Getting more from IB exam results
You’ve spent 2 or more years trying to get the most out of your students and trying our best to get them prepared for the IB exams. As the end of April approaches, nerves are high all around. The exams are taken, there is a palatable release and the students move towards graduation. Fast forward a month or two and the exam results are posted. Teachers and students open the emails with the results with a mix of excitement and trepidation.
Now as you move into the new school year and meet as an IB staff; you are asked to review the results of our students. Didn’t I already do that when the results were sent out? What more can I do? These are the common questions often asked, if not outright, internally by teachers. Many times, there isn’t a set process or procedure in what teachers are trying to get out of these spreadsheets and pdfs that the IB provides to the Coordinators and that they pass on to the teachers.
Unless the teacher is particularly data-minded, they are lost. This is a common theme, not just with IB, but with non-IB teachers in the high school and frankly, all grade levels down to kindergarten (I’ll get to this population in another blog post). This is where where we come in.
The IB–DAT (Data Analysis Tool) takes the data provided by IB and breaks it down by Group, Subject and Level. You can see the results from the Core components, bonus points achieved, and overall IB grade.
A breakdown of IB Core results and bonus points.
But here is where it gets exciting, it also provides analysis to course components. Teachers can see if their students are performing better on Paper 1 or Paper 2, Reading or Listening, Essay or the Oral IA. Teachers can now see that they need to focus more on the content or format of the different test components.
Component breakdowns including statistics on the moderation of the IA.
This is not meant or intended to shame or make teachers feel poorly about their student’s performances. But rather for them to say, “I might need some help internally moderating my IAs or go to a training” or maybe “I need to focus more on the content of Paper 1 because my students are scoring way lower on that than Paper 2”.
There are actual takeaways that teachers can use and implement in their classroom or to focus with their PD. Takeaways that would be lost just looking at the files that IB provides to schools.
Data doesn’t mean anything if it just sits in a file or isn’t utilized. Check out The Datafied Classroom for more information or book a call with us to see how we can partner together to simplify, visualize and utilize your IB exam results.
