LearningFrom the Support Desk: Managing CAS Experiences
CAS for the IB Diploma Core is managed in different ways at each school— some schools give students free reign to choose which experiences they are a part of while others assign these experiences to students. There are three recommended models for managing which CAS experiences your students are a part of through ManageBac: managed by student, managed by student & advisor and managed by advisor. We’ve outlined all three below to assist CAS coordinators in determining the best fit for your school.
Model 1: Managed by Student
In this scenario, students are solely in charge of adding their own CAS experiences. This is done on their end by going to IB Manager > CAS, and clicking Add CAS Experience.
They will manually fill out the form for their individual CAS experience and click Add CAS Experience, as seen below.
Their CAS Advisor is notified via email when any new experiences are added and can mark the experience as Approved to indicate to the student that it fits CAS requirements.
This model works best for schools whose students are largely doing their own independent CAS experiences and projects.
Method 2: Managed by Student & Advisor
In this scenario, the Advisors add students to experience groups and students can then add the experience to their worksheets. Any advisor on your ManageBac account can add CAS projects or experiences via the Groups tab by clicking Add new group.
The Advisor then adds students to the group via the group Members tab by clicking Add Members.
Students can then select the group when adding a CAS experience from their CAS worksheet, which will auto-fill a large portion of their required information:
This model works best for schools whose students are doing a mixture of school-led and their own individual experiences.
Method 3: Managed by Advisor
Advisors can also control which experiences appear on student worksheets so that students never have to create their own experiences. Follow the steps below.
Step 1: Click Groups > Add New Group
Step 2: Add Students to the group via the Members tab > Add Members
Step 3: Mark all experiences as Approved via the group Members tab
These experiences will then automatically appear on each of the student’s CAS worksheets as approved.
Students will still add their own reflections, but will never need to choose what experiences to include on their CAS worksheet. This model works best for schools whose students will be doing prescribed CAS experiences led by the school.
Notes on managing CAS via Groups
For experiences that are added to the student’s CAS worksheet via Method 2 & 3, CAS advisors can manage student CAS experiences entirely via the Groups tab instead of having to go through the IB Manager tab.
Please note that if your school has ticked the Lock Approved CAS/SA Activities box via Settings > Access Permissions & Security, this will prevent students from editing their experience further.
Click on the group Reflections tab to see how many reflections each student has added. Click on a student’s name to see their reflections in detail.
Review students in bulk via the group Reviews tab > Submit Reviews button. Here advisors can leave comments to review and mark experiences as completed.
