IEAward

Managing the Diploma course

Simplicity

Because there are few requirements in terms of what you teach, how you teach it, or how work is presented teachers should find this a very easy course to manage.

Accreditation

ALL teachers delivering the course should be accredited by IEA. Further details may be found on this website on the professional development page.

Content

There is no content that you are required to teach so you can design a course that interests you and your students. Some centres may choose to concentrate on programming, databases and spreadsheets while others may prefer to concentrate on video and sound editing. You should try to give students as wide a range of experience as possible to help them decide what they find most interesting and most appropriate.

Age

Standard level should be attainable by the average 16 year old while the Advanced level is aimed at those aged around 18. Because students do not have to enter for a particular level there is no reason why some 16 year olds could not achieve advanced level. Innovator level will be awarded to those rare students whose work is at a near professional level.

Levels

The course offers four levels of achievement. However, students are enrolled for the course rather than a level and can be awarded whatever level their work merits, regardless of their age. A class may therefore have students of different ages and abilities and all able achieve at their own level.

ICT lessons

We think discrete ICT lessons benefit the students and ensure they receive similar ICT experiences from teachers who understand ICT. However, there will be some schools where students have no discrete ICT lessons and yet receive an excellent ICT education through teachers of other subjects. What is important for running the course is whether students taking it are able to have access to appropriate levels of supervision when undertaking their project work.

Time

We suggest that the course be taught over 2 years with at least 60 hours of lessons but other models may be adopted, particularly if students have extensive exposure to ICT in other subjects.

Group work

In life most of the work we do is in conjunction with other people. It is likely that students will want to work in a group with other students, possibly even with people outside their class or even their centre. If students choose to do a group project they must submit individual work and make it very clear what is their work and what is the work of others in their group.

Projects

In the past students rejected projects that might interest them in favour of choosing ones that would get them more marks. We want to avoid that and teachers should encourage students to take on projects that really interest them, although projects should be, as far as possible, real projects for real clients.

Previously students have created projects such as an airline booking system using a spreadsheet which, while being challenging, lacked realism and students failed to appreciate the added difficulties associated with working for somebody else and the different standards that may be expected.

Students expecting to be awarded the advanced level MUST be working on a project for a real client and have it evaluated by a real client.

Format of projects

In line with the rest of the course students are free to submit their work in any way they wish. So they could choose to submit text, pictures, video or anything else they believe appropriate to provide evidence of their work. The only restriction is that everything submitted must be in electronic format.

File types

Students are encouraged to submit work in an Acrobat portfolio. Acceptable file types that may be included are:

Documents: pdf
Images: jpeg, png,
Video: wmv, mov, mpeg, avi
Audio: wma, mpg

Storage of projects

Students can upload their work to the IEA website so that they have their own copy of their work plus a copy on the website.

Assessment

Students are expected to use the marking rubric to assess their own work during the course. At the end of the course students must submit an assessment form which shows what levels they think they have achieved on the various strands and indicate where the evidence is to support their claim.

Teachers will look at the student's self assessment to check that their assessment is reasonable and add their own assessment and comments if necessary.

Centres with multiple teachers must carry out a process of internal moderation before submitting marks to IEA.

IEA will call for a sample of work for external moderation.

Once marks are agreed by IEA results will be submitted to CIE for final moderation and issuing of certificates.

If you cannot find the information you want on this page have a look at our FAQ page.