internal assessment (IA) with hack your course IB tutoring service in Vancouver, Toronto, Seattle and California

BACKGROUND

One of the significant concerns at schools is the fairness of assessments. There is usually one type of evaluation, an examination consisting of either multiple-choice or long answer questions or, in a few cases, a mixture of both. Students get “implicit and explicit messages” about the specific assessment with a particular teacher and find their way to getting a high score, sometimes even without understanding the concept. Therefore, a sizeable portion of a student’s energy might go toward “passing the subject” rather than learning it. Experienced tutors have seen these cases, and they can easily relate to these kinds of unfair situations.

Making the assessment fair, however, is a very challenging task. One of the International Baccalaureate (IB) system’s main goals is to make sure that students receive their fair score. It also wants to make sure that the range of assessments has a definite “backwash effect” to engage students in more in-depth activities. A detailed analysis of assessment principles and practices in IB can be found here.

IB uses a range of assessments, including multiple-choice questions, short answers, extended response questions (Papers 1,2,3), essays, personal projects, research assignments and group assignments.

The final assessment in IB is checked and scored by an external examiner to ensure that everybody is on the same level playing field. Some assessments in the form of projects are checked by the teacher and moderated by IB. These projects can be oral, verbal, or in the form of a written presentation. Internal Assessment (IA) is one of these assessments.

WHAT IS INTERNAL ASSESSMENT?

Internal assessment is a personal project done during the last year of the diploma programme. Ideally, students start working on it before the end of the first year. Some schools start working on specific subjects during the summer before to lighten students’ tasks during the school year.

For science and math, IA is a written project involving around 2000 words that should take between 10 to 20 hours of a student’s time, including the time spent in class and in meetings with the teacher. In different cases and for different subjects it can take more or less time. It also accounts for a whopping 20-25% of the final score.

The teacher marks the IA project because he/she has more detailed knowledge of the amount of work done and the student’s dedication toward the project. IB’s experienced examiners monitor a few of every classes’ IA papers and intervene when they are sure that the teacher’s evaluation is inappropriate. If the examiner observes a general trend of over-scoring or under-scoring outside the allowed tolerance (e.g. one or two marks) for a specific class, the class mark may be lowered or raised. IA for languages is different, and we will get into the differences later.

 

Hack Your Course is a top-of-the-line institute for IB and AP education, operating exclusively in Seattle, Vancouver, and Toronto. Our tutors have been specially trained since 2015 and possess either teaching certification, outstanding academic achievement, or advanced degrees in the subjects they teach. Only the cream of the crop are accepted into our program, less than 5% of applicants. But that’s just the beginning, our tutors not only have access to the latest educational materials and closely align to IB curriculum but also prepare students for all aspects of the final exam through comprehensive review and utilizing past exams as practice. We’ve helped hundreds of satisfied IB and AP students from the US and Canada achieve success, thanks to our winning combination of qualifications and resources.

WHERE TO FIND US

Vancouver Office
2030 Marine Drive,
North Vancouver, BC, V7P 1V7, Canada
Email: info@ibaptutoring.com

Seattle Office
5608 17th Avenue NW, Suite 1578
Seattle, WA 98107, USA
Email: info@ibaptutoring.com

Toronto Office
99 Yorkville Avenue
Toronto, ON M5R 1C1, Canada
Email: info@ibaptutoring.com