This resource is for the 2018-24 specification. Please visit the 2025 section of the website for up-to-date materials.
Link to the video (project Outcome)
This is the example of a high-scoring Team Project given to us on the CAIE Teacher Support Website. [See file 0457 Example Candidate Responses Paper 3 (for examination from 2018).]
The students should be commended on some great work on this project, but it has a couple of shortcomings that we need to be cautious of when using it as a model to emulate.
The 4 marks available for the Team Element depend entirely on the Outcome and Explanation representing different cultural perspectives. The distinction is clearly drawn in they syllabus: in the Individual Report global, national/local and personal perspectives are required, whereas in the Team Project different cultural perspectives are required. Are all perspectives cultural? Well that’s a moot point, but let’s say that if you’re trying to represent a cultural perspective, you should at least make some explicit attempt to link a perspective to a culture – which by definition entails identifying a specific group to which it belongs.
So let’s take a look at the perspectives represented in the video:
- Deprioritisation of African conflict in the media because news about Africa is unprofitable (various countries plus class survey)
- Deprioritisation of African conflict in the news agenda due to isolationism and an inward-looking culture (Japan).
- We don’t want too much negative news because it’s psychologically distressing (Huffington Post article)
- We can and should know more about African conflict – (BBC Country Profiles local news channel listings, Project Censored, Thomas Reuter’s Foundation).
Of these perspectives, the first gets the lion’s share of airtime. The students represent Perspective 1 and its resulting ignorance in several countries, even Zambia (which neighbours war-torn DR Congo), plus in their own class. This is interesting, but the students might be falling into the trap of confusing “different perspectives” with “information from different places”. It makes for a fair bit of duplication, though this could be justified as illustrating how global this perspective is. The question is, is it also a cultural perspective? Well, they kind of manage to present it as such without really mentioning culture. They start to characterise this perspective by identifying profit as its key driver, and the simple “good guy, bad guy, victim” narrative as a key tool. I like that they quote explanations of policies from NHK and The Economist. However, it would be nice if they identified the global for-profit news industry as a group of people sharing these values.
Perspective 2 is also quite well represented, and is certainly a cultural perspective, so this is a strong point of the piece. However, perspective 3 is very brief, and isn’t shown to be cultural at all – it’s just an idea floated by the Huffington Post on the back of some psychology research. Perhaps it could be linked to culture, but that would take a bit more work.
Making a video does not address an issue. Showing a video might.
Perspective 4 is a missed opportunity: it is a perspective shared by many people globally, but the students just seem to see it as a corrective to the issue. To characterise it as a cultural perspective you could start by examining the values and motives behind the cited examples (i.e. the BBC is a non-profit with a charter to inform, educate and entertain rather than to generate profit, the “About Us” page of Project Censored shows it is a nonprofit campaign by professional journalists in support of the free press, and so on). This could lead us to a description of Perspective 4 as a loose counterculture to the mainstream capitalist media. It could be linked to left-wing libertarian traditions. Maybe that sounds rather advanced, but at the high end of achievement we would hope for students to at least try to characterise the perspective, even if they don’t find the best words to encapsulate it.
So the Outcome and Explanation do manage to express different cultural perspectives, and would thus score 4/4, but in our projects we would do well to aim for a set of more clearly cultural perspectives – at least one from each student.
For AO3, learners should communicate their key personal research findings. They should also communicate the connections between the team and the personal elements in a structured and logical way. For example, giving details about what they did to gather different cultural perspectives as explained in the Explanation and how their research findings informed or supported the team’s Outcome. By doing this, learners are linking their own research and personal elements to the team elements.
2018 Coursework Handbook p.11
If one team member’s main contribution was that article from Huffington Post, I’m not sure it would give them enough material to claim in their Reflective Paper that their personal research had contributed a cultural perspective to the Team Element.
Taking action… yes, really!
The “Outcome” of this project is a little disappointing to me because it is just a video. Making a video does not address an issue. Showing a video might.
The team then draws on their research into different cultural perspectives on the issue in order to set an aim and plan a course of action to address the issue
2018 Coursework Handbook p.5
So when students create a product, they also need to plan a target audience, a distribution strategy, and a feedback method.
It is important that the team decide on a mechanism to gain feedback about their Outcome
Coursework Handbook, p.8
In this case, the student mentions in the Reflective Paper that the video was aimed at his class, but coyly avoids saying whether the class watched it. With no evidence of having put the video to use or gathered feedback, the evaluation of the Outcome is a bit weak too. With this exemplar, Cambridge seem to be telling us that it is possible to get a high score without taking these requirements very seriously. I find this disappointing because perhaps the most potentially inspiring and empowering aspect of the course is the requirement for students to take action to address the selected issue based on their research findings. It teaches them that they aren’t just learning for themselves, but for the sake of making a better world. Here is a conversation, versions of which I have had with many students, encouraging them to take the TP as an opportunity to be a change agent and to really assess their impact.
—
Great post Max. Much needed
I totally agree. It took me ages to plan a lesson around Component 3 using this example of Team Project as a model. I noticed the same flaws and, despite that, the students managed to get full marks anyway. This confused me a bit, since the indications provided in the handbook are pretty clear: cultural perspectives and an outcome which helps you reach the aims are required. Anyway, thanks for sharing!
Thanks. Sadly video link doesn’t work. I looked on the Cambridge site and same thing. Some of the project’s materials on the Cambridge site were a bit culturally sensitive for my students in Indonesia too. i.e. child abuse comic and over sexualisation of women in advertising images. Have you got any other examples of good team projects? The architecture one is great to use in class. Thank you.
Hi Kev. I’ve just checked the video link and it works for me. Glad you like the one on hostile architecture. Our Out of the Box course has a partly-worked project on “claiming the right to marry freely” which aims to be a nice, clear model for students to emulate.