What is IB?

We aim to cultivate students that see beyond their immediate situations and boundaries and recognize the common humanity in all people and their shared guardianship of the planet.

An IB education helps students reflect on their own perspectives, cultures, and identities, as well as those of others. By engaging with diverse beliefs, values, and experiences, and by learning to think and collaborate across cultures and disciplines, IB learners gain the understanding necessary to make progress towards a more peaceful world.

A focus on global engagement and meaningful service with the community challenges students to critically consider power and privilege, and to recognize that they hold this planet and its resources in trust for future generations. In all IB programmes there is a focus on moving beyond awareness and understanding to engagement, action, and bringing about meaningful change to make a more peaceful and sustainable world for everyone.

An IB education promotes conceptual learning, creates frameworks within which knowledge can be acquired, and focuses on powerful organizing ideas that are relevant across subject areas and that help to integrate learning and add coherence to the curriculum.

An IB education emphasizes the importance of making connections, exploring the relationships between academic disciplines, and learning about the world in ways that reach beyond the scope of individual subjects. It also focuses on offering students authentic opportunities to connect their learning to the world around them.

Throughout the IB program, assessment is ongoing, varied and integral to the curriculum. There is emphasis placed on the importance of analyzing assessment data to inform teaching and learning, and on recognizing that students benefit by learning how to assess their own work and the work of others.

The IB Learner Profile consists of ten traits that reflect the holistic nature of an IB education. These traits highlight that, along with cognitive development, IB programs are concerned with students’ social, emotional, and physical well-being and with ensuring that students learn to respect themselves, others, and the world around them.

IB educators help students to develop these attributes over the course of their IB education, and to demonstrate them in increasingly robust and sophisticated ways as they mature. The development of these attributes is the foundation of developing internationally-minded students who can help to build a better world.

Through the development of these learner profile attributes, an IB education seeks to empower young people for a lifetime of learning, both independently and in collaboration with others.

Knowledgeable - We develop and use conceptual understanding, exploring knowledge across a range of disciplines. We engage with issues and ideas that have local and global significance.
Inquirers - We nurture our curiosity, developing skills for inquiry and research. We know how to learn independently and with others. We learn with enthusiasm and sustain our love of learning throughout life.

Thinkers - We use critical and creative thinking skills to analyze and take responsible action on complex problems. We exercise initiative in making reasoned, ethical decisions.

Communicators - We express ourselves confidently and creatively in more than one language and in many ways. We collaborate effectively, listening carefully to the perspectives of other individuals and groups.

Principled - We act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness and justice, and with respect for the dignity and rights of people everywhere. We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences.

Open-minded - We critically appreciate our own cultures and personal histories, as well as the values and traditions of others. We seek and evaluate a range of points of view, and we are willing to grow from the experience.

Caring - We show empathy, compassion and respect. We have a commitment to service, and we act to make a positive difference in the lives of others and in the world around us.

Risk-takers - We approach uncertainty with forethought and determination; we work independently and cooperatively to explore new ideas and innovative strategies. We are resourceful and resilient in the face of challenges and change.

Balanced - We understand the importance of balancing different aspects of our lives—intellectual, physical, and emotional—to achieve well-being for ourselves and others. We recognize our interdependence with other people and with the world in which we live.

Reflective - We thoughtfully consider the world and our own ideas and experience. We work to understand our strengths and weaknesses in order to support our learning and personal development.

Grounded in contemporary educational research, the approaches to teaching and learning are centered on a cycle of inquiry (asking), action (doing), and reflection (thinking). Educational outcomes are profoundly shaped by the relationships between teachers and students. The approaches to teaching and learning emphasize the importance of relationships and celebrate the many ways that people work together to construct meaning and make sense of the world.

In all IB programmes, teaching is:

• based on inquiry: A strong emphasis is placed on students finding their own information and constructing their own understandings.
• focused on conceptual understanding: Concepts are explored in order to both deepen disciplinary understandings and to help students make connections and transfer learning to new contexts.
• developed in local and global contexts: Teaching uses real-life contexts and examples, and students are encouraged to process new information by connecting it to their own experiences and to the world around them.
• focused on effective teamwork and collaboration: This includes promoting teamwork and collaboration between students, but it also refers to the collaborative relationship between teachers and students.
• designed to remove barriers to learning: Teaching is inclusive and values diversity. It affirms students’ identities and aims to create learning opportunities that enable every student to develop and pursue appropriate personal goals.
• informed by assessment: Assessment plays a crucial role in supporting, as well as measuring, learning. This approach also recognizes the crucial role of providing students with effective feedback.

Approaches to Learning

Learning how to learn is fundamental to a student’s education. These interrelated skills aim to empower IB students of all ages to become self-regulated learners who know how to ask good questions, set effective goals, pursue their aspirations and have the determination to achieve them. These skills also help to support students’ sense of agency, encouraging them to see their learning as an active and dynamic process.

In all IB programs, students are learning:

• thinking skills—including areas such as critical thinking, creative thinking and ethical thinking
• research skills—including skills such as comparing, contrasting, validating and prioritizing information
• communication skills—including skills such as written and oral communication, effective listening, and formulating arguments
• social skills—including areas such as forming and maintaining positive relationships, listening skills, and conflict resolution
• self-management skills—including both organizational skills, such as managing time and tasks, and affective skills, such as managing state of mind and motivation.

The IB has always championed a stance of critical engagement with challenging ideas, and of combining our commitment to enduring fundamental principles with our drive for innovation and improvement.

The IB and its programmes are unique in many ways. One of the most special features of the IB is that it gathers together a worldwide community of educators who share a common belief that education can help to build a better world. Each of the IB programmes and curriculums undergoes regular review that involves educators from many different cultures and backgrounds. This review process ensures that practicing teachers play a critical role in the development of each programme. It also means that the IB’s vision is constantly sharpened by research, both its own and that of other respected academic bodies.

An IB education is designed to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who will help to create a better and more peaceful world. It brings together educators who share that aspiration. Today, as new global challenges emerge at an unprecedented pace of change, an IB education is more relevant and necessary than ever.