International Baccalaureate Program Research Articles

Community and Sense of Place in an International School Context

This study seeks to identify and explore the sense of place that Third Culture Kids (TCKs) have and the various interpretations that TCKs have regarding their lived reality, as they form part of the international community in Romania. This study contextually explores the sense of belonging to a place. The purpose of the study is to ascertain the role and ways of implementing "Place Based Education" in the context of international and multicultural education systems that serve TCK populations. This was done while trying to understand concepts from the expatriate way of life as expressed by TCKs who attend the American International School of Bucharest. Two main assumptions form the grounds of this study: When an international school combines an International Baccalaureate (IB) system with Place Based Education (PBE) criteria, would it contribute in creating a "Sense of Place" towards the school and contribute in creating a positive foreigner self-identification? This research aims to understand whether and how PBE can be implemented in an international school. Throughout two academic school years, field observations and interviews with students and school staff were conducted. The data analysis resulted in three main findings. The first finding was ambivalent feelings towards the host country that were connected to expressions of place attachment, place dependence and place identity. The second finding was self-identification as a TCK and a sense of belonging to an international community. The third and most surprising finding was a strong sense of place in relation to the school. This process led to comparing Place Based Education criteria to the criteria of the International Baccalaureate program and discovering that these two pedagogical worlds are overlapping and can therefore be easily combined.

Approaches to improving the training of teachers working under the International Baccalaureate programs in the field of education informatization

Problem and goal. The article is devoted to studying the possibilities of working with the Moscow Electronic School project. The goal was to develop programs to improve the training of teachers in Moscow schools. This goal required to design a model for improving the training of teachers working under the International Baccalaureate programs in the field of education informatization, to develop the content of teacher training, to organize and conduct such training, based on an active study of the possibilities of the Moscow Electronic School project for teachers of International Baccalaureate schools, as well as evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed training program. Methodology. In the course of the study, a set of methods was used: analysis of normative documents related to the professional training of teachers, study of literature, including those presented by the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), search and analysis of the resources of the Moscow Electronic School project library, study of the experience of using services in the system education of the city of Moscow, a pedagogical experiment. Results. The article presents a fragment of a pedagogical experiment to improve the training of teachers working under the International Baccalaureate programs, aimed at developing skills in working with the Moscow Electronic School project. The study confirmed the relevance of the problem, which consists in the need to improve the training of teachers in Moscow schools working under the International Baccalaureate programs in the field of education informatization, including in the field of work with the resources of the Moscow Electronic School project. The results of the study allowed to find approaches to solving the identified problem. Conclusion. It is proposed to supplement the content of the discipline Modern Teaching Technologies in the framework of the masters training of teachers working under the International Baccalaureate programs, with topics related to studying the resources of the Moscow Electronic School project in the activities of a teacher working under the International Baccalaureate programs, as well as a system of practical work that takes into account the specifics of the International Baccalaureate school.

Cloud technologies as a basis for the integration of teacher training systems for the International Baccalaureate schools

Problem and goal. The article describes and substantiates the ways of solving the problem of the lack of approaches to the integration of methodical systems for training future teachers for International Baccalaureate programs based on the use of cloud technologies. The need for such integration is due to the fact that the training of teachers for International Baccalaureate schools involves professionals from various fields and organizations, including foreign speakers. The purpose of the described study was to confirm the effectiveness of the developed model of approaches to informatization of the system of training for future teachers of International Baccalaureate schools. Methodology. A pilot study consisting of two stages was conducted. At the first stage, we worked with professors of the pedagogical university who are training future teachers for International Baccalaureate schools. The second stage was carried out based on the formation of two groups of students of the pedagogical university: control group (19 people) and experimental group (17 people). In the experimental group, students were trained in the conditions of integrated methodical systems of disciplines based on a specially developed model of approaches to informatization of training for future teachers of International Baccalaureate schools. Results. The study found that the integration of methodical systems using cloud technology to organize joint work on training future teachers for International Baccalaureate schools contributes to the effectiveness of the formation of professional competence of such teachers. Conclusion. The effectiveness of the developed model of approaches to the integration of methodical disciplines that form the basis for training future teachers for International Baccalaureate schools is experimentally proved.

Adding America to World History: The K-12 Challenge

This essay outlines a number of daunting obstructions to a transnational historical approach in the Kindergarten to Grade Twelve Social Studies curriculum including a hyperlocal focus during elementary school, an inflexible national approach in middle and high school, and political pressure on national testing organizations to emphasize “American exceptionalism.” Yet it argues that there are countervailing currents, including the rise of public schools that use the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, pressure on elite schools to prepare students for global futures, and the opportunities for high school teachers to experiment with crosscurricular themes.

The effect of primary years program (PYP) on children’s science process skills (SPS) in early childhood education

The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of the Primary Years Program (PYP) on the science process skills (SPSs) of children in early childhood education. The study design was quasi-experimental and focused on children attending private schools in Istanbul. In this study, the Science Process Scale developed by Ozkan (2015) was used. Herein, approval for this study was granted by the Ministry of National Education, and consent was given by parents, to determine differences between their preschoolers who were attending an International Baccalaureate (IB) and Ministry of National Education school. Before implementing the PYP, a pretest was applied to the children in the experimental and control groups. After that, the children in the experimental group attended the PYP for 12 weeks. Conversely, the children in the control group attended the program of the Ministry of National Education. Following this 12-week period, the children were given a posttest. When the pretest results were compared after completing the IB program, there were no significant differences between the experimental and control groups. After the 12 weeks, a significant difference was found between the two groups with regards to their SPSs. When analyzed according to the factors, there seemed to be no differences between the two groups. However, at the end of the research, an interesting difference was found between the post and follow-up test results in the experimental group.
 
 Key Words: International Baccalaureate, Primary Years Program, Science Process Skills, Preschool Education.

A comparative study of GCE and international curricula in Singapore and Australia

This paper is a comparative analysis of global citizenship education (GCE) in two primary schools, an international school in Singapore and an independent school in Australia, focusing on the implementation of GCE practices through the adoption of international education models - the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) and the International Baccalaureate Programme (IB) respectively, to create hybrid curricula. The research findings indicate that the curriculum and resources, school culture, school leaders’ and teachers’ values, as well as the utilisation of human and financial resources all influence how the schools engage with GCE in their quest towards internationalisation. A key overarching finding of the research relates to the tensions between critical democratic and educational domains and neo-liberal market rationales, which had significantly affected the schools’ decisions in curricula and GCE enactment within both schools. Despite their commitment to GCE ideals, both schools were equally mindful about being distinctive and remaining competitive within their educational markets.

Global citizenship education practices in Singapore and Australia: the fusion of the global eye with the national eye

Global citizenship education practices in Singapore and Australia: the fusion of the global eye with the national eye

Consciousness-raising tasks for the mediation of text structure, cohesion, and coherence in essay writing

Several studies have demonstrated the positive impact of Consciousness-Raising tasks (CRTs) on the teaching of grammar, especially in foreign or second language learning. However, few studies have examined their effectiveness for the development of writing skills. With this in mind, the goal of this project is to explore the impact of CRTs on three aspects of writing in expository essays: text structure, cohesion, and coherence. To accomplish this goal, the study followed a mixed-method approach with a component of Classroom Action Research. The study was conducted in an English as Foreign Language class with a group of 12 eleventh-grade students at the International Baccalaureate Program at Palmares Bilingual High school, in Alajuela, Costa Rica. The data consisted of two sets of essays, classroom observations, and questionnaires to the students and the cooperating teacher. After comparing results from the first and second essays, the most noticeable improvement in the students’ writing was in text structure and cohesion, whereas coherence showed the lowest improvement. This points to a limitation of CRTs for addressing aspects of writing involving a larger number of rules and more abstract concepts, such as coherence, instead of a smaller number of rules, like cohesion. In conclusion, the authors suggest enquiring about the use of CRTs with simple topics involving decisions tied to explicit rules versus more complex topics involving abstract thinking and decisions not always linked to rules. Lastly, the authors recommend exploring strategies to make consciousness-raising a collaborative process as a way to mitigate task complexity

Ronald O. Ragsdale

Ronald O. Ragsdale, 88, died on Jan. 16 in Salt Lake City. “At the University of Utah, Ron taught more than 50,000 undergraduate students, 4,000 high school students, and 2,000 summer enrichment students. He also mentored more than 100 high school chemistry teachers. His leadership brought the International Baccalaureate (IB) program to the US, and he served as chief examiner for both IB and Advanced Placement programs and helped create the US National Chemistry Olympiad competition. Ron’s passion for teaching was best evidenced by his creation and presentation of numerous chemical demonstrations. These action-packed and often explosive demonstrations were the foundation of his annual Faraday Christmas Lectures. Ron and his wife, Eileen, founded the Ragsdale Scholarship Endowment Fund, which provides scholarship support for chemistry majors and teaching awards, as well as the Ronald and Eileen Ragsdale Endowed Chair in Chemical Education.”—Tom Richmond, friend and colleague Most recent title: Professor emeritus,

Apuntes para una propuesta de Manual sobre Creatividad, Actividad y Servicio para el Bachillerato Internacional

El presente estudio nace de la necesidad de instruir a los estudiantes de la Unidad Educativa de Fuerzas Armadas Liceo Naval Guayaquil “Cmdte. Rafael Andrade Lalama” que participan en el programa del Bachillerato Internacional (IB) sobre la estructura y aplicación de los elementos necesarios que conforman el curso de Creatividad, Actividad y Servicio (CAS) mediante el proyecto CAS, ya que es un espacio que favorece el aprendizaje sobre las experiencias cognitivas, afectivas y significativas. Por tal motivo, el objetivo de la investigación es mostrar los elementos básicos que conforman el manual de directrices que establecen la Guía CAS, proporcionando la comprensión, orientación e instrucción de los estudiantes sobre la estructura, desarrollo, aplicación y participación de proyectos en las 3 áreas de conocimiento CAS para lograr los 7 resultados de aprendizaje. Se aplica un enfoque cualitativo al reunirse datos teóricos, epistemológicos y conceptuales que brindaron soporte científico al manual. Finalmente, se logró recolectar, seleccionar y determinar información adecuada para desarrollar la estructura y elementos precisos para conformar el Manual CAS.

Develop and use educational electronic resources in the discipline “Design” for schools the International baccalaureate (IB)

Problem and goal. The article deals with the processes of development of the modern information society and various educational programs, which contributes to the need for the use of information technology in the educational sphere. The aim was to identify the features of the development of educational electronic publications and resources for the International baccalaureate program, a comparative analysis of the program and a comparison with the existing program of education in Russia on the Federal state educational standard. This made it possible to take into account the peculiarities of methods of work with resources and assessment of tasks by students in this program, as well as to develop educational electronic resources for the International baccalaureate program in the discipline “Design” and to evaluate the effectiveness of these resources as tools of work. Methodology. Development of a system of educational electronic resources and teaching methods for these resources in the discipline “Design” in the framework of the international baccalaureate program are carried out through the analysis of curricula, manuals, dissertations, materials of conferences on FSES and International baccalaureate, study of scientific literature on approaches and methods for the development of electronic systems for the evaluation of the results of training, observation, organization and conduct of pedagogical experiment and analysis of its results. Results. The analysis of the FSES and the International baccalaureate training program to identify the features of the educational process in each of the programs under consideration. Various approaches and technologies to the evaluation of learning outcomes, including the system of electronic assessment are considered. On the basis of the data obtained, an educational electronic resource on the discipline “Design” within the framework of the International baccalaureate training program was developed, consisting of evaluation tasks, work with which was based on the use of information and communication technologies, and a system for evaluating the results of these tasks for grade 6. Conclusion. The results led to the conclusion that the organization of training in the discipline “Design” in the framework of the International baccalaureate program with the use of educational electronic resources will contribute to a significant increase in the interest of primary school students to the study of this subject area and, in the future, a more conscious choice of direction of training in the field of informatization. The presented method of teaching and developed educational electronic resource on the discipline “Design”, built to meet the requirements of the International baccalaureate program, will improve the efficiency of learning by students.

Developing Academic Persistence in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme: Educational Strategies, Associated Personality Traits and Outcomes

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationships between certain educational strategies and students' personality traits, on the one hand, and students' academic performance, on the other, respectively between the latter and two types of outcomes (i.e. students' academic performance and intentions to drop out of high school). These relationships were examined in two educational settings: in the Diploma Programme (DP), a two-year college-preparatory curriculum offered by the International Baccalaureate (IB), an international private educational system, and the traditional Romanian schools. A sample of IB students in 3 Eastern and Central European countries, and a comparison sample of non-IB students in Romania participated in the research. Results reveal several educational strategies and personality traits among those suggested by previous investigations that significantly sustain IB DP students’ academic persistence. Also, IB students’ academic performance and dropout intentions are influenced by these traits and educational strategies, and these effects are fully or partially mediated by academic persistence. A different pattern of associations emerged in the non-IB sample, with independent work style as the most important determinant of academic persistence, suggesting that relative to the traditional Romanian schools, the IB programme promotes a climate that better supports students in completing their education.

Letting Go of the Middle Years Programme: Three Schools’ Rationales for Discontinuing an International Baccalaureate Program

International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP) is recognized for its rigor, inquiry-based learning, and development of academic skills. While it is growing in popularity worldwide, some schools have discontinued the program. Literature on the reasons why schools discontinue the MYP is limited. Using a qualitative case study design, we examined the perspectives of school leaders, former MYP coordinators, and experienced MYP teachers at three private and public Australian schools to find out why they discontinued the MYP. Our findings add to the limited literature base on the topic—they reveal schools discontinued the program due to challenges from various systems-level constraints, leadership issues, school organizational structures, and individual teacher challenges. Although our small sample prevents generalizability, our findings generate novel insights and hypotheses that can inform school decision making and future research about the sustainability of the MYP.

Viajar, estudiar y aprender. Los viajes en escuelas secundarias para sectores aventajados de Argentina

El artículo indaga los repertorios y significados que los agentes educativos le otorgan a los viajes en los proyectos institucionales de las escuelas a las que pertenecen, teniendo en cuenta que se trata de establecimientos a los que concurren alumnos que podrían realizar esos viajes por sus propios medios, ya sea con sus familias y/o amigos. De esta manera, la premisa que orienta el análisis se basa en que, ante los procesos de universalización y masificación escolar, surgen proyectos de diferenciación institucional que intentan “captar” públicos a través de diferentes estrategias, siendo los viajes uno de sus puntos centrales. Los mismos, como se verá a lo largo del artículo, cumplen varias funciones, desde ampliar los contenidos del aula, desarrollar nuevas competenciasy generar credenciales educativas frente a procesos que tienden a igualar a los estudiantes en su condición de tal. A través de un trabajo cualitativo que se nutre de entrevistas a agentes institucionales en escuelas internacionales, es decir, escuelas que adhieren al programa del Bachillerato Internacional (IB) o bien son institucionales binacionales, es decir que su titulación es válida para un segundo sistema educativo, se indagan las principales ventajas y beneficios que representa la inclusión de los viajes en la currícula de estas instituciones. El análisis se complementa con documentación institucional

International Baccalaureate in Japan and Asia

The International Baccalaureate (IB) offers internationally recognized programs that prepare students to think and act critically and independently as internationally competent individuals. IB has recently undergone a rapid worldwide expansion as an increasing number of educational systems are recognizing the value of nurturing globally prepared citizens. Japan, in particular, has witnessed a recent increase in the spread of IB programs because of the government-initiated push to increase the number of IB schools to 200 by 2020. The IB Dual Language Program (English and Japanese) was created to support this initiative. This article sheds light on the trend of IB expansion worldwide through the lens of the Japanese experience and addresses challenges and opportunities that this expansion has brought to Japanese higher education.

Weaving Curriculum Connections in International Baccalaureate (IB) Schools

In this article we discuss how school leaders address challenges when implementing innovative international education curricula, namely International Baccalaureate (IB) programs. Specifically, we frame challenges in curriculum implementation of and transition between IB programs from a “disconnection” perspective. We have often noticed when innovative programs are parceled together without preparation and thrust at great speed at schools, they become disconnected. The hasty implementation of multiple IB programs simultaneously at a school also causes disconnection. Drawing on extensive interview data from principals, mid-level leaders, and teachers in five IB schools adopting multiple IB programs in Asia, we detail curriculum disconnection facing IB schools and how school leaders, including teacher leaders, address such challenges by weaving various disconnected points, namely instrumental, intellectual, cultural, professional, and communicative disconnections. Based on findings from the multisite case study, we argue that school leaders in the case of IB schools adopt a range of leadership strategies to weave disconnection points. We reframe the leadership strategies as two aspects of distributed leadership: distributed instructional leadership and teacher leadership. In conclusion, we suggest that a central facet for successful leadership of IB schools that adopt multiple IB programs is about finding, focusing, and facilitating ways to address disconnections in curriculum implementation of and transition between different IB programs.

The Role of Teacher Leadership in Professional Learning Community (PLC) in International Baccalaureate (IB) Schools: A Social Network Approach

This study aims to illuminate how professional interactions among teachers form different types of teacher leadership in schools, which, in turn, shape different levels of teachers’ involvement in activities related to their professional learning community (PLC). To investigate certain patterns of teachers’ interactions that contribute to the formation of teacher leadership and thereby the development of PLC, two international schools that offer a full continuum of three International Baccalaureate (IB) programs were purposively chosen. The schools have similar numbers of students and are located in two different countries in East Asia. Using a mixed-methods research approach, the patterns of teacher professional interactions were first examined using social network analysis. Next, the degree to which teachers in the case study schools enact practices related to PLCs was assessed and compared through a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) test. Further, based on findings from social network analysis, in-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with selected key participants to understand the linkage between teacher leadership and teachers’ involvement in their PLC in each case school. From the findings, we propose four conceptual types of teacher leadership that explain how teacher leadership shapes different levels of teachers’ engagement in PLC in the two case schools.

Linking Network Learning Capacity (NLC) to professional community and organizational learning in an International Baccalaureate (IB) school in Taiwan

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore a concept that has been less examined in empirical research on school organization, namely Network Learning Capacity (NLC). It is proposed that teachers’ professional networks enhance teachers’ individual NLC. This process leads to a formation of professional community (PC) and therefore affects the level of organizational learning (OL).Design/methodology/approachThe quantitative study with multiple methods comprising social network analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling was conducted. Data were collected from a school implementing the International Baccalaureate (IB) programs in Taiwan.FindingsFindings suggest that certain network positions were crucial in forming NLC on instruction. In addition, reflective dialogue, shaped by NLC, is the key component in establishing learning in this case school.Originality/valueAs the first of its kind in an educational context, the study highlights the linkages between network position and the development of professional learning community, which is mediated through NLC. This study contributes to illuminating the process of how PC practices and OL can be promoted in schools.

When you’re in with the in-crowd

This paper examines the discursive construction of the International Baccalaureate (IB) in a 1.5 million word corpus of Canadian newspapers. Combining corpus analysis with the Discourse Historical branch of Critical Discourse Analysis, the study aims to identify discursive strategies employed in the construction of an IB in-group and a non-IB out-group, and suggests they are similar to those evident in discourses of discrimination that marginalise or exclude the outgroup (Baker, Gabrielatos and McEnery 2013a; KhosraviNik 2010; Reisigl and Wodak 2001). While discourses of discrimination tend to be directed at minority groups, in this case, the minority group is the in-group, exhibiting uniformly positive qualities. As a result, a ‘dichotomous world of insiders and outsiders’ (Reisigl and Wodak 2001:105) is created, privileging one and disadvantaging the other. This paper seeks to problematise the seemingly uncritical acceptance and adoption of IB programs in Canada’s publicly funded education system.

A JOURNEY FROM IB PRIMARY YEARS PROGRAMME TO MIDDLE YEARS PROGRAMME: TRANSITION AND ALIGNMENT IN THE SCIENCE CONTEXT

In International Baccalaureate programme, the transition from the Primary Years Programme to Middle Years Programme is associated with various complex challenges which often results in poor science academic performance of middle year students. These challenges can be attributed from more than one area, such as from students, teachers and from curriculum perspective. To reduce the challenges, transition strategies were designed and piloted such as the demonstration and experimentation. The demonstration helped to align the students understanding of some scientific terminologies while the experimentation was conducted to introduce the simplified lab report design that provided the students with basic knowledge on the experimental processes in the Middle Years and guided the students on the consistent use of the Modern Language Association format of referencing. This article evaluates various transition strategies which were found effective to aid the middle year students during the transition stage. Article visualizations: