Sample DIARY

• Investigation

Here you will:

• identify your interests, skills and talents
• areas for personal growth and development
• what do you want to do and determine the purpose for your CAS experience
Possible questions you can answer and talk about in this section:
• What are my interests, skills, talents and potential areas for personal growth and
development?
• What do I want to do? What kind of CAS experiences can I do? What would I enjoy?
What will help me develop in ways that matter to me? How can I contribute towards my
community? How do I want to spend my time?
• Once you have chosen an idea for a CAS experience, think:
• What would I need to know in order to be able to get started? What skills will I need?
Who might be a partner or mentor if needed? What goals could be set? What are potential
areas for personal growth and development?

For example:
I have never in my life been a part of a sports organization, and I have never seriously participated in organized sports or
exercise. Almost nothing within the sports community is familiar to me, so for a while, I was very unsure what I would be able to
do to fulfil my CAS action requirement. Eventually, I decided it would be best for me to do….

• Preparation

• Clarify roles and responsibilities

• Develop a plan of steps to be taken
• Identify specified resources and timelines
• Acquire any skills as needed to engage successfully in the CAS experience.
 Possible questions you can answer and talk about in this section:
What preparation might be necessary?

• Action
• Implement your idea or plan
• Decision-making and problem-solving
Here you can add a log of your activities

For example:
18.09.2021 1h30min Today we started learning the first poomsae (pattern), Taegeuk
IL Jang. I was given a booklet so I can practice this pattern at
home. We also focused a bit on some terms, like: “Charyot-
Seogi” (greeting), and “Ap Chagi” (front kick).

• Reflection (the most important part of your diary )

• Describe what happened
• Express feelings
• Generate ideas
• Raise questions

Possible questions you can answer and talk about in this section:

• Did I try my best ?

• What did I do the best ?
• What could I do better next time?
• Did I work cooperatively with my teammates.?
• What happened? Retell memorable moments, identify what was important or influential,
what went well or was difficult, obstacles and successes.
• How do I feel? Articulate emotional responses to your experiences.
• Ideas? Notation of any generative possibilities.
• Questions? What can be discovered about people, processes or issues?
It is really important that you link your experience with the learning outcomes! Try to include
all learning outcomes at least once (remember that you will write 3 diaries each IB year)

LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the
process
3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
5. Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
7. Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

Action:
In this month of October i have spent the majority of days exercising with very little
equipment. I have managed to exercise with even more physical capacity each day.
Personally I have had much experience in the gym, and handling weights and
understanding how to do exercises with proper form. This is including targeting many
parts of the body. Because of this, it was a lot easier to understand the way that the body
should be lifting weight, and therefore made it fun and creative to find different ways of
lifting home made weights.
Though there were times where I felt like not doing any exercise, it was generally easy
for me to feel motivated and inclined to doing the exercise. I dont think doing physical
exercise is hard or difficult to start doing, especially after getting a pump.
I was able to demonstrate my ability to initiate and plan a CAS experience, by creating
home tools to be used during effective work outs. I have found ways for me to lift
weights without needing expensive equimpent. for example: I have used my bed to bench
press, and do chest workouts. I have used a bag filled with wood, to do arm work outs. I
have used a very large log, to carry when doing leg work outs and exercises.
I was also able to demonstrate my commitment and perseverance for CAS activities. It
hasnt been hard for me to commit and continue working out every day that I have enough
time to do so. Since I have been targeting my entire body every day, I have been quite
sore throughout the rest of the days when extending and contracting my limbs. because of
this i know that i have been doing a good amount of exercise.
Next month i will aim to achieve a 10rep pull up and body up goal. I will do this by
mainly focusing on targeting this exercise more often than in my plan. after this i will
also focus on cardiovascular exercises, such as running and explosive workouts targeting
the chest. Next month I will also aim to do all the workouts without any music, and truly
use my full strength, without the help of brain stimulation.
Current PBs:
 - 40 push ups in a row
- 10 handstand pushups
- 40 log machine reps
- 7 pull ups
- 30 bed presses
- 20 hammers
- 8 jog laps.

Creativity:
In this month of October I have casually played chess online, against computers, and
other online players. I have not seen an increase in my ELO rating which should be a
reflection of my chess skill level, however I have found examples of my creativity during
specific games. that I have played.
I have played chess before and have been able to climb my way up to a 1200 ELO rating,
however then my rating decreased back to 1100. I have been stuck at this mark for about
6 months now, and have not seen any progress. This was because I stopped playing chess,
and learning more about the game of chess, and therefore now i am consolidating at this
Rating.
I have been feeling very frustrated with my inability to advance higher, but i havent really
done anything appart from casually playing in to improve my chess level. I have tried
hard to beat higher rated computer programs that are 1700 ELO, but so far i can only beat
those that are 1600 max. Becuase of this i will watch and review some games played by
the top chess players in the world, to get more ideas and a better understanding of how to
play the game.

I have identified the learning outcome 1, to be the following: I see a very great weakness
within me in the game of chess, and that is my lack of creativity. I understand the
fundamentals of openins such as the KID (Kings Indian Defense) or the London System,
but then the game gets to a stage where I am not so confident, and dont take enough risks
to advance the game. I only sacrifice pieces or attemt risky manouvers when i am
absolutely certain it will work, and most of the time i dont even look for these tactics and
plays. Because of this i will set something to improve on, and that is the Endgame. When
there is only a rook and pawns and maybe another minor piece.
How to write a reflection? Here you can find a good example:

SERVICE:

The past couple of weeks have been spent on a lot of planning and organizing a cake sale. We
raised money for tickets for a certain club event that will be happening in next month.

Personally, i had no prior experience of organizing a sale in my life, and so this was something
new to me. I have to admit there was a lot of work that had to be done: creating posters,
hanging them up around the school, promoting the sale beforehand, baking the cakes, and
naturally selling them at the day of the sale.

There were a lot of moments where i felt a little bit overwhelmed, the task felt very broad and
certainly challenging to accomplish alone.

Some of the challenges i faced, but managed to overcome (learning outcome 2) were:

• Baking (There is no way i would have been able to bake all of those cakes alone)

• Selling (The plan was to sell at multiple locations at school, and i could not be
everywhere at the same time)

Thankfully i realized quickly that, the best thing to do was approach my friends and peers from
the IB class that were willing to help me out. It was very motivating to see how everyone
engaged in this project, and cooperatively made this into a success. I believe this is closely tied
to the learning outcomes 1 and 5.

Throughout this whole process there was a lot of stress, uncertainty (i wasn't sure if the cakes
would even sell), trial and error ( i went through multiple versions of the posters to see which
one fit the best), and certainly a lot of work.

However, with the help of my peers, i think i actually managed to develop and acquire new skills
that will ultimately help me become a more reflective and well-rounded person. Things such as
organizing, delegating work, not being afraid so ask for help, going through trial and error with
the posters multiple times, these are all things that will help me in the future!

And if you want, you can also add: demonstration (this part is not compulsory)

You might make explicit what and how you learned and what you have accomplished

Videos, photos, blog, etc.