Critically applying ToK Concepts to RLS
Today I have a quick mid-week ToK activity for you on the ToK Concepts which could be used as a starter, or could be a whole lesson.
The Lesson Resource is available here as a Google Slides presentation.
It’s free, ready to download here as a Powerpoint
This a development of a starter activity that I posted a couple of months ago designed to introduce students to ToK Concepts.
This activity is designed to:
Further familiarise students with The ToK Concepts, and help them to develop their skills in using those concepts in Areas of Knowledge,
It’s designed to help them to move from real world examples to make knowledge statements, to develop their skills in moving from their lived world to the knowledge world.
And finally it’s designed to develop their ability to apply the ToK Concepts in a critical (or evaluative) way. For those of you who remember legacy syllabi of ToK - this is the current version of developing knowledge issues.
The Lesson process:
We start by presenting the students with the ToK Concepts, and we ask them to apply 3 of the concepts to a real life situation arising from each of the Areas of Knowledge.
I start by modelling an example from AoK Natural Sciences for the students.
My real world example is Duck Billed Platypus. The issue with the platypus is that it didn’t neatly fit into the taxonomy of life used by European scientists in the 19th C taxonomy (when they sent the first Platypus specimen from Australia to the Natural History Museum the esteemed scientists thought it must be a hoax). And I have applied the Concepts of Evidence, Interpretation and Objectivity to that example.
I then give real world examples from each of the AoKs for students to work on on their own. Now, some of these examples may need a little explaining to the students, or you could ask the students to do their own research on the examples, or you could replace the examples with ones that you or your students readily understand. I’ve used these examples purely because they work for me in my classroom.
And so, we have Forecasting from AoK Maths, some misrepresented knowledge from AoK History. Fairly well known examples from AoK Natural Sciences. The examples from AoK Human Sciences are two personal favourites of mine. I may explain them in a future blog post if readers are interested. Finally examples from AoK The Arts, which are fairly self explanatory.
It's a fast, free, easy, accessible & effective ToK Resource that you can use today, or tomorrow.
have a great day!
Daniel,
Lisbon, Nov 22