IB Systems Transformation
Leadership for just and sustainable futures
A future-facing model for education
This 300-hour transdisciplinary course will replace two Standard Level courses in the Diploma Programme, and will also be on offer as a standalone IB course to students choosing Mulgrave’s Enriched Pathway. The development of IB Systems Transformation is central to the IBO’s multi-year review of its entire Diploma Programme, and will likely be introduced globally by 2030.
IB Systems Transformation explained
Like all IBDP courses, IB Systems Transformation: Leadership for just and sustainable futures spans two years, during which students will be exposed to a rigorous core curriculum and develop expertise in responding to complex, real-world problems.
The course is guided by three key ideas: the power of experiential learning, the importance of 7th-generation principles to guide decision making, and the belief that systems thinking is necessary to effect transformational change. At the heart of the course is a cycle of experience that gives students the opportunity to be immersed in a complex system, identify impact areas within that system, and finally, design a practical and viable intervention for positive change
Curriculum
More than 100 hours of this course are dedicated to the core curriculum, which includes the following areas of exploration:
- Constructing and deconstructing narratives
- Complex adaptive systems
- Ethics and ontologies
- Theories and practices of power
- Designing for ecopreneurship
- Data processing and analysis
The course has been intentionally designed as transdisciplinary: each of the content areas above will draw together skills, dispositions, and knowledge from the humanities, arts, social sciences, mathematics, and physical sciences.
Applied Learning
Immersion: A curated experiential case study in a location that involves multiple complex systems
Impact Area: Broad, complex systems (i.e. water, health, tourism) that lend themselves to investigation from multiple perspectives
Intervention: A thoughtful, ethical, and intentionally designed response to one or more complex problems within an impact area
Systems Transformation Timeline
Assessments
IB Systems Transformation: Leadership for just and sustainable futures is assessed entirely through coursework. It is also a ‘dual award’ course that follows the standard DP 1-7 scale, and is doubled for a total mark out of 14 (i.e. 8/14, 10/14, 12/14, etc).
As with all DP courses, IB Systems Transformation will incorporate both internally and externally marked assessment components: 50% of the course will be externally marked by IB examiners, and 50% will be internally marked by teachers of the course and externally moderated by IB examiners.
FAQ
Course Development
Course Experience
- Will it be more difficult to achieve top scores in this subject than another SL subject?
- Are there additional time commitments associated with choosing this course?
- Will students get to collaborate with other IB Systems Transformation students from different schools?
Will it be more difficult to achieve top scores in this subject than another SL subject?
Are there additional time commitments associated with choosing this course?
Will students get to collaborate with other IB Systems Transformation students from different schools?
University Recognition
- Do universities recognise this course?
- What if students don’t know what they want to study in university? How can they make a decision about this course?
Do universities recognise this course?
What if students don’t know what they want to study in university? How can they make a decision about this course?
Course Selection
- Who is this course for?
- Is there a limit to how many students can take this course?
- How will the application process work?
- What could this course look like in an IB Diploma package?
- What could this course look like for students choosing the Enriched Pathway?
- Can students change their mind once they begin the course?