CP/DP Core

Career Programme Core

IB Personal and Professional Skills Course

Aims to develop responsibility, practical problem-solving, good intellectual habits, ethical understanding, perseverance, resilience, an appreciation of identity and perspective and an understanding of the complexity of the modern world. Emphasis is placed on the development of skills needed to successfully navigate higher education, the workplace and society.

Reflective Project (RP) - Essay or presentation

Requires students to identify, analyze, and critically discuss an ethical dilemma stemming from their career-related studies.

Service Learning (SL) - 50 hours

Students undertake service activities utilizing the skills they have gained in their career pathway that satisfy identified needs; the emphasis is on developing local knowledge, civic responsibility, social aptitude, and personal growth.

Language Development - 50 hours

Provides students with the necessary skills and intercultural understanding to enable them to communicate in an environment where the language studied is spoken.

Approaches to Learning

Thinking Skills - metacognition, reflection and critical thinking

Communication Skills - The ability to: communicate, in written or oral form; listen to, and understand; read and understand different texts; write different types of texts for various purposes; formulate one’s arguments, in speaking or writing; use aids (such as notes, schemes, maps) to produce, present or understand complex texts.

Social Skills - “a set of competencies that a) allow an individual to initiate and maintain positive social relationships, b) contribute to peer acceptance and to a satisfactory school adjustment, and c) allow an individual to cope effectively with the larger social environment” (Walker 1983: 27).  A particularly crucial skill, within the category of social skills, is collaboration.

Self-management Skills

1. Organization skills—managing time and tasks effectively, goal-setting, etc.
2. Affective skills—managing state of mind, self-motivation, resilience, mindfulness, etc.

Research Skills - formulate and analyze needs; identify and appraise sources; locate individual resources; examine, select and reject sources; interrogate sources; record and store information; interpret, analyze, synthesize and evaluate information; present & communicate resulting work; evaluate what has been achieved (Maryland 1981)

Approaches to Teaching

1. based on inquiry
2. focused on conceptual understanding
3. developed in local and global contexts
4. focused on effective teamwork and collaboration
5. differentiated to meet the needs of all learners
6. informed by assessment (formative and summative)

Diploma Programme Core

Theory of Knowledge Course (TOK)

An interdisciplinary course designed to help students question and understand how they know what they know.  Students study how individuals from various disciplines view the world in order to develop their own ways of thinking.

Creativity, Activity, and Service (CAS)

Students complete Creativity, arts and experiences that involve creative thinking, Activity, physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle, and Service, a voluntary exchange that has a learning benefit for the student. 

Extended Essay (EE)

4,000 word research paper introduces students to the demands and rewards of independent work.  Promotes high-level research and writing skills, the development of research and communication skills,  intellectual discovery and creativity expected at university.