What, no Knowledge Issues? (link to ToK Concepts?)
Should Knowledge Issues have a specific role in the current ToK Course. In this short blog I argue that Knowledge Issues still serve a specific and crucial role in ToK.
The latest version of the ToK Study Guide (first exams 2022) replaced the idea of "Knowledge Issues" with 12 ToK Concepts. The concepts are fused throughout the course, and can be applied in all Areas of Knowing and Themes. The Concepts help students to develop a deeper, and more critical, understanding of knowledge construction and the issues associated with it.
However, underlying the 12 ToK Concepts there are further issues of knowledge construction. In former iterations of the ToK Guide we called these "Knowledge Issues". I think it's still useful to teach the students about some of these knowledge issues, and ideally for them to bring those knowledge issues across from their Hexagon Subjects. These knowledge issues are useful because they help students to further understand how the concepts influence the construction of knowledge, how the concepts are limitations and constraints on that construction, and to understand why we develop different types of knowledge.
On the left are a few examples of Knowledge Issues, this is by no means an exhaustive list - there are many many others. I only include this list so that you get some idea of what I'm referring to when I use the term "Knowledge Issues".
It is well note that the IB does not use the term 'Knowledge Issues' in the current Study Guide, and that there is no expectation that we teach students either the term, nor the processes indicated here referring to that term. However, the 'Knowledge Issues' can be fairly domain specific, and students will be learning about these in their Hexagon Subjects. Therefore, if we want to help students to identify the ToK aspects of their Hexagon subjects it is useful to unpack the ToK Concepts in terms of the knowledge issues inherent to those hexagon subjects.
Knowledge issues connect knowledge construction issues in the Hexagon Subjects with the 12 ToK Concepts.
Ideally, we would encourage (equip) students to identify the knowledge issues that are apparent in their Hexagon Subjects and bring those across to their ToK studies. We can help them to do this by working alongside their hexagon teachers because often students don't realise that the knowledge issues that they are learning in the hexagon are also relevant in ToK. Those hexagon based knowledge issues can then be grouped under the ToK Concepts, thus integrating ToK and the Hexagon (which is both the aim of ToK, and something that we have to find evidence for when it comes to IB / CIS Evaluation).
You may be wondering why I'm not just posting content. If so here's a quick video explaining my views on content.
In the next blogpost I will show you a simple lesson activity to connect the Hexagon Knowledge Issues with the ToK Concepts.
Daniel,
Lisbon, August 2022