How many times should an IB teacher meet each student about an IA?

The IB does not prescribe one universal number of IA meetings across all subjects and components. Use the current subject guide, your school assessment policy, and departmental procedures to determine what is required and permitted. A practical model is to schedule meetings at decision points, such as scope approval, method or source review, progress diagnosis, and permitted draft feedback. Additional contact may be necessary when a student is stalled, absent, or presenting an authenticity concern. Record the purpose and agreed action after each substantive meeting so that access remains fair and the development process is visible.

Can an IB teacher refuse a last-minute IA supervision request?

A teacher can apply published scheduling rules and decline an immediate meeting when no urgent procedural or safeguarding issue exists. The student should still receive access to the supervision required by the subject guide and school policy, but this does not create an entitlement to unlimited help on demand. Offer the next available slot, direct the student to existing guidance, and ask for a focused question in advance. If missed milestones threaten submission or reflect a wider pattern, document the issue and inform the DP coordinator according to school procedures. Consistent boundaries are fairer than repeatedly rewarding students who create urgency by delaying work.

What should count as an urgent IA request?

Urgent requests normally involve a risk that cannot reasonably wait for the standard response window. Examples include a safeguarding or ethics concern, loss of essential access to data or equipment, suspected academic misconduct, or a procedural issue that could prevent valid completion. Ordinary uncertainty about wording, formatting, or a criterion is rarely urgent when guidance and scheduled support remain available. Publish examples so students understand that urgency is based on consequence, not anxiety or message frequency. When in doubt, consult the DP coordinator, particularly if the matter could affect authentication or submission.

How much feedback can teachers give on an IA draft?

The permitted amount and form of feedback depend on the current guide for the subject and assessment component. IB academic integrity guidance warns against multiple rounds of editing when these conflict with subject instructions. Teachers can generally identify weaknesses, ask probing questions, clarify criteria, and indicate where evidence or reasoning is unclear, but they should not rewrite the student's work. Avoid promising every class a universal number of marked drafts unless that approach has been checked against current documentation. Departments should agree on a common interpretation so students receive comparable support across classes.

How can teachers monitor whether an IA is the student's own work?

Authentication should be based on knowledge of the student's process, not solely on plagiarism or AI-detection software. Useful evidence includes version history, research notes, dated data files, interim submissions, supervision records, and the student's ability to explain methodological and analytical decisions. Compare the final work with what you have observed the student produce and understand during the course. If significant doubts remain, follow the school's academic integrity procedure and involve the DP coordinator rather than applying an informal mark penalty. Work that the teacher cannot authenticate should not simply be submitted as if the concern did not exist.

Can students use Jojo AI or another AI tool before requesting IA supervision?

They may do so only within the school's AI policy, the current subject requirements, and IB academic integrity expectations. A responsible use is to clarify terminology, identify questions to ask, or diagnose areas that the student should examine independently. The student must not submit AI-generated reasoning or prose as personal work, and incorporated AI output requires transparent acknowledgment consistent with applicable guidance. Teachers should ask students to retain relevant records and explain every major decision in their own words. Jojo AI and the RevisionDojo Coursework Grader are formative support tools, not official IB markers or substitutes for teacher judgment.

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Managing IA Supervision Requests as Fall Gets Busy

IB Teachers Seasonal Planning IB IA

• 24 Sept 2026•10

Managing IA Supervision Requests as Fall Gets Busy

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Managing IA Supervision Requests as Fall Gets Busy | RevisionDojo

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Managing IA Supervision Requests as Fall Gets Busy

IB Teachers Seasonal Planning IB IA

• 24 Sept 2026•10

Managing IA Supervision Requests as They Pile Up This Fall

For an IB teacher in the fall term, IA supervision can become an uncontrolled stream of emails, draft links, corridor questions, and urgent meeting requests. The solution is a shared system: publish milestones, define available support, collect requests through one channel, and prioritize students according to risk rather than persistence.

This September-November plan explains how to manage demand without weakening feedback quality or crossing academic integrity boundaries. It applies broadly across Diploma Programme subjects, but teachers must follow their current subject guide, school assessment policy, and coordinator's calendar.

Start with the official boundaries

An internal assessment is generally marked by the subject teacher and then subject to IB moderation. Moderation checks whether the school applied the assessment criteria accurately and consistently, so efficient scheduling must not compromise reliable judgment or internal standardization.

The IB's academic integrity policy advises schools to plan manageable workloads, monitor coursework development, and avoid inappropriate editing. A teacher authenticating work should have observed its development, be satisfied that the student can explain it, and believe its quality is consistent with the student's demonstrated ability.

Three boundaries follow:

Supervision is not unlimited editing. Teachers may clarify requirements, ask questions, identify weaknesses, and provide feedback permitted by the applicable guide. They should not repeatedly repair work until it reaches a desired mark.
The current subject guide controls subject-specific practice. Rules about drafts, collaboration, methods, teacher assistance, and forms vary among subjects and components.
School deadlines are operational requirements. Internal dates provide time for authentication, marking, standardization, and submission administration.

Do not treat a subject IA and the Extended Essay as interchangeable. The EE has its own supervision and formal reflection process. Label every request by assessment component before scheduling it.

Create one request and tracking system

Use one intake route before October pressure develops. A short form is usually more effective than open-ended email because students must identify their stage, obstacle, and attempted solution.

Require each request to include:

subject, level, class, and assessment component;
current milestone, such as proposal, method, data, analysis, or draft;
a working document link with correct permissions;
one specific question and the relevant criterion;
the next school checkpoint;
confirmation that class guidance was checked first.

Maintain a concise tracker rather than relying on memory.

Field	Why it matters
Student and component	Prevents confusion across classes and tasks
Current milestone	Shows whether support is timely
Specific obstacle	Distinguishes conceptual problems from proofreading requests
Last contact date	Helps distribute access fairly
Risk status	Identifies stalled or authenticity-sensitive cases
Next action	Creates accountability after contact

Publish expected response times, meeting lengths, and examples of genuine urgency. Procrastination should not automatically displace a student who has reached an agreed checkpoint.

Use a September-November calendar

Batching similar decisions improves speed and consistency. Reviewing several research questions together is usually more efficient than switching repeatedly among proposals, data tables, conclusions, and references.

Period	Main teacher task	Expected student evidence
September	Confirm requirements, feasibility, scope, and dates	Proposal, preliminary question, sources or initial plan
October	Diagnose methodological or analytical obstacles	Working document, process evidence, data or source record
November	Manage permitted feedback, missing work, and authentication	Agreed draft or milestone, citations, version history, revision plan

Adapt this sequence to the subject and school calendar. A laboratory investigation may need an early method check, while an oral component requires planned preparation and recording windows.

Protect weekly blocks for conferences, document review, and tracker updates. Once those blocks are full, offer the next available appointment instead of allowing IA work to consume every planning period.

Triage requests by risk

Message frequency is not a reliable measure of need. Use transparent priorities:

Priority 1: safeguarding or ethics concerns, procedural risks, inaccessible facilities, suspected misconduct, or deadlines affecting submission viability.
Priority 2: students at an agreed milestone who cannot proceed without a teacher decision.
Priority 3: reassurance, familiar rubric questions, formatting, or requests beyond the permitted feedback process.

Turn repeated Priority 3 questions into a clinic or class mini-lesson. If several students confuse description with evaluation, one carefully designed explanation is more efficient and equitable than multiple identical conferences.

Make every meeting produce an action

Limit routine conferences to approximately 10-15 minutes and follow a consistent sequence:

The student states the research focus and obstacle.
The student shows what has already been attempted.
The teacher asks diagnostic questions and provides permitted guidance.
The student records one or two actions.
Both confirm the next checkpoint.

A useful closing note could state: "By 18 October, test whether the available data can answer the question, document the result, and decide whether the scope needs narrowing." This records direction without supplying the student's argument.

Written comments should identify the problem and connect it to a criterion or requirement rather than provide replacement wording. RevisionDojo's guide to giving better IA feedback in less time presents a criterion-first approach, while turning IA feedback into learning explains how comments can become feedforward.

Protect authenticity when using digital support

Version histories, dated notes, research logs, interim work, and students' explanations provide stronger process evidence than a detector score alone. Teachers need enough knowledge of development to authenticate the submitted work.

The IB does not impose a blanket ban on generative AI. Its AI guidance for learning, teaching, and assessment emphasizes transparency, critical review, and acknowledgment when AI-generated material is incorporated. Schools may impose more specific restrictions, so provide one written policy covering permitted use, prohibited use, disclosure, and evidence of authorship.

Digital tools can support diagnosis but cannot replace professional judgment. The RevisionDojo Coursework Grader, for example, provides formative criterion-level feedback, not official IB marking. Students should verify suggestions against the current guide, preserve authorship, follow school AI rules, and bring focused questions rather than rewritten text.

Avoid common management mistakes

Common problems include accepting requests through several channels, reading every incomplete document in full, promising a universal number of drafts, and checking feasibility too late. Teachers should also avoid treating every late request as an emergency or giving guidance without recording it.

When repeated missed milestones threaten completion, document the pattern and involve the coordinator. Direct students to structured IA help and feedback resources or IB subject resources for independent preparation, while retaining teacher control over official interpretation and assessment.

Conclusion

Managing IA supervision requests from September to November requires structure, not longer working hours. One intake channel, visible milestones, risk-based triage, short conferences, criterion-linked feedback, and reliable process records protect both teacher capacity and assessment integrity.

RevisionDojo can support preparation around these conversations, but it cannot replace the current subject guide, teacher judgment, or student authorship. The Coursework Grader and IB resources library are useful starting points before students submit focused supervision requests.

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