How to get support for the coursework?

There are 4 different levels of support available to students through my site – hopefully you will be able to find the one that best fits your needs!

Level 1: Independent with teacher support:  Independent research

The most important element of a successful piece of coursework is choosing a suitable topic.  You want to ensure that:

  1. The topic you choose is of a suitable level of mathematics to your course (Goldilocks maths – i.e not too easy and not too difficult).  If your chosen topic is too difficult then you will struggle to explain it clearly to your intended audience of your peers and you will struggle to demonstrate good understanding of the maths.  
  2. The topic you choose should allow you to engage and have opportunities for independent action and thought.  It should be something you genuinely engage in investigating and ideally something with a consequence you can act on.
  3. The topic you choose should be an investigation upon which you have the opportunity for reflection.  If you simply talk through textbook maths problems then this is not really an investigation and you will not be able to show meaningful reflection.

To help Level 1 students I have put together a list of around 300 topic ideas.  This does not mean that every topic is suitable for every student – some topics would be a good choice for a strong HL student, others for a SL student who is not confident in the subject.  You can follow the links to research various ideas – ideally draw up a shortlist of around 5 topics that sound interesting – and then make an appointment with your IB maths teacher to discuss.  They should then be able to guide you as to which is the most appropriate.

Level 2: Independent with extra guidance: Exploration guides

For some students they benefit from extra written guidance as to how to carry out the exploration.  For this purpose I have created 3 exploration guides to support students when conducting their investigation.

  1. The Exploration Guide contains an introduction to the essentials about the investigation, information about the new marking criteria, extra support in choosing a topic, examples of excellent investigation topics, a student checklist, common mistakes that students make, technology support and a lot more.
  2. The Modeling Guide for the Exploration contains detailed information on regression techniques useful for many modeling tasks, a focus on non-calculator techniques to demonstrate good understanding and modeling through technology support.
  3. The Statistics Guide for the Exploration contains a detailed look on correlation investigations and how to demonstrate good understanding through non calculator technique.  The guide also explores a number of statistical techniques such as Chi squared,  Poisson, Binomial and Normal.  These are presented in the form of mini investigations to support use in explorations.

For a preview of these resources and to download you can visit this page.

Level 3: Supported with guidance: Video tutorials

I’ve teamed up with Udemy to create a comprehensive online guide to the exploration: How to Get a 7 in IB Explorations. This includes:

  1. 9 tutorial videos totaling 2 hours 30 minutes of essential information designed to ensure you get the best possible grade.
  2. Pdf downloads to support video tutorials (including the Exploration Guide mentioned above).
  3. Quizzes to test understanding
  4. Support on modelling techniques, choosing an excellent topic and a chance to compare good and bad explorations.
  5. A focus on what is required to gain the top marks in each strand

Level 4: Supported with extra guidance: 1-1 tuition

For many students the above 3 levels is sufficient – but there are students for whom extra support is required.  For whatever reason they may not be able to get good school-level support or may simply need more targeted support.  For these students they might consider 1-1 exploration tuition.   It’s important to note that this is not going to be someone doing the work for you – but simply that you have support throughout the whole process.

One of the most reputable tutors is Dr Taylan Celtik and his team.  Taylan is a colleague of mine as we are currently working together on developing a new resources website for the IB – and has over two decades of experience in running a very successful and well renowned tutor service.  He is a greatly experienced and passionate teacher with some fantastic coursework ideas.

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From the picture above you can get a sense as to how a 1-1 tutorial would progress – with shared Google Docs, a focus on technology skills and template examples to scaffold any investigation.  If you are interested in speaking with Dr Taylan then you can fill in the form below and someone from his team will be in touch.