This is a sample course outline that shows how you can cover everything in a logical order. The units are from this textbook.
Travis’ IB Psychology Course Outline – SL in One Year
This is a one year SL course. The IB recommends 150 hours. Please know I have never taught SL in one year, so this is how I think the units could be laid out, but I’d be happy to work with one or two people who do have SL in one year and are using my book to see how it could fit best.
Intro (5 lessons)
Crim, cults and couples (30)
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Chapters 1-3
- Context: Human relationships, plus the biological and sociocultural approaches
- Assessment: How to write SAQs (Paper 1, Section A)
Memory and Manipulation (30)
- Chapters 4-5
- Context: Learning and cognition, plus the cognitive approach
- Assessment: How to write A-SAQs (Paper 1, Section B)
Research Methods and Class Practicals – Paper 2 (25)
- Chapter 10
- Do the class practicals – I have planned some that can be done even if removed from the context.
- Assessment: Paper 2 Section A (practicals) and Section B (unseen study)
Internal Assessment (20)
- Chapter 11
- Tip: Experiments are recommended as the proposed research method
- Assessment: First drafts of the IA submitted. Final draft due date set by teacher.
Depression and Addiction (30)
- Chapters 6-7
- Context: Health and well-being plus reviews the approaches.
- Assessment: How to write Paper 1 essays
Development (10+)
- Enculturation and any other time left spend on development.
- This section was added after John Crane helpfully pointed out that Paper 1B and Paper 2B are linked to contexts, so
Remaining Time: Exam Review
Developmental psych is not covered (Morality and Personality, Ch8-9). You could include it if you wanted. Since there are two essay questions in Paper 1, Section C, you can afford to skip this context.
The Rationale
- The first bullet point below has been edited. I originally said “There’s no need to teach all four contexts if you don’t have the time. Developmental has the least overlap with the approaches, so as long as they master the other three they’d be OK.”
- Updated Viewpoint: There’s no need to teach all four contexts to essay level if you don’t have the time. Developmental has the least overlap with the approaches (just enculturation), so as long as they master the other three and have a cursory understanding of development Psych, they’d be OK.
- That said: If you have the time, it does help to spend sufficient time on developmental. Perhaps a workaround would be to use developmental as the context for Paper 1B practice exams and Paper 2B practice papers.
- Is there enough time? The above course covers everything comprehensively in 145 hours. I’ve factored in things like the lessons where you need to do tests, exams and also teach kids how to write exam answers. If your school gives you less than the 150 hours, you could still find ways to free up time in this course. For example:
- Cut the IA to 15 hours and make students write the draft at home (I’ve allowed five lessons of class time for writing).
- Cut back to one or two lessons per unit that I’ve allowed for assessment. For example, I’ve allowed 30 lessons for depression and addiction but there are only 25 lessons of content in this unit.
- Cut out some lessons in each unit. For example, I have 8 lessons covering causes of addiction. You could easily cut out a couple of these and cover all the necessary content.
Travis Dixon is an IB Psychology teacher, author, workshop leader, examiner and IA moderator.