Important Dates & The Brain and the Spirit of an IB Student
|The OCC Is Closing!
The OCC will close in December 2017, following the transition of resources and forums to the programme resource centre, communities, and the workshop resource centre within My IB.
DP examinations on-screen
DP coordinators will soon receive an email from the Education Policy Improvement Centre who are conducting research about the future of on-screen examinations. Your expertise and valuable insights will help us develop innovative examinations that harness the benefits that technology can bring to education. Please look out for their email.
Programme standards and practices
Programme standards and practices (PS&P) have been reviewed and the new model will be launched in 2020.
IB Examiners recruitment
Do you know teachers of the following subjects who would enjoy and benefit from being an IB examiner? We’re looking for examiners for:
Spanish A literature
ITGS (monolingual Spanish examiners)
Business management
Literature and performance (bilingual English-French examiners)
All arts subjects
English LAL, French LAL, Spanish LAL (MYP)
March 5th – 9th 2018 Mock Exams
Several weeks ago, I posted a preliminary Mock Exam schedule. However, there were a few errors regarding student classes. This has now been addressed. One last time, here is the March 2018 Mock Exam Schedule and list of students: Look For Any Errors before November 15th. Some teachers have already responded. IBIS locks in students by November 16th. Once this happens, student personal schedules can be finalized and sent to them.
YEAR 2 IB PREDICTIVE GRADES – December 1st
SSIS will continue to gather data to provide to both students and parents as we began to do so last year. All IB teachers will need to provide their Year 2 IB students with a Predictive Score (1-7) in PowerSchool by OCTOBER 16th for all EA/ED students. ALL students in IB need to have their Predictive Grades into PowerSchool by December 1st.
World Student Conference 2018: Washington D.C., Rotterdam & Hong Kong
http://www.ibo.org/university-admission/ib-world-student-conference/wsc-2018-hong-kong/
The IB World Student Conferences bring together IB Diploma Programme (DP) and IB Career-Related Programme (CP) students from around the world to explore and experience what it means to be globally engaged, and to inspire responsible action for making a better and more peaceful world.
Scholarships are available to students to support the cost of attendance. Interested teachers can also attend as Global Action Team Leaders, Chaperones or Observers. Details can be found in the link above.
I will be making a presentation to the G11 students in January to promote these IB student conferences. Students who attend will benefit greatly as will SSIS developing a tradition of sending young leaders to IB world events.
We Now Know How The Brain Beats Distractions To Retain Memories
Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have recently discovered a mechanism that could explain how the brain retains working memory when faced with distractions. These findings could endow cognitive flexibility to neural networks used for artificial intelligence. Although not directly connected to IBO, this recent finding on the brain can provide some light on how we might address our IB students in the current environment. –Â https://sciencr.com/we-now-know-how-the-brain-beats-distractions-to-retain-memories/
Creating a dialogue about stress
Eleni Vardaki received her IB diploma from the Anglo-American School of Moscow and began her career as a theory of knowledge (TOK) and IB history teacher. She used her experience as both an alumnus and educator to address questions about the IB diploma from students and parents on her website. We invited her to present her views on one of the most common topics: workload and stress. –Â http://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2017/10/18/dialogue-about-stress/ : SSIS Year 2 IB students are currently part of a world wide IBO research project on stress.
From trial to triumph
On Motivation
We invited IB Diploma Programme (DP) graduates to reflect on their lives and studies as part of a cohort of contributing authors. This is Byron Dolon’s third story of the series. Learn more about the IB Alumni Network at ibo.org/alumni. : Advisory can be focused to have sections that are explicit in addressing brain function, positive stress and how to minimize negative stress, and how this journey is one that should be embraced and how to do so.
Bringing The IB to University
The University of Rochester organized the very first IB orientation event on 3 September 2017 for first-year university students who completed the Diploma Programme (DP). Here’s how it worked and why students attended. – http://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2017/11/01/ib-to-university/ : If we can all be explicit and reiterate how the IB journey (students will often use the word – slog) has a purpose, we as teachers can influence the Hidden Curriculum of SSIS.
Big Data
Data is very important is providing facts about a Diploma Programme, teachers and students. However, one must always be cognizant of finding the accurate signal in the noise.
IB Big Data