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DP2 - Interim Reflection Session
What is the role of the EE supervisor?
What is the role of the EE supervisor?
Supervisors are...
MENTORS: You are the go-to person for subject-specific advice. This includes guidance on subject-specific research and feedback on students' evolving research questions.
CHEERLEADERS: Your passion for your subject, and your relationships with your advisees, pushes and guides students through the process.
SOUNDING BOARD: Students will come to you with ideas and possibilities, some of which will not work. Your feedback and ability to re-direct students is crucial.
AUTHENTICATORS: You have to make sure that students are not "double dipping" with EE and IA topics that are too similar, and you verify that the final product is the student's authentic work (you'll have had three meetings with students, seen various works-in-progress, and you conduct the final Viva Voce, which helps to authenticate the work students have done.) You do not need to re-do students' research to verify their findings, or look up specific content. If there is something that concerns you in this regard, let me know and we can figure out how to tackle that obstacle.
What is expected of you at MDID?
What is expected of you at MDID?
Expect 1-2 semi-formal sessions with a new DP1 cohort each Fall. One of these will be the "EE Cafe," where students chat with their DP teachers to discuss their interests in a subject and potential topics. For some students, the EE Cafe will be the formal start of the process: they may leave this session with a subject, supervisor, and preliminary topic. Most students will need to do more thinking and follow-up in subsequent weeks.
Once the process begins, IB guidelines clearly state that supervisors should spend no more than five hours with a single advisee over the course of the process. This largely means face-to-face meetings and direct feedback. The time it takes you to go through a draft really doesn't count towards this time, since we all work at different paces (Why should students be penalized for having a supervisor who moves through their work at a deliberate pace? Likewise, why should you feel super rushed?)
There are three manadatory meetings that all supervisor-student pairs must have:
The first session, near the beginning of the process (when a student is considering their topic options, or when they have begun working in earnest)
The interim session, midway through the process (shortly before the deadline for the first draft of the essay), and a
The final session at the very, very end (after the final version has been finished and submitted.)
Other check-in sessions may happen at your request, the student's request, or the EE coordinator's request, as needed. Some supervisors and students get through the entire process without communicating much outside of the three required meetings, while others have a more involved relationship. DP cohorts at MDID have tended to be more "needy," on the whole.
What should you do?
Communicate with your advisees when you are willing and able to meet -- both of those terms matter! Meetings obviously have to be scheduled based on students' and supervisors' availability. They also need to happen at times where you feel comfortable meeting with students. Some supervisors prefer to use the 12:50-1:20 "nap" break during lunch, while others treat that time as sacrosanct.
You should also set up how students should communicate with you. Offices are busy places and some teachers don't like students coming in and out during breaks and passing periods. Set up a system for communication with your advisees early -- maybe you want them to come to you during a break in the class you teach, or maybe you prefer an email message.
Beyond that, take some time to check in every now and then, particularly if you haven't heard from one of your advisees.
The most crucial tasks
The most crucial tasks
Draft Feedback
Draft Feedback
Students submit their first full draft of the EE in mid-October of DP2. This is the only time they should be getting recorded feedback on a written draft. Try to avoid making many annotations on their draft, or directing students towards specific changes. Hint, indicate, question, nudge, etc. The valuable learning experience for students comes from reflecting on your feedback and taking action, rather than responding to a set of directives that you give them.
Timely feedback here is crucial, as the process is still ongoing and students need to be able to think about your notes and make changes before the final draft deadline (approx. two months later.) This is likely the most stressful part of the process for supervisors, particularly if you have three or more advisees. We're looking to get drafts returned to students no more than two weeks after they are submitted.
Anything in particular you should do?
Avoid annotations, and NO editing their drafts (essays should be submitted as PDF files, so this would be hard to do anyway.)
Check for places that may be missing citations, and go through their bibliography
Check the TurnItIn report on ManageBac (EEC will also go through it.)
Compare the submitted work against what you've discussed with the student in the past, as well as previous work they have done for you, to get a gauge on its authenticity. Bring any concerns you have to the EEC and DPC.
Final Submission and Marking
Final Submission and Marking
After students submit their final EE
Time is of the essence! We need to go through their essays, check for academic honesty issues, and verify students' work. If there are no academic honesty issues the student can set up their Viva Voce session with you -- ALL academic honesty issues MUST be taken care of before the VV. That meeting, and its subsequent written reflection, mark the end of the EE process for students.
During the VV
More instructions can be found in The EE Process --> Reflection Tips --> Viva Voce. The basic gist of things is here:
Celebrate students' work (the VV is not a nitpicking session, but an exhalation at the end of a long and difficult process.)
Authenticate their work -- they should be doing most of the talking. Get students to talk about specific sections of their essay, decisions they made, feelings, etc.
Look to the future: how did the EE process prepare them (or not) for what they see in their future?
After the VV session
Supervisors have a few final things left to do, but there is not the same time crunch as with the drafts. WE have to submit all EE materials to IBO by mid-March, and the earlier we do that the easier it is for everyone. The EEC and DPC also need to do final run-throughs of submitted work before putting everything on IBIS.
Relatively soon after the VV, you should go through your advisees' essays one final time, with an eye towards giving a predicted mark. IB guidance indicates that we do not need to come up with a numerical score, using the rubrics for each of the criteria, but you are welcome to. Particularly if you are a new EE supervisor, this is a good way to familiarize yourself with the expectations within your subject. In the end, we just collect a letter grade (A-E) which will accompany students' submitted work when it goes to IB. The supervisor also fills out their final supervisor comments on ManageBac; these comments are more geared towards the student's engagement and what happened throughout the process, NOT a judgment on the quality of their work. These comments give the EE examiner some context for the final product as well as the students' three reflections.
Supervisor Resources
Supervisor Resources
Below are some of the resources out there -- IB-provided or otherwise. If you want some sample essays, please let me know. There are samples on myIB, in the Programme Resource Center, as well as on IB's EE website, found here. If you want other samples, let the EEC know. Be mindful that some non-IB provided samples are hard to come by for some subjects (but every subject MDID offers is well-represented in the samples) and in those cases you may be best served by talking to other subject teachers within your network of IB educators. We do have all of the past EE's for previous MDID cohorts, as well as final scores, if you'd like to use those as a reference. Send Larry an email and he'll pass them along to you 😁
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