Syllabus Update (February 2023 onwards)

Reference: IBO

Updates on the Diploma programme (DP) computer science course

The new DP computer science course will be launched in February 2023 for first teaching in August 2023. First assessment will take place in May 2025.

Overview

The computer science curriculum is organized into three areas of learning

• Systems in theory (theoretical underpinnings of the course)
• Systems in practice (the practical application of the theory)
• Systems in context (which connects the theory and practice to real-world scenarios and applications)

In addition, there are four themes: Abstraction, Design, Development, and Evaluation.

When combined, these form organizers (see below) that give teachers greater flexibility to create their own learning pathways for the two-year programme. Teachers are encouraged to use linking questions in the syllabus to form pathways through the syllabus content and reinforce the connections between the areas of learning.

The new syllabus introduces programming at its core. There is a greatly reduced emphasis on pseudocode. Four topics are highly recommended to be taught using Java or Python, and paper 1 assesses students’ ability to read, interpret, understand, and respond using either programming language.

Changes to the Assessment model

• External assessment

All students will only sit two external examinations.

Paper 1 focuses on problem solving and combines syllabus content from the systems in theory and systems in practice areas of learning. Section B of paper 1 requires students to read, understand, interpret and write code in either Java or Python.

Paper 2 focuses on applying theory and practice to real-world contexts and combines syllabus content from systems in theory, systems in practice and systems in context. Section B of paper 2 is common for SL and HL and is framed by a given technology context.

• Internal assessment

Other changes include the removal of the option topics (databases, modelling and simulation, web science, object-oriented programming), and the case study for HL.

The internally assessed computational solution will also see a change. Framed as a report, the student will document their process following the software development life cycle (SDLC) to create a solution that solves a real-world problem. They will need to conduct a user-centered investigation into the needs and wants of the client and users, design and develop their solution, and test and evaluate the solution.

Students will submit an individual report, with a maximum of 3,000 words.

The revised criteria will place a greater emphasis on higher-order thinking skills with two-thirds of the marks allocated to design, development, testing and evaluation.