Are you looking for teaching ideas for Biology for the IB Diploma? Then take a look at our blog post from experienced teacher and author Brenda Walpole. Brenda is an author from our Biology for the IB Diploma series. She has taught IB for around 25 years at a top IB school in England and is also a teacher trainer.
In her blog post Brenda looks at the importance of studying Biology for the IB Diploma. She describes how to support your biology students and develop their skills, as well as considering the impact of remote learning on these skills during the pandemic and what can be done to mitigate the impact of this. Additionally, Brenda details the specific IB requirements in diploma studies, and finally highlights what future prospects Biology for the IB Diploma students can find with their particular skillsets.
You can listen to Brenda discussing these ideas with fellow author and teacher Andreas Tsokos in our Brighter Thinking Podcast episode ‘Developing essential skills for IB Sciences’.
How to support your Biology for the IB Diploma students
Many students starting the IB programme will have had little or no prior knowledge of science, so it is important that we instil in them a sense of wonder about the scientific world. Many fear the challenge of the maths that is required or think that biology is too difficult for them. A step-by-step approach is needed and a recognition that everything does not have to be done all at once.
Developing students’ skills
A biologist can acquire the necessary maths skills along the way and the understanding of percentages, averages, means and simple statistics will be so important later. Some students will have little practical experience in the laboratory or in the field. They can be helped by well-scaffolded practical work involving planned experiments where students follow instructions at first using simple apparatus.
Student-centred learning with more experienced students supporting those with less background builds good relationships and teamwork. Experienced students can be forced to address the most basic questions that they may have overlooked if they are asked by a peer. Eventually everyone will begin to feel confident to design experiments of their own.
Collecting data is also another skill that must be acquired. Not relying on the first set of results, taking a reasonable number of readings and being prepared to look out for errors and anomalies can all be addressed as students progress.
Impact of remote learning during the pandemic
The pandemic robbed a whole cohort of students of the opportunity to work together. While they may have gained additional IT skills at this time, many need to develop or relearn their ability to communicate clearly with others and work in teams. In the study of biology, field expeditions and local field studies are truly valuable here. Away from the classroom students can be more relaxed and interact freely with fellow students and teachers. This is even more valuable in a group which is likely to include students from many different parts of the world, such as are often found in an IB class.
All these practical skills gradually gained will lead to the Internal Assessment, a piece of independent research which every student of all the sciences and at all levels must complete. It is worth almost a quarter of their final grade so encouragement and support in the first year of study can be invaluable.
IB requirements in diploma studies
So, what are the specific IB requirements in diploma studies? Innovation and personal involvement rank highly, as does teamwork and investigative skills. The IB specifies skills to be learned rather than prescribing set practical projects as some other examination boards do. Self-management including skills such as risk assessment is important, as is an awareness of the wider issues and ethical implications of scientific discovery. The use of technology and critical thinking throughout both classroom and practical lessons is paramount. These 21st century skills are what employers will be looking for in their employees of the future. An IB student should be exposed to them not only in science but in the other subjects they study where Theory of Knowledge and International Awareness will also be addressed.
Beyond the IB Diploma
As students leave school and move into the world of work, some will go on to further studies of science. As educators we should hope to supply them with the resilience, independence and self-motivation to carry out their own research. They will be aware that hard work and organisational skills are key – an experiment cannot be left simply because the lunch hour has arrived, or much work will be wasted! We should expose them to all the options that work in science can offer. Not only medicine and marine biology are available – there are so many opportunities in fields as diverse as forensic science, meteorology, agriculture and astronomy. And for those who will never study science again, we should be confident that they will have learned sufficient science to understand what is happening when they become ill, start a family or need to modify their diets. Most of all we hope they will have the skills to challenge and question what is said about science in publications and politics.
