Summer is ending and the new syllabus is rolling out. I just spent a few months developing my resources for the entire course and I want to share what I've learnt. I'll discuss these things:
The new syllabus "roadmap" design
The content
A resource that covers the content of the entire course (link below).
The syllabus design
When I first saw the new style of syllabus I was pleasantly surprised. The new design for grouping the content is innovative, but I've noticed a lot discontent. Here's what the "roadmap" looks like, notice the "themes":
There are two major aspects here that I notice—one is constraining, while the other is liberating. At first glance it may appear that the overall goal of the curriculum is to develop a sense of the "themes". And that the syllabus intends for teachers to address them only in specific topics. This would be constraining, but my understanding is that it's not the case.
While these are noble themes that we should discuss, students will not need to answer questions about those themes. The themes may be mentioned in a question, but the marks come from knowing the biology (similar to previous assessments).
The same goes for the "linking questions" found at the end of topics. They are there to orientate teacher's teaching and students' study towards more holistic thinking, rather than questions that will be assessed directly, I believe. They could also help initiate ideas for exploration in an IA.
So what are the themes for? This leads us to the liberating aspect of this innovative design. Previously, IB (and many other) biology specifications constrained teachers by presenting the course content in order of scale. They began with the molecular and cellular and ended with evolution and ecology.
Exam specification, syllabi, guides, etc, are reference material. They are not representative of the meaningful journeys that teachers and students will embark on. I've written about this several times, in blog posts, e.g. here, here, here, in this published paper, and in my book.
Yet most biology syllabi make it hard for a teacher to break away from the order specified in the guide. Many teachers would be happy to change their sequence into something more meaningful to them. But to do so often means reorganising the course specification point by specification point. The resulting additional workload typically inhibited this practice.
In this new design, teachers are aided in making their own meaningful sequence. The specification has already done the hard work of delimiting specification points into concepts. Such that teachers just have to change the order of these chunks.
My interpretation is that the design has been made to encourage teachers to break with the traditional sequence-by-scale. If we teach by "theme" we have a sequence that constantly switches between levels of organisation: four rounds of viewing molecules to cells, to organisms, to ecosystems. If this is right, the "themes" are just names for each block—they could just be called A, B, C, and D.
Seen this way the syllabus is liberating. It's highly innovative because it provides three workload-light options for teachers:
Teaching the course by level of organisation, This means teachers that prefer to begin with biomolecules can do so, as can those that want to begin with bigger-picture ecology. It's already planned for them.
Teaching the course via a multi-level sequence via the "themes". This is also already planned for teachers, but allows the flexibility of teaching each of the four themes in any order without added workload.
Teaching the course by your own sequence , which is now much easier because you can arrange by the groupings already made by the IB.
The Content
With any biology syllabus there are difficult trade offs about what to include and what to omit. I think the new syllabus has done this better than the previous syllabus.
There is a better balance of content over the different fields of biology. In the previous syllabus, if you didn't choose the ecology option, then students were exposed to very little ecological knowledge at all. Yet, even without choosing the human physiology option, standard-level students still had to learn unnecessary details about such things as the digestive system. And, many times, the course did feel more "detail" focused and less "conceptual".
This has been addressed very well. The standard-level & higher-level split is now much better. For example, SL students no longer have to learn the molecular details of nerve transmission (now reserved for HL), and instead can focus on a more conceptual understanding of what nervous systems are. Equally, only HL students need to delve into the cardiac cycle, while SL students contend with developing conceptual mental model of the whys and hows of transport systems. Additionally, while plants were once only studied by HL students, now SL students also study them.
The conceptual focus is a welcomed change to the focus on detail. For example, I've observed that feedback is embedded throughout, with examples studied across levels of organisation. Rather than just "knowing that", students are encouraged to build models to "think with". Students should have well-developed ideas on circular causality in living systems by the end of the course. And functioning mental models that explain and predict phenomena better than in the previous syllabus.
A major reason for this is the increased focus of matching micro content with the macro world we live in. For example, rather than just learning the details of water, there are now specified examples for making content apply to the way living organisms live:
Another example is the addition of the protein titin into the model of the sarcomere. This small addition actually helps build an explanatory mental model of how muscles work at the scale of organisms (preventing over-stretch and providing recoil):
Aside from the digestive system, other omissions follow this pattern of moving away from just knowing the details. For example, the historical names of scientists and their experiments have gone. So has the memorising of the traits of phylogenetic groups.
What about the content load? Last time it felt like there was too much for the time we had, only time will tell if that will happen again. I thought that the content load would be reduced, but after producing my "basic knowledge questions", which I share below, I've found a close match between the total number of questions I had for the previous syllabus as I do now.
There are two additional points to take into consideration however. Firstly, it'll take a few rounds of exams to know if I have the content level correct. Secondly, with a more conceptual approach—with less "extra details" hanging off the sides, maybe the content will be somewhat easier to build into lessons and for students to remember. Although, I have noticed that there are several topics that seem to have way too much content for the recommended hours in the syllabus.
Finally, change is difficult for everyone. And there will be some friction as teachers move from one syllabus style to another. But I firmly believe that once everyone has got into it, teachers and students alike will enjoy it.
My shared "basic knowledge questions"
In planning a course, firstly I develop a sequence, and then I develop "basic knowledge questions" for all the content of the course, this is what I'm sharing. I try to atomise the content into coherent "chunks" of knowledge, and basically, they are a planning tool and a revision tool. It allows my to do the heavy mental work before the course begins, and then just turn up to lessons and teach without pre-made slides. I've written a blog post about designing them here, and about the important caveats of using them here.
Be warned that this is just my interpretation of the content of the course, it is not fail-safe. In parts there may be too much detail or too little, and some mistakes (let me know). But the resource should be useful for many people. If you do use them, consider buying a copy of my books, which will certainly help with the new conceptual syllabus.
Find the "basic knowledge questions" for the entire course, here.
Do you want to co-construct meaning without lecturing, slide decks, or leaving students to discover for themselves? Learn how and why in my books. Download the first chapters of each book here.