The International Baccalaureate Diploma Program is in constant change and evolution to assure their students the latest information and form them towards their college life. One of the subjects that IB will be making adjustments to is Visual Arts, which will have a new syllabus released in February 2025 with its first assessment in May 2027. This article intends to give an overview of the subject along with detailed points of interest, so you are updated on this piece of IB news.
Overview
The new syllabus outlines a creative course that focuses on art making as a subject of study. This will become a great space for students that are looking to develop towards professional careers in the arts, but also reaches the ones who are interested in the subject as a hobby. Beyond this, the IBO, through this subject, uses art to empower students to engage, transform and emerge as individuals and members of a community.
According to the IBO’s latest post (2024), this new syllabus is intended to study the relationship between the artist, context and content of work. Thus, this relationship is at the core of each topic that will be explored as well as the assessments students will have to accomplish. However, there may be a slight difference depending on the level the subject is taken at (HL or SL); SL students must develop a “connections study” while HL students must create an “artist project”. These are further expounded later in this article.
Overall, the syllabus gives students the chance to conduct an immersive study on art, under the guidance of their school and the course companion book.
Aims of the course
First, IB students are often in search of new strategies for communicating their discoveries because of their undeniable reflective and communicative skills. This course becomes the perfect opportunity for them to develop these in effective and creative ways. For example, in the case of the art-making inquiries portfolio, students are tasked to collect evidence of their own understanding of the course in the form of critical reflections. This way, reflective skills are regularly exercised and used to give them the experience to solve problems that they may face in a professional future. No doubt, it aims to create independent minds who create their own art and artistic perspectives.
Second, the course aims to eradicate the presence of a draining and inflexible class environment. Instead, it encourages students to apply creativity and innovation to their academics. It aims to do so by allowing teachers and students to transform the classroom into a visual arts studio which will be an inclusive and collaborative environment for developing all forms of art. In this space, students will not only be able to express themselves but also experience and gain an appreciation for the art of renowned artists from all over the world as well as their peers. (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2024)
Third, the course invites students to actively engage with the world through a communication of the student’s art experience and acquired knowledge. These experiences must be authentic, transmitted the student’s own passion and vision and cultivated in their actions as IB students. IB hopes that students will be able to use their understanding and appreciation for art to productively benefit their communities and those around them.
To summarize, this course will be an experience in which students are invited to explore and engage with the world through their experience and expression of art. This also makes the course a little challenging since students will be asked to step out of their comfort and place themselves in an unexplored territory enriched with opportunities of improvement and reflection.
Core areas
The IBO (2024) has organized this course into three areas of focus: Create, Connect and Communicate. These lines of inquiry enable students to personally search for their artistic intentions and connect them to other artists’ work. The communication of this art is key, and each artwork developed should take into account the audience it is directed to.
Into the specifics, for the SL level, the teaching hours dedicated to create, connect and communicate are 20 hours each. Meanwhile, for the HL level, it is required to dedicate 30 hours each. For the integration of the three areas, the SL level requires 90 hours of dedication, while the HL level requires up to 150 hours. This gives a total of 150 teaching hours for SL and 240 hours for HL.
Lastly, the communicating area focuses on an open dialogue in which students must learn how to properly communicate their artwork and discovery. This activates critical thinking and an open mind regarding others points of view.
Tasks of course
For this course, the IBO (2024) has announced the following distribution:
Task 1: Art-Making Inquiry Portfolio
This is the way in which students will show their work on a line of inquiry through visual evidence or written material. Through this portfolio, it is not only expected to show a quality achievement of aims and dedication, but also the way students engaged with different artistic mediums and strategies.
In the case of both SL and HL level, students must upload two different files: one with visual evidence plus a written work with a maximum of 3000 words and a document with a list of used sources.
Task 2: SL connection study test and HL artist project
In the case of the SL level, a connections study must be submitted. This consists of connecting a previously completed artwork (also included for the Internal Assessment) with a specific context, with the help of research and deep study of the topic. It is expected that students upload a 10-page file with visual and written evidence, using up to 2500 words, and another file with the respective sources. All this represents 20% of the final grade.
For HL level, the artist project must be developed. It may be similar to the connection study for the SL level in terms of the expected place of an specific artworks studied before into an specific context. This must be shown with the correct curated evidence. The difference is that students must include at least two artworks by different artists alongside a video demonstrating how the project was developed towards an audience with a specific context. At the end, three files must be uploaded: one file with 12 pages with visual and written evidence including up to 2500 words, a video file with a maximum three minute duration, and a file with the used sources. This represents 30% of the final grade for HL.
Task 3: Internal Assessment
This is one of the most important and time consuming tasks in all DP subjects, and Visual Arts is not an exception. It requires the student to create and submit a body of work which consists of five resolved artworks. However, the focus of this may vary according to the level in question.
In the case of the HL level, it is expected to develop “selected resolved artworks”. This consists of creating a work selected from their wider production, by five resolved artworks. This will be used on other projects as mentioned before. At the end, a result of six files are excepted: five image or video files with a title and details, and one file with 8 pages up to 1000 words in total. This is 30% of the final grade.
For the SL level, a piece of “resolved artworks” is expected. It consists of uploading five resolved artworks that aim to show a good communication of artistic ideas. At the end, six files must be submitted: five images with title and details and a file with the rationale with up to 700 words. This counts for 40% of the final grade.
Key aspects for closure
Visual Arts becomes the perfect opportunity for creating, connecting and communicating art. It becomes undeniable that art constitutes a part of life, so this subject helps to situate this with the different strategies and tasks mentioned before.
If you are a Visual Arts student, never forget to use the three core ideas in a balanced and coherent way. As seen before, each level is designed with a specific amount of hours dedicated for each core idea. However, students must always pursue their own study and understanding of these core areas in order to apply them outside the classroom or even in the diverse assessments.
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