When taking the course "Assessment and Evaluation" among the 4 other courses out of the IBEC playlist, consider some key things that most may not recognize as yes, many people take 1 course at a time. However if you are on a tight timeline and interested in making the summer a productive one, this is worth considering in order to make sure that you are getting appropriate thought put into how we are expected to be participating in the course.
1. Your time commitments
Identify whether you really have hours each week to be online posting/reading and writing for at least 2 hours each week
2. Your availability to meet online with classmates
It is not common, but as you go through the first course, "Teaching and Learning" there will be an online presentation that needs to be completed at the end of the course. Thereafter, the "Assessment and Evaluation", "Professional Learning" and "Professional Learning Communities" important to remember that you have at least 1-2 projects that would require about 4 hours of work each where you would try to coordinate with colleagues to complete the passive projects (No live presentations-2025).
3. Your professional timeline
Keep in mind, that if you are working witha company that offers subsidary, you can expect that there may be a delay between when you need to report your costs versus when the completion certificates are released, not by much, but usually there is at most a 2 week delay-keep in mind if you started in June and complete in august.
Building your portfolio with IB themese and knowledge points emphasized is important to keep in mind even at the beginning of the learning, the work you do in Curriculum Processes, as well as Teaching and Learning with regards to lesson planning and Unit Planning, go a long way in the end (Professional Learning), these can take shape through a strong Linkedin Profile, a Blog (like my own) or even a digital product like my One Notebook Unit Plan (Demo)
Overall, University of Windsor has been great, the IBEC program there is interesting enough, but the work pressures and time constraints placed on teachers/students enrolled in the IBEC program, really needs to be evaluated to some degree. This may be an isolated case, I may just be "doing this to myself", as I am someone who puts a lot on my own plate, but at the same degree, we introduce ourselves at the beginning of the course, I don't believe I made it sound like I am just sitting at home waiting for the next module to come about.
I really hope that in the future individuals taking this course through this provider will not be impacted by such treatment.
Thank you,
C. Bono
