument / counter-argument presented.
• In this way all students will be much more engaged with a wider variety of perspectives and each presentation will be very different from the last.

In these presentations students will be expected to demonstrate:

  • Breadth - Coverage of all 6 subject areas
  • Depth - Evidence of both positive and negative impacts
  • Linkage - Clear and logical connections between the 6 subject areas

Students are given the following instructions which outlines how they should draw their findings together:


Definition of key terms
• As a team, define how ‘progress and development’ can be measured for your allocated theme. Write down your definition in the following manner:
Economically, progress and development can be measured by… [OR]
Politically, progress and development can be assessed by…(etc)

Analysis within subjects
• Next, go through each of the six subject areas you have now learned about. For each, identify some ways there was clear ‘progress’ according to your criteria, or ways in which there was not, based on whether your answer to the key question is “YES” or “NO”. You may wish to divide the subjects between the members of the group and share your thoughts afterwards.

Linkage between subjects
• Then, discuss as a group the order in which you think these subjects should be presented. Is there a logical connection (for example) between how the developments in science clearly impacted upon developments in literature? The best teams will be able to show how the six subjects connect together with each other.

Drawing together your findings
· Create a shared Google Presentation consisting of several slides. These should consist of:

Your central argument (e.g. “In terms of culture, World War Two was not a period of progress and development”).

  • How we connected the subject sessions
    (diagram and explanation)
  • Our definition for measuring progress and development for our theme
    (aim for between 3 and 5 definitions)
  • Evidence backing up our argument with regard to our first definition
    (don’t just list the positives or negatives; try to connect them e.g. with phrases like “in the long term…in the short term”, “in theory…but in practice…”, “In this part of the world…but in that part of the world…)
  • Evidence backing up our argument with regard to our second definition
    (and repeat this format for the remaining definitions)
  • Overall conclusion
    This is your closing judgement where you aim to make a grand overall statement which answers the key question in just a couple of sentences. Frame this as a “quote” in a large font size. Make it arresting, thought-provoking, even controversial. Imagine perhaps the closing statement made by a narrator in a TV documentary just before the credits roll, the music swells up and he/she walks off into the horizon…!

NOTE: Each main slide needs to focus on a different DEFINITION of progress, NOT a different CURRICULUM SUBJECT.

5

Library skills session

Then back to normal classrooms
Normal classrooms, working on presentations
6 Normal classrooms, working on presentations

Library skills session

Then back to normal classrooms

Treasure Hunt (Wed AM)

Wednesday AM
Students will be involved in a 'treasure hunt' around Toulouse based on the concept explained in this blogpost.

The Treasure Hunt consists of several parts:

Stage 1 (c. 45 minutes)

Treasure Hunt 1 (completed by ALL teams)

Stage 2 (c. 45 minutes)

As soon as a team has completed their first Treasure Hunt worksheet, they should return to collect their second task sheet, which consists of another Treasure Hunt but in a specified part of town (so teams don't overlap with each other and have a temptation to cheat):

Individualised Treasure Hunts:
Team A | Team B | Team C | Team D | Team E


Group Work - Delivering the Debate (Thursday)

Student groups use lesson time in the following week to deliver their debates with teachers as judges.

  • Start with the first theme (e.g. "Economics"). One team will propose the view that World War Two was a period of progress and development; then an opposing team will present a conflicting interpretation.
  • IMPORTANT NOTE about audience participation: As these presentations are in the form of a debate, with pairs of teams pitted against each other to argue for/against process on particular themes, the audience should be encouraged not merely to make notes, but challenged to provide a synthesis which successfully reconciles the points made in each presentation (e.g. progress in the short- but not the long-term; progress in one part of the world/society, but not in another).
  • After each of the two teams has finished speaking, members of each team can ask questions of the other to generate some genuine debate and further insights (don't allow questions during the presentation unless these are simple requests for clarification).

Teachers are looking for such things as:
• A thematic argument based on a clear definition of progress, not one based on a ‘subject by subject’ approach
                  • Each person in the team having a clear contribution
                  • Engagement with the audience (direct eye contact, asking for involvement)
• Slides which are not simply packed with text that is read out; rather, the slides should provide essential stimulus that is developed by the presenter.

Peer Assessment

• Following the debates, all students complete a peer assessment slip to measure the contribution of each person in their team. Supervising teachers collect these in, and use them to spot if any student has been 'carried' by the rest of the team and follow-up on this as appropriate.

"Choose your own homework" - Planning the Personal Project

Task 1: Deciding on the most “important” factors

• After discussing as a class how we define “important” in history, you should work individually for this task. Write down your view of the FIVE most important ‘impacts’ of World War Two.
• Use the presentations from the induction event to help you, and be prepared to explain your choices.
• Compare your ideas with a partner, then with the class.  

Task 2: Linking the factors

• Can these impacts be linked in any meaningful way?
• As a class, start this process by considering which words we could add to the following list:
Cause | Result | Therefore | Exacerbated | Accelerated | Consequence | Highlighted
• Then, produce a flow diagram linking your factors together. At this stage you might start considering which developments were positive, and which were negative.

"Choose your own mark scheme" - students decide which aspects of the IB Learner Profile / ATLs to demonstrate through their project

• Co-ordinators round off by explaining the next stage of the project (an individual "open homework" project marked using a "choose your own mark scheme" approach, the results of which are recorded in the student reporting system as a baseline assessment).

Notes for teachers delivering sessions

There are just a few essential pedagogical points to remember to cover in your sessions - beyond this, feel free to cover whatever content, in whatever format, that you think most appropriate!

  • Cover both NEGATIVE and POSITIVE effects of World War Two upon your subject specialism within your presentation. This is very important - the students will be debating this and so it's important they have varied perspectives.
  • Ensure that students appreciate the difference between CORRELATION and CAUSATION (a nice link to TOK and logical fallacies!). The fact that an event simply FOLLOWED World War Two does not mean that it was CAUSED/ACCELERATED by it. Last year, too many students were simply listing things that happened after World War Two without making it clear how World War Two acted as a catalyst for them.