REGIONAL

Student choice and the practical application of knowledge have supported higher rates of admissions to some of the most prestigious higher education institutions in the country, thanks to the introduction of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at Valley Regional High School (VRHS).

IB is a rigorous international education program that strives to balance the academic needs of students with a commitment to personal growth as individuals. The two-year college-level IB diploma curriculum is intended for upper-level students in their junior and senior years who, through its core components, have the opportunity to explore their appreciation for learning beyond a standardized testing model and the classroom.

VRHS became an IB-certified school in 2018 after the school was looking to introduce a new kind of advanced academic program for VRHS students aside from advancement placement (AP) courses, for example.

“I think we were looking at…really a school improvement model that really focused on high-quality education, authentic assessment,” and one that clearly demonstrates the ability for students to be “problem solvers… that can analyze sets of data, or case studies, and evaluate them and respond appropriately. No multiple choice more or less,” said Mike Barile, principal of VRHS.

Since then, the school has seen a significant increase in the number of participating students being accepted into some of the top higher education institutions in the country, according to Barile.

“We’ve had a Harvard one year, a Yale another year, a Brown another year. This [year], we have Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, MIT, Harvard,” he said.

The principal reflected on the reason for VRHS making the program a substitute for AP courses and the positive results thus far compared.

“When we were studying and exploring this as we’re getting ready to implement it, the reason why we were confident that we were going to get a great result from our acceptances at school [was that] we were informed that admissions officers would look at IB favorably more so than AP,” said Barile. “They would look at it as, ‘Okay, these students or this particular student completed what really was the rigor of college the first two years… they have demonstrated that in high school.’”

Barile said the IB program is for all students at VRHS regardless of whether they are towards the top or bottom of their class and includes those with special education needs and on 504 plans.

Part of the IB program is the element of student choice, where participants can select three courses at a higher level of learning to “cater to their own strengths or interests” and apply the knowledge they’ve gained in a practical manner. This is according to Maria Ehrhardt, the coordinator for IB at VRHS. She said this is what makes IB a “holistic” form of learning.

“If they really love English, or love business, or love music, they can sort of pin those as their three classes that they’re going to take at the higher level. In those cases, students have a choice of what their research project is going to be, what their art portfolio is going to look like,” said Ehrhardt. “For math, they have something called math exploration. They pick a topic, and then they apply their math that they’ve been learning to that topic.”

Ehrhardt raised another example that can be found in the IB business course, where — rather than answering 50 multiple choice questions about topics such as product placement — students may be faced with a case study about a business and will have to “discuss how the principles of product placement were applied.”

Underpinning students’ objectives is the IB core course, which consists of three assessments to test the knowledge students have gained. They include the explorative “theory of knowledge” component intended for students to understand the cultural context of meaning. There is the “creativity, activity, service” component where students must “look within the larger school community, but also the three towns, or state” and find “a need and create an activity and a service to address that need,” according to Barile.

Finally, there is the “extended essay” requirement for students to write an investigation into a topic of their choice at a college level and demands independent research.

As Barile mentioned, one of the defining characteristics of the IB program is less of a focus on answering multiple-choice questions as a fixture of testing. This also means not having to memorize and regurgitate facts and figures required for multiple choice, striking a key distinction between IB and AP courses, the latter of which contains those kinds of questions.

“That’s exactly where we wanted to move away,” said Barile.

Ehrhardt added that the AP model presents itself as “more of a silo model” with multiple choice compared to the “holistic” IB program through application of knowledge. Such is the exact approach VRHS has wanted to see out of its students in the latter program since its introduction five years ago, while positive results have been noticed.

“It’s not only about sitting, taking the class, and sitting for the exam. The assessments are very different in that it’s much more focused on the application and transfer of their skills and knowledge,” said Ehrhardt.

Just how successful and knowledgeable IB students from VRHS are is demonstrated oddly enough by boredom that some students have felt during their first year of college. But that’s mainly because they have already been set up for that success.

“I’ve had multiple students communicating with me to say, ‘I’m bored. We did this in our first year of class,’” said Ehrhardt. “They know so much. We have had students who have used their extended essay that they wrote as part of applications for an honors program in college that they’re in, and they’ve been accepted into those programs. I’m really, really excited about that.”