2009, Block 4: Saturday 10:45-12:00

Elizabeth Dallaire knows that education for girls is crucial for the developing world to achieve better health, economic empowerment, and stability.  As a UNICEF Canada Ambassador and spokesperson, she works tirelessly to ensure that the importance of education, particularly for girls, is understood.  To this end, Ms Dallaire works with the Kenya Girls scholarship program for nomadic girls, whi

Québec’s bilingual and multicultural character makes it an ideal choice for both French and English speaking students from around the world. Québec’s institutions of higher education, located in both urban and rural settings, are renowned for the quality of their degrees and offer a vast choice of programs in one, two, or several languages.

It is not enough to talk about other countries and cultures. A new world and new thinking requires that we interact with others from diverse backgrounds. When teachers participate in short-term international immersion experiences, they bring to their classrooms a richness that cannot be found in books.

The IB organization is undergoing considerable change as it prepares for the growth anticipated for 2020. Alongside this restructuring and reorganization, the IB academic staff is also preparing to meet the challenges of 2020. Judith Fabian, Academic Director for the IB, will provide an overview of developments in all IB programmes and how they will be supported by the organizational changes.

This session will present the IB Student World Conference, a gathering of IB students from across the globe. The 2010 conference will center on the IB community theme, Sharing Our Humanity, and engage students using methods from TOK and CAS. Co-sponsored by the Northwest Association of IB World Schools and Oregon State University, the conference will be in Corvallis, OR in August of 2010.

This session will bring together ideas for conducting pre-, formative, and summative assessments, all with the purpose of determining the quality of and improvement in students' abilities to inquire. John Barell will focus on gathering evidence so that we can understand and communicate inquiry to students, teachers, administrators, parents, and state curriculum planners.

IB serves nearly 3000 schools and 750,000 students worldwide, through three main regional offices – the Americas, Asia Pacific, and Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. The three directors of these offices will come together in this session to share what is going on in their part of the IB world.

This interactive session will address the challenge of supporting students with a wide range of academic backgrounds to achieve success in the IB program. Presenters from Rampart High School will share successful intervention ideas and research findings that address the efficacy of these interventions as well as allow participants to analyze individual student profiles.

This session is designed for leaders of the 35 associations of IB World schools that exist throughout the Americas. Attendees will use the time to set priorities for working together over the next year, particularly in the area of improving university and government policy in support of IB programmes.

The IB Career-related Certificate (IBCC) is potentially the “next big thing” in IB education. The IBCC is a new IB qualification that supports and complements career and technical education programmes being offered by schools. It also supports the IB's access strategy by providing an alternative pathway for senior secondary students who are unwilling or unable to choose the Diploma Programme.