One of the questions I am often asked is, "How do IB and AP Biology differ from one another?"

One of the many things that makes the IB curriculum vastly different than the AP curriculum is the presence of a component called Internal Assessment.

In the IB Biology course, students are tested at the completion of the second year of the course by both an external assessment, which is the actual exam students take in May of their senior year. This exam consists of three papers: a multiple choice exam of 40 questions, a data analysis and free-response section, and a data analysis and free-response section dealing specifically with the curricular options students are taught. The exam papers only count 76% of the student's overall IB score for the course; the remaining 24% is determined by an internal assessment administered by the teacher.

Internal assessment involves providing students opportunities for practical lab work which allow students to develop and hone experimental design skills in addition to practicing good lab techniques and protocols. Practical work in an HL Biology course must comprise at minimum 80 hours of the student's course experience. These hours are charted on a form known as the Practical Scheme of Work (PSOW), kept in the student's IA portfolio which is established during the first year HL course.

Teachers use a rubric developed by the IB to assess student achievement in several areas of practical work such as experiment planning and execution, data collection and presentation as well as conclusion and evaluation. This rubric is used by teachers worldwide and provides an objective means by which student achievement can be measured.

Not every lab activity students will perform will be graded according to this rubric. Some lab activities do not lend themselves well to being graded as an internal assessment, such as labs where the instructions are predetermined for the student and simply followed. Students will typically have one to two IA's in a six weeks grading period, depending on what topics are covered in that grading period. Regardless, when internal assessment portfolios are assembled for moderation in the spring of the student's second year, there are plenty of IA's to choose from for submission.

Student internal assessment portfolios are submitted for moderation by an IB Moderator in the spring semester of the student's senior year prior to taking the IB Exam. IA portfolios are chosen at random, so it is important for students to maintain a professional looking and high quality portfolio.

Students must include the following with each portfolio:

• A completed Practical Scheme of Work (PSOW): This details what lab activities have been completed, regardless of whether or not they were assessed as an IA.
• All lab activities completed during that term/semester/year: Portfolios are assessed by the teacher at the end of each semester to get students accustomed to moderation by an IB moderator, and count as a major grade.

For each IA that is turned in:

• The original lab handout: This is a requirement of the IB, as moderators need this sheet as a reference to the work done by the student.
• The work done by the student: Since this is what is assessed by both the teacher and possibly an IB moderator, this is an absolute must!

Seniors will have a portfolio assessment that occurs during the Winter Break and so should have their portfolios assembled for moderation by the teacher.