CAS experiences can be associated with each of the subject groups of the Diploma Programme. Teachers can assist students in making links between their subjects and their CAS experiences where appropriate. This will provide students with relevance in both their subject learning and their CAS learning through purposeful discussion and real experiences. It will motivate and challenge the students, strengthen subject understanding and knowledge, and allow students to enjoy different approaches to their subjects. However, CAS experiences must be distinct from, and may not be included or used, in the student’s Diploma course requirements.
Each subject group of the Diploma Programme can contribute towards CAS. The examples below are suggestions only; teachers and students can create their own authentic connections where possible. Use the links in this section to find information about how to bring CAS into each of the IB Classes offered at Oakmont.
Group 1: English Literature: students could engage in creative writing, produce audiobooks for the blind or write a movie and produce it.
Group 2: Spanish and French: students could provide language lessons to those in need, develop language guides using technology or raise awareness of the culture of the language being studied through a website or other forms of communication.
Group 3: History of the Americas, Environmental Systems and Societies, and World Religions: students could record the oral histories of people living in elderly residential facilities and create family memoirs, create a social enterprise addressing a community need or collaborate on a community garden.
Group 4: Environmental Systems and Societies, Biology, Computer Science and Physics: students could form an astronomy club for younger students, help maintain a nature reserve or promote physical participation in “walk to school” groups.
Group 5: Math: students could teach younger children to overcome mathematical challenges, maintain financial accounts for a local charity or plan a mathematics scavenger hunt at school to highlight the importance of mathematics in everyday life
Group 6: Visual Arts and Dance: students could take dance lessons that lead to a theatrical performance, participate in a community art exhibition or community initiatives (such as performances or photo exhibits) for hospitals or aged-care facilities.
Core: Theory of Knowledge
TOK guides students in making sense of their experiences as learners, and this includes their experiences in CAS. TOK is a course about critical thinking and inquiring into the process of knowing. The course encourages students to examine the presuppositions and assumptions that underpin their own knowledge and understanding of the world. In TOK the knower draws knowledge from two sources: personal knowledge and shared knowledge. CAS experiences are an important source of students’ personal knowledge, providing students with the opportunity to gain awareness of the world in a range of diverse and challenging situations. Shared knowledge extends the idea from how individuals construct knowledge to how communities construct knowledge. In CAS, students might draw on TOK discussions that deepen understanding of different communities and cultures.
CAS also provides links to other areas of the TOK course. For example, a student participating in a visual arts experience for creativity could reflect on the roles of intuition and imagination as “ways of knowing” in the arts area of knowledge. Some students make links between CAS and TOK when carrying out a TOK assessment task. For example, a student’s CAS experiences may also provide rich real-life situations for students to use as the basis for their TOK oral presentation. Further, CAS experiences provide the basis from which knowledge questions can be derived.
In both CAS and TOK, students reflect on their beliefs and assumptions, leading to more thoughtful, responsible and purposeful lives
Ethics in TOK
CAS helps students to “recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions” (learning outcome 7), in accordance with the ethical principles stated in the IB mission statement and the IB learner profile. This involves exploring values, attitudes and behaviours as students undertake enterprises with significant outcomes. Various ethical issues will arise naturally in the course of CAS experiences, and may be seen as challenges to a student’s preconceived ideas and instinctive responses or ways of behaving. In the context of CAS, schools have a specific responsibility to support students’ personal growth as they think, feel and act their way through ethical issues.
It is important that schools take the opportunity to use the CAS experiences to understand the ethical systems explored in TOK. CAS coordinators can assist students in identifying ethical principles to guide their actions. As a result, students grow in their awareness of the consequences of choices and actions in planning and carrying out CAS experiences. Increased ethical sensibility supports students in understanding that they are responsible and accountable for their actions, and leads to their acting with integrity.
Core: Extended Essay
Through CAS experiences, a student’s exposure to particular global issues at a local level may give rise to an interest in furthering their understanding of these issues through academic research. Both the extended essay and the world studies extended essay allow students to explore the issues that may have arisen during CAS. In the extended essay, students may research and explore personal interests that link with a subject of the Diploma Programme.
The world studies extended essay provides students with an opportunity to undertake an in-depth, interdisciplinary study of an issue of contemporary global significance manifested at a local level. Students can choose to explore a topic from one of the following global themes.
Language, culture and identity
Science, technology and society
Equality and inequality
Conflict, peace and security
Economic and/or environmental sustainability
Health and development
The world studies extended essay provides opportunities for a well-grounded appreciation and understanding of these themes, which in turn may lead to a more considered involvement in CAS.
(adapted from www.ibo.org)