{"id":14999,"date":"2025-02-19T01:10:37","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T16:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/?p=14999"},"modified":"2025-02-19T11:29:39","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T02:29:39","slug":"5-things-to-love-about-the-new-ib-psychology-curriculum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/2025\/02\/19\/5-things-to-love-about-the-new-ib-psychology-curriculum\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things to Love About the New IB Psychology Curriculum"},"content":{"rendered":"

My natural disposition is to be a bit of a jumped up pr*#k who’s a bit too full of himself, so I\u2019m trying to be more Jonathan Haidt and less Jordan Peterson these days. With this in mind, I recently went on a mental gratitude walk through the new guide and realised five things I love about it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

#5: Learning outcomes are back<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Isn\u2019t it nice to be told what we\u2019re expected to teach? In the 2017 curriculum we were given topic titles and had to deduce for ourselves what we had to teach. In the 2009 curriculum, we had very clear learning outcomes. The outcomes were then removed to prevent students from prewriting and memorising answers. Possible exam questions became hard to predict. I found myself continually encouraging teachers to teach to the most probable<\/em> questions, not every possible<\/em> question. With learning outcomes back, it\u2019s nice to have a bit more clarity.<\/p>\n

#4 Conceptual assessment<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Textbook<\/a> on sale now.<\/p><\/div>\n

Students memorising scores of notes and example answers is the bugbear for IB administrators. Teachers alike lament that students take this strategy, rather than seeking to understand the content. I do like this idea of unpredictability in the Paper 1 essay where students have to link a topic to one of the six concepts. It allows a clear distinction between factual recall and deeper understanding. After all, critical thinking skills are best assessed when the thinking is unrehearsed and unique. Dumping a bunch of one-line evaluations about \u201cecological validity\u201d doesn\u2019t cut it.<\/p>\n

If I may, the Peterson on my shoulder wants to jump in and say I wish there wasn\u2019t so much content along with the concepts. The two are fundamentally related \u2013 you can not thinking critically or conceptually about something you know nothing about. Therefore, our big challenge in this guide is teaching the basic psychological content first and then extending students when they\u2019re ready to develop critical and conceptual understanding. All in a limited amount of time. In the new SL course, this will be a challenge but I\u2019ve got a few ideas that may help and I\u2019m interested to hear yours.<\/p>\n

#3: An end to command term tyranny <\/strong><\/h3>\n

Command terms, command terms, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways. What a win for the good guys that the phrase \u201ccommand term\u201d has been erased from all marking rubrics in this new guide. I spent years teaching students the nuances between outline and describe and explain. Then after writing scores of my own answers I realized \u2013 they didn\u2019t matter. We\u2019re teaching psychology, not verbology. What’s far more important than the command term is the rest of the bloody question. Command terms hijacked our attention which seemed a uniquely Psychology phenomenon not witnessed in other subjects.<\/p>\n

Read more about my command conundrum here<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The new guide also answers that age old question – “is a discussion different to an evaluation?” On pg. 48 in regards to Paper 2, Section B with the unseen study it says \u201cThis will comprise a question requiring students to discuss<\/em> a research study with regard to two or more concepts.” \u00a0And then later on it notes that the \u201c\u2026focus of assessment will be the evaluation<\/em> of an unseen research study with regard to two or more concepts.” (Emphasis added). We knew it all along.<\/p>\n

Command terms can be good when they clarify things. However, I\u2019d argue we only need two for exams: Explain and Discuss. The rest muddy the waters and it\u2019s nice to see this reflected in the new rubrics.<\/p>\n