Supervising

Changing The Supervisor-Student Dynamic

Supervisory sessions can be made more dynamic with user-friendly activities and tools to support discussions.  Students can receive up to five hours of supervisory support throughout the reflective project process. Within this time allowance, there must be three formal meetings for students which inform their official reflections in the RPPF as well as to give feedback on their one draft. By the supervisor taking the role of the caring inquirer, students become better critical thinkers.

NAVIGATING SUPERVISION

Coordinators might find this short think-piece on the challenges of academic integrity for the core, useful. It supports IB documentation released in 2020 which pays particular attention to ensuring academic integrity in the reflective project process. See also links to exploring academic integrity and the use of AI.

Spotlight on academic integrity

5.3 Academic Integrity and AI 

Academic Integrity is a fundamental aspect of the CP course and no greater way is played out than in the reflective project process. For schools offering CP or multiple IB programmes including CP, this is familiar territory indeed. Academic Integrity is also an area that all stakeholders need refreshing about every year so ensuring that Core, DP and CRS staff are up to speed with what malpractice can look like and what to do if they are suspect issues, is crucial. In addition to this, Covid threw many challenges at us; adapting to ensure that academic integrity is not compromised by the new ways we have had to teach and learn is just yet another. Now with the emergence of AI, arguably we are better equipped to face further challenges.

In regards to the use of AI, the IB's stance is relatively straightforward: it must be sited like any other source. The key to using AI is exactly that - it must become part of the way students are taught academic integrity and a helpful research tool. The transparency we have always expected has not changed. At the IB conference in Dublin in 2023, it was discussed in a session that the key to identifying the overuse of AI, compromising students is the student losing their own voice completely; this struck me as a good way of describing any piece of work that has not been referenced properly and where plagiarism is in evidence, irrespective of whether AI is in the picture or not. What is different now is the need to know our students, and to really use the supervisory process effectively has stepped up several notches in urgency. Giving feedback  Giving feedback  Giving feedback  Giving feedback 

Interestingly, in the core guidance it is the reflective project area that needs arguably more attention. It details the need here for supervision to move remotely and how this can be carried out. Remember the role of the supervisor is to witness the reflective project process in a way that they can verify that the work is the student’s own authentic research and exploration. It might be that remote supervision calls for supervisors to pay close attention to comparing previous work with current work to check that the student’s work is consistently progressing without anomalies. Certainly, it is also sensible to ask students to provide excerpts and evidence of the research they have done to confirm not only the amount of work they have done but also how they have used it.

It remains that the supervisor’s key role is to ask good open questions that guides students into getting the most out of the reflective project so the more the student feels they can interact in as natural way as possible with their supervisor the better; making real use of a shared online RSS – essentially a journal  with vlogs, blogs, photos, videos, comments, questions, extended reflections can make the job of tracking the student’s reflective project process a lot easier and also more enjoyable. Arguably it establishes a use for the Research and Reflection Space in a far more authentic and useful way than is often utilized by students in ‘normal’ times. Many centres also use plagiarism software which can be really helpful but obviously results need to be scrutinized and not taken at face value.

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