Women in STEM: Core Theme Knowledge & The Knower
This could be used as Starter or as a whole lesson. This activity is written for students in the first few weeks of the ToK Course. It is based in the Core Theme Knowledge & The Knower, and it starts to explore the difference between that which is known to the knower in comparison with that which is known to the knowledge community (previously 'the difference between personal & shared knowledge'). It could also be used to introduce the idea that knowledge is created for a purpose.
Knowledge Questions:
Can other people know us better than we know ourselves?
Is the truth what the majority of people accept?
Are there types of knowledge that are specifically linked to particular communities of knowers?
ToK Skills:
Identifying Knowledge Issues
Interpretation & Analysis
Evaluation
The Scenario:
You are a reporter for a news outlet. You have been given a 30 second time slot to report on the under-recruitment of women to STEM subjects in university. In your research you have interviewed 4 different groups, however you only have time to show 1 interview in your news report.
What to do:
Read the Interview summaries below and then discuss the questions as a group, and jot down your group answers.
Interview Summaries (NB - these are all fictional !).
DP Students who are applying to university.
This group (both male and female) felt that women were encouraged to apply for STEM subjects. The young women felt empowered in their choices, and supported if they wanted to apply for STEM.Vice Chancellor at an 'elite' STEM university.
The Vice Chancellor said that she wanted to make more offers of places to women applying to study STEM, but her university did not receive enough applications from women. In response they are spending money on encouraging more female school leavers to apply, and running a girls only summer school with STEM admissions tutors for G10 and G11 students.CEO of Pharmaceutical Company
The CEO doesn't care whether his company recruited male or female graduates, he just wants the best graduates. However, he felt that the elite STEM university should not be spending money on trying to get women to apply, they should be using that money to improve research at their university.Government Statistician.
The statistician has analysed a lot of data, and has found that women are less likely to apply to study STEM than men. However, they have found that women who do apply for STEM are more likely to be offered places at more competitive universities than men with the same grades.
ToK Questions for your group to consider:
a). Which interview provides you with the most valid knowledge relating to female applications to study STEM at university ?
b). Which interview provides you with the most reliable knowledge relating to female applications to study STEM at university ?
c). Comparing interviews 1 and 4, they are contradictory, is one wrong ?
d) What are the wider knowledge implications raised by your answer to c) ?
e) Which interviews are more representative of the views of the knower, and which are more representative of the knowledge community ? (place them on a continuum)
How can we teach ToK in only 100 hrs?(New to ToK #3 Speed (pt2))
How can we teach the IB Theory of Knowledge course in 100 hours ? I offer 3 strategies to teach the course in the limited time available.
The IB recommends that the ToK course is taught in 100 hours, many teachers find this to be too little time. This problem can be compounded because many schools struggle to allocate even the minimum recommended time. In today’s blog I want to suggest 3 ways for you to successfully deliver the course in 100 hours.
#1 Go Slow to go fast
Your first instinct might be to try to cover the curriculum as quickly as possible, to rush through the Areas of Knowledge and the Optional Themes. However, I believe that the way to speed up curriculum coverage is actually to do the exact opposite, slow down rather than try to speed up - which may seem antithetical to begin with.
“Go slow to go fast” means focus on deepening student understanding early in the course, don't worry so much about curriculum coverage. If you build the key ToK skills early in the course then the students will be able to learn the content much faster later in the course.
The key to go slow to go fast is to identify the important skills which are necessary for student mastery of the ToK framework, there are many blogs and videos coming up on ToK skills, not least the next one in this series.
In summary - focus on building ToK skills not covering content early in the course.
#2 Abstraction & Reification (Kolb’s Learning Cycle).
Why do some students (& teachers) find ToK so much harder than other subjects ? I would say that one of the reasons is that ToK requires us to abstract from, and reify, the real world context. EG in the real world it’s a coffee mug, but in ToK it’s knowledge with a specific Scope, Methodology, Perspectives and even associated ethics.
So how do we teach students to abstract & reify the real world ? The most effective model that I have found is Kolb’s Learning Cycle. It’s a 4 stage model of learning which helps students to move from the concrete real world to the abstract conceptual world.
I use Kolb’s learning cycle as the underlying framework for planning lessons, designing an activity for each stage. This process makes it far easier for students to move from "the real world" to the ToK world.
In summary - draw upon the expert constructivist models (such as Kolb's Learning Cycle) - their work is based in research.
#3: Making the Familiar Unfamiliar (Schematic Redefining)
We know that when we’re teaching ToK we’re teaching Critical Thinking skills, but what does that actually mean ? How do we operationalise that into a set of real activities and skills ?
Well a good starting point is to ask the students to constantly question their tacitly accepted beliefs. Very early on I teach my students that the first rule of ToK is to “Question the Question”.
This means that from the beginning of the course I focus on encouraging the students to question the premise of statements used in class & in IB Knowledge Questions and prompts. EG - what do we mean by culture ? How do we define new knowledge ? How do we define ‘Seek’ etc ?
Summary: focus on students developing questions more than answering them.
Let’s draw these 3 things together:
Go slow to go fast, Abstraction & Reification and Make the familiar unfamiliar. On their own none of these 3 things are rocket science - they’re not great innovations in pedagogy. However, when brought together, and used consistently your ToK students will be able to construct the content of the course themselves, thus enabling you to cover the syllabus far faster - in that way you can teaching ToK in 100 hrs or less.
Daniel, Lisbon, Portugal,
August 2022
How to Teach ToK (New to ToK Pt 3)
What are the fundamentals to lesson planning for Theory of Knowledge ?
When designing lessons ToK Teachers may want to focus on 3 factors:
the development of Skills
ways to speed up learning
group dynamics in the ToK class
When I started to write the "New to Teaching ToK" series I was always a bit worried about the third part - the 'what do you actually do ?' part. My concern was (is?) that no single ToK lesson is identical to any other lesson, and there's no simple formula for designing the lessons.
I used to place much more emphasis on making resources, and giving them away to other ToK teachers. However, I started to think that this isn't a particularly helpful approach for those teachers or for their students. The problem of 'pick up & give' lessons is that they haven't been designed for that particular group of students. Of course the teacher could modify the lesson so that it meets the particular needs of the students concerned, however that can be more work for the teacher than just writing it themselves from scratch, because the teacher hasn't written that lesson.
So, when I came to the "what do I actually do ?" bit I thought it best to go back to the principles by which I design lessons. I boiled this down to 3 main aims:
Skills Development - the longer I teach ToK the more I realise that it's a skills course, developing skills is everything. Once students have the skills they'll fill in the content themselves.
Speed - we have a maximum of 100 hrs to teach, and assess, the whole course. Accelerating the cognitive development & understanding of the students needs to be a focus of every lesson.
Group Dynamics - using group dynamics fuses together the skills development and speeding up cognitive development.
I made a video on each of these areas:
and there are far more details on each at
Group Dynamics blog post linked here.
Speed (Cognitive Development) blog Post linked here.
Skills Development blog Post linked here.
I hope that ToK teachers find this content useful (if you did a Like on WordPress or YouTube would be much appreciated), if you have requests for particular content please let me know (Daniel@TokToday.com).
thanks for reading, and have a great day!
Daniel,
Lisbon, Portugal. August 2022.
Are Group Dynamics your key to ToK success?
New to ToK #3: ToK Lesson Design (pt 1)
Does ToK require the use of a special lesson design?
Does ToK lend itself to a particular lesson model more than other subjects?
What is the relationship between how learning is designed and how skills are developed in ToK?
How you design learning in the ToK classroom is the single most important factor in determining the success of your ToK course.
In this blog I will explain the main lesson design models that I have iterated over my years of ToK teaching. These are models that I have found to be successful in :
Optimising engagement & group dynamics.
Optimising skill development.
Optimising understanding.
Group Dynamics in The ToK Classroom
I want to reemphasise the points made in parts #1 & #2 of this series regarding the importance of group dynamics in the ToK classroom. By designing learning which promotes building cohort you will increase the learning capacity of the class as a whole, and of the individuals in a class. More on this in the lesson designs to follow.
My Foundation ToK Lesson Design.
This is 'very' foundation, but it constitutes a model on which everything else can be built. The model moves the students into "ToK thinking" with a starter activity, and then slowly moves students up a ladder from the material, experiential world to the abstracted ToK world. The model contains 2 periods of reflection, and an energiser in the middle - for obvious reasons!
How long does this Model take?
This Foundation Model is essentially elastic, I have used it for sessions lasting 30 mins- 2 hrs. The longer the session the more task variety is needed in the blue sections of the model.
Whilst this model may seem overly simplified it can easily be overlooked. An experienced teacher recently told me that he couldn't keep his G11 class engaged for 80 minutes. When I asked him how he was structuring the lesson I found that there was no task variety, no multi-modal learning, no variety of learning groups, never mind starters and energisers. This was an experienced teacher who had just forgotten the fundamentals.
Think about Grouping..,
The added power in your classroom is the aggregate knowledge of the group, teaching ToK is far easier when you place the interaction of learners at the heart of your lesson design. To be honest, I have seen ToK Classrooms which involve a lot of watching (TED) videos, or reading long tracts of text. Whilst these can result in some good learning they're rather passive, not really an active inquiry which encourages students to construct their own understanding. Further, this group interaction will build the group dynamics which leads to improved student self regulation, and features of the Growth Mindset.
Design learning that unleashes the power of the group!
There're even more details available from the YouTube video on this topic:
New to teaching ToK? (Part 2) Course Structure
Structuring the ToK Course
This blog is part of the New to teaching ToK? series. This is the second blog in the series, if you missed the first blog on what to do in the first couple of lessons you may want to click here and jump back to read that post first.
If you'd prefer to watch the video version of this post you can pick it up at this link
So, you've spent a couple of lessons getting to know your students, and developing the dynamics of your wonderful ToK class. Now you have to figure out what your journey is going to look like, and you have to know what your destination is. You need to work out how you are going to structure your ToK course.
Where are we going, and why are we going there?
As good ToK teachers we should, of course, start with a question - the question is what do we see as our function as teachers of ToK ? the sub question here is do we see our function as teaching the content of the course, or do we see our function as helping students to develop the skills and qualities required, to be successful ToK students?
The focus on skills may seem self evident, even obvious to experienced teachers. However, I recently watched DP Teachers introduce their subject to prospective DP students. Some of these teachers talked about the experiences and personal development that students would develop by taking their subject (ie skills based). However, other teachers just described the content of their subject without any reference to the students (ie content based). Many of these content focussed teachers are experienced subject teachers.
In 17 years of teaching ToK I think that I have tried 6-8 different approaches to course structure. My ideas about structure and teaching have changed as I've developed my understanding of the content and demands of the course.
Why expend time & energy considering the Structure of The ToK Course?
All of the reasons for having a clear course structure for Hexagon DP subjects s are far more important for ToK. The course aims to develop skills, personal competencies, a quasi-emotional framework, and attitudes/opinions rather than content knowledge. This type of course requires a clear, functional and rationalised structure even more than a content based course.
The course structure is the map to the destination
a wise ToK teacher
You could start by looking at the suggestions on structuring the ToK course on pg 49 of the ToK Guide, and those suggestions in The Teacher Support Materials in the Programme Resource Centre. Both contain good suggestions for how you might structure the course, and the time scheduling of the structure. However, they don't really deal with WHY you might decide to structure a course in a particular way. This blog post deals with the rationale for choosing one structure over another more than what the different structures actually are.
Context
First we need to look at context, both your context as a teacher and the student's context in which they are learning. In terms of your context, you must first consider your experience, are you an experienced teacher of the students in your ToK class, are you experienced with this level of education and T.O.K. itself? Secondly we must consider your teaching preferences, do you have a preferred way of teaching, or you better have a particular way of teaching? Finally we need to consider your confidence in teaching T.o.K. Some curriculum structures are better suited for more confident teachers, Lost other structures are best suited for more confident teachers of ToK.
Student Context
Let's come on to look at student context, and first of all consider the students preferred learning styles. Some students and some classes have learning styles, I've had a few classes who really enjoy doing drama in T.O.K. other classes who enjoy doing deep reading and debates. The ways in which your students like to learn, and how they learn best, influences the ways in which you will structure your course (more on that later).
We also need to consider your student's self efficacy in relation to ToK. I use the term Self Efficacy purposefully rather than 'ability', I strongly believe that if a student can achieve a grade 2 or above in Language A they can also achieve a pass in ToK, so what we're saying is that all students in the DP can at least pass TOK. The obstacle to passing T.O.K. is more about the students perception of their ability to access T.O.K., (self efficacy) rather than the actual ability to pass the subject. In recent years I have been very enthusiastic about teachers directly addressing this issue of Self Efficacy in their classrooms. You'll see that in the first video and blog for teachers new to ToK I talk about the ways in which learning can be designed to tackle emotional orientation to T.O.K., in this I am trying to improve or boost the students self efficacy towards ToK. Student's self efficacy, and its consequent effect on student self regulation, are the keys to solving the problem of not having enough time to deliver the ToK course. They are also the single most important factor in increasing attainment in ToK.
Ideally a T.O.K. course should be structured to develop student's self efficacy in ToK rather than focusing on subject content and skills.
This leads us neatly on to a discussion on the skills versus syllabus content debate. It shouldn't be such a debate in TK because there isn't defined, traditional, subject content. However, every year I see ToK textbooks being bought which contain real life situational content which some people interpret as being the subject content of ToK. I have attended IB workshops where teachers discuss the correct subject content of ToK, even physically contesting which content falls under which area of knowledge calling and discussing what constitutes good or bad T.O.K. content. It would seem to me that dismisses the very point of the course which is to look at the process of knowledge production and interpretation rather than the knowledge itself. The skills based approach must be more appropriate for, and evident in, T.O.K. than in any other diploma program course. There are some overriding aims outlined at the beginning of the ToK study guide which give us a very loose guide to the skills required in the ToK course. One of the aims of ToK Today is to operationalise those skills so that they become targeted, detailed and specific. In such a way that teachers can design T.O.K. lessons so that they develop a very specific skill. More on this in future blogs and videos.
Linked to this discussion around skills versus subject content in ToK is the model of bringing subject teachers into ToK to teach Areas of Knowledge, for example you bring the Maths teacher in to teach Maths AoK. This model seems to have become orthodoxy that this is good practice, and I have used myself in the past and it wasn't currently successful. However I have recently become much more concerned about this model, and have not used this model for the last four years. The reason for this is that the "specialist teacher model" prioritises subject content over T.O.K. skills (unless the specialist teacher also happens to be a teacher of ToK). What I have used, however, is a development of this model which I would call the integrated ToK Model.
The Integrated ToK Model, is a small, but subtle difference, to the specialist teacher model outlined above. In this model I attend the classroom of the specialist subject teacher during their lesson time, and I ask the students to explain what they are learning in that subject, at that time, in terms of T.O.K. I develop the student's responses through further questions, and asking for ToK extensions. Refocussing the responses on Knowledge should they stray into subject content. This has a number of important factors to it, first of all it places ToK in the territory of the subject teaching, there is a significance to the physical space of the subject being taught, and bringing T.O.K. into that physical space. Secondly, it places the onus on students to develop the subject content in terms of T.O.K., rather than asking the subject teacher to become a T.O.K specialist, this promotes student efficacy and deepens understanding. Finally it's a mini PD session for specialist teachers on how ToK operates in their subject. One of the problems of the subject specialist model, that I have encountered in the past, is that the subject specialist teacher doesn't understand the T.O.K. in the subject. Now, of course to fulfil Standards and Practices, and to be a good Diploma school, all DP teachers should also be trained to some degree in ToK. In reality, time is scarce, energy is limited, and often colleagues are spread too thinly for T.O.K to be a priority focus for colleagues. This integrated T.O.K. model allows you to deliver ToK PD in context with real students, and subject content, in real time so it saves teaching colleagues time, and promotes student's ToK thinking, and models for teaching colleagues that students should be taking the lead on ToK integration in their hexagon subject lessons.
There are some other issues to consider in terms of the context in which your chosen course structure is developed. The first of these issues are the group dynamics of your T.O.K class, some groups have very positive enthusiastic and proactive dynamics whilst other groups might be quiet, more reflective and calm. Developing a good understanding of the group dynamics of your class, and how are you can influence those dynamics, will give you a great insight into how to optimise learning TO.K class. Some activities work better in certain classes of the classes based upon the group dynamics of the class. The second issue to be considered are environmental concerns. In this category i put things like the time of the day of the class, the resources which are available to you, what the students have been doing prior to the lesson et cetera. I've taught ToK first thing Monday morning, and last thing on Friday afternoon, both lessons spots require a particular type of structure and pedagogy.
Teacher Context
Now let's look at the context of you, the ToK teacher. When designing your T.O.K. course you will want to consider both your confidence in delivering to UK and your experience as a teacher, obviously these things are interrelated but they're not necessarily the same thing. If you are an experienced teacher then you will know how to quickly adapt new syllabi to effective pedagogy in the classroom. Your experience will allow you to identify the essentials in the ToK course structure and translate them into lessons. Less experienced colleagues may want to take a more orthodox approach to delivery of the structure/handbook. This degree of experience will relate to your confidence in teaching T.O.K. Some T.O.K. teachers have not chosen to teach the subject but have had the subject "allocated" to them. For some the T.O.K. thinking model comes naturally, whilst for others it is a learning curve. All of these considerations should be taken into account when designing T.O.K. structure.
Mission.
The second big factor in deciding which course structure to adopt is Mission: what does success look like for you? Mission can be broken down into two factors, Firstly what is your objective (what are you trying to achieve?) and secondly what is your strategy? (How are you going to achieve this?).
Objective & Strategy
Objective may seem quite straightforward to begin with, we want everybody to pass don't we? Well, do we want everybody to pass with a high score?, Or do we just want everybody to at least not get an E grade ?, what do we want to inspire T.O.K. thinking when students have graduated from the course?, Do we want students to develop better critical thinking frameworks?, Do you want them to develop an ethical framework or skills?, other such objectives could include greater cross program integration of ToK thinking, or the challenging of preconceived notions that students might bring into the classroom. There are many many other valid objectives. When we start thinking about objectives it's not quite as clear as it may first seem. Obviously, the objectives that you have for your course will have an impact on how you structure your course.
Once you have a clearer idea of your objective then you can start to identify the strategy(ies) that you will use to achieve the objective. Strategy is how you're going to achieve your objective and obviously it is closely interlinked with course structure. Strategy is a more general term than approaches to teaching and learning. The sorts of strategies that we might be interested in here include mixed ability group work, promoting student autonomy, scaffolding language for EAL students etc. As such Strategy is a broad approach to the overall flavour of teaching in the course to achieve your objective. One of the key strategic decisions that the ToK teacher could consider is whether the course should be teacher led, subject specialist led, or a mixture of two? or alternatively, maybe the course could be based around co-construction with students. As an example of strategy - I was recently part of a discussion between T.O.K. teachers looking to introduce "rigour" into the ToK course. The thinking was that attainment would improve if there was a new and systemised focus on regular assessment in the ToK course. This was an interesting discussion about strategy, even though the teachers didn't use that to her. Personally I don't think that rigour is just more assessment and quantitative feedback, I really don't like the term 'rigour', but that's not a discussion for this blog, let's look at that in a future blog.
4 Broad Course Structures
So once you have considered student context, teacher context, objectives and strategy, you will have a clearer idea of how to structure your course to meet your needs. In this blog I will outline 4 broad, common, course structures, obviously these are ideal type models and are in no one prescribed by IB, myself, or anyone else.
#1 ToK Framework
This is structuring your course according to the areas of knowledge and themes of the T.O.K. framework. You simply spend a specified period of time teaching each of the five areas of knowledge and the two options, leaving time for also teaching the exhibition and the essay. This is probably the most common method of delivering the course because it is the is the clearest and most straightforward of the various course structures available.
This model has a number of advantages to it. First of all because it's so clear it is easy to plan for, and it's easy to ensure correct curriculum coverage. Further, it is easier to draw the links between the knowledge questions and the knowledge framework because the model is based within the areas of knowledge. This will have particular benefits when it comes to teaching the essay. The optional themes (such as knowledge and technology) are standalone, integrated, units of ToK. As such this model lends itself well to the teaching of those units. As such this model lens solve particularly well to teachers who are new to ToK, or less confident with the teaching of and T.O.K. This model could be used well to prepare students who lack confidence in the writing skills for the essay because it emphasises the link between the knowledge framework and the knowledge questions.
So what is the disadvantages of the this model? This model can easily become content focused, this is essentially a content not skills model. And therefore demotes the focus on skill development inherent to the other models. Because of the focus on AOKs this model can highlight/emphasise the situational context application of the knowledge questions. It is usually this model that we see implemented when people bring the subject teachers in to deliver parts of the ToK syllabus. As such I think that this model is the least likely to promote student autonomy, co-construction, and student engagement. The emphasis here is on the teacher as expert delivering expert subject specific knowledge. The design of this model is not primarily based around skill development, and whilst skill and development can be built in to the model, that is not the purpose of the model. The purpose of this model is curriculum framework delivery. It is this model which leads teachers to say things like "we don't have enough time to cover the ToK curriculum". It is usually this model which is in place when students are confused by, or disengaged with, ToK.
#2 ToK Concepts and Knowledge Questions
Focus on ToK Concepts not AoKs.
This model is structuring the course around the 12 T.O.K. concepts, and using the suggested knowledge questions as prompts to explore those T.O.K. concepts. Examples of units of work using this model can be found here. This particular unit takes the concepts of Truth, Justification and Perspective and looks at them through 2 Knowledge Questions, one from AoK The Arts and one from AoK History.
The first advantage of this model is that it draws on concepts, it is inherently interdisciplinary, and gives a far more coherent understanding of ToK. By focusing the planning around the concept this model enables a far clearer integration of, and transition between, the real world context and the more abstracted world of ToK.
Another advantage of this model is that it encourages teacher-student co-construction of the ToK course lends itself more easily to the inquiry approach to learning. Using concepts as the planning focus is far more open ended than using the ToK Framework, or even knowledge questions. By using concepts students are compelled to at least select relevant knowledge questions, and in many cases students will write their own knowledge questions. This then leads on to students identifying real world contexts for the exploration of their KQs, application of the Knowledge Framework and a greater range of perspectives in the answers produced than might be seen from the previous model. I like to use a rough approximation of Kolb's Learning Cycle when designing lessons using this model (more on this in later posts). Kolb's LC lends itself to an active enquiry approach which builds ToK Skills and IB Learner Profile Qualities.
The ToK classroom should be a busy place of movement, noise and activity. A marketplace, an ideas marketplace.
Daniel Trump
The disadvantages of this model become apparent if the model of inquiry is too loosely defined, or stage-posting is not clear enough for students. There is a danger with this model that students don't actually engage with ToK at all, it is very easy to get bogged down with the real world contexts being considered. This is particularly the case with a poorly designed model of inquiry which does not adequately 'guide' the student to consider knowledge claims, knowledge issues, nor the ToK framework. There are also potential problems with syllabus coverage arising from this model (students should learn 5 AoKs and a minimum of 2 optional themes). You will see how I have tried to avoid this problem below.
#3 Themes and Big Questions Approach
I have called the third model the Themes & Big Question Approach. This approach uses Themes or Big Questions to unpack the ToK Syllabus (both framework and concepts). I have seen various versions of this over the years (this used to be far more popular before ToK became a Diploma pass-fail component). A 'Themes' approach could be developed by taking some of the classic philosophical themes and placing ToK Knowledge Questions or ToK Structures within those themes for example:
Photo by Anete Lusina from Pexels
Theme: Justice
ToK Areas of Knowledge:
The Knower and Knowledge Communities
Human Sciences
History
Knowledge Questions for Consideration:
Is the truth what the majority of people accept?
How do empathy and imagination help us to understand other perspectives?
If moral claims conflict, does it follow that all views are equally acceptable?
Is it unfair to judge people and actions in the past by the standards of today?
Should terms such as “atrocity” or “hero” be used when writing about history, or should value judgments be avoided?
Do historians have a moral responsibility to try to ensure that history is not misused and distorted by people for their own ends?
Similarly the "Big Questions" approach can take classical philosophical, or liberal arts, questions and use them as a means for exploring ToK content - such as the knowledge framework, ToK concepts or knowledge questions. An example of the "big question" approach:
Question: Can we know things beyond our personal immediate experience ?
This question can then be broken down into learning experiences. Structured and scaffolded learning experiences could include text analysis, debates, presentations etc which can be linked to ToK. A guided inquiry could be formulated with relevant (ToK) concepts (eg Evidence, Certainty, Truth etc). The students could design their own solutions with clear success criteria (eg pull the success criteria from Exhibition & Essay criteria).
The first advantage of the Themes / Big Questions approach is obviously the open ended design of learning. This approach allows learners to bring their personal experiences, interests and knowledge to the inquiry. It gives learners a high degree of autonomy in the learning resources they use, and how they choose to utilise them. This approach encourages easy flows between different sized learning groups and individual learning / reflection.
The second advantage (of no less importance than the first) is that this approach is wholly holistic, it's intrinsically inter-disciplinary ! This approach makes it far easier for students to develop an integrated model of ToK by seeing the links across the AoKs, the core theme and the optional themes. When this approach is done well teachers, and students, will rarely refer to those ToK structures, but will be fully aware of them. Consequently this approach is by far the best at placing ToK in its real world context and for helping students to understand how to identify ToK issues in real world contexts.
This thematic-big questions approach is powerful and heady stuff ! This is by far the most powerful model of teaching ToK, so why doesn't everyone use it ? When this model is done well it's very powerful, but conversely when poorly executed this model is more detrimental than any other. This model removes the learner one step away from the ToK, and it takes the teacher (or able students) to make that connection with the ToK. If that connection is not effectively made the students are left with even less ToK knowledge (and probably more confusion) than with any other model. Therefore this model requires resources: competent and knowledgable teachers who have time to plan, ToK teaching time (at least the recommended time, probably more), either small mixed ability classes or mainly able students who are able to make conceptual leaps from various real world contexts to ToK content. This model is for able DP students who are taught by experienced & well trained teachers in a well resourced school - does this sound like your context ?
#4 The eclectic / hybrid approach.
In reality many ToK teachers, and ToK teams, will interchange between all of these approaches over time. Depending on the content of the lesson , the mood of the students, the teacher's capacity for planning and delivery etc different approaches will be used at different times. As stated earlier these are broad ideal type models rather than proscribed rigid structures. Changing between the models caters for classes with a broad range of preferred learning styles. Further, some material and ideas may lend itself better to a particular model than to other models. For example, when you are preparing the students for The Exhibition, or teaching essay writing skills then you may change model. Finally, there is much to be said for the Ecletic Approach when used by large teams, inevitably a large team will contain teachers who prefer one approach over another. ToK Coordinators should welcome such diversity, teachers using different approaches will develop different materials for the same unit or learning inquiry. Having a range of materials which are trying to achieve similar learning outcomes enriches both the subject and its learners.
My preferred ToK Learning Model & Course Structure.
My preferred ToK learning model has been developed over many years during which I've tried all of the above, and their various variations. I call my model "Skills + Inquiry/co-construction + Self Reflection", very catchy I know !
Tips & notes of caution (a few scars from the field)
"let's get the hexagon subject teachers into ToK to deliver sessions on AoKs."
This has been hegemonic "good practice" for as long as I've been involved in the DP (probably far longer). It makes sense right ? Subject teachers are specialists so they bring more knowledge to the AoK, every DP teacher is also a ToK teacher - so they should all be able to deliver the some ToK in ToK class. I've seen it work well, but I've also seen it be a flop. My note of caution here is checking that the subject teachers who are brought into the ToK class actually have a good understanding of the ToK aspects of their subject. Sometimes I've seen subject teachers teach aspects of their subject rather than the ToK - which can be slightly confusing for the students.
My approach is to go into the subject classroom alongside the subject teacher, and then ask the students to identify the ToK questions / issues in that particular subject. They can then explain to their subject teacher what the ToK issues are in that subject. This approach has a number of benefits: (i) the onus is on students to actively analyse their subject content (which has benefits for both the subject & ToK). (ii) It takes the onus off subject teachers to 'gen' up on ToK, whilst still ensuring that ToK is integrated into their subject. (iii) It meets the requirement of Standards & Practices. (iv) It helps students to develop the skills required to identify real world examples to use in their ToK Essay and Presentation.Death by TED Talk.
TED has lots of great videos which have lots of ToK(ish) content in them. Lots of teachers like to use them (so do I sometimes). My note of caution is about over-using them, or showing them unedited, without contextualisation, or without any follow up reflective practices. TED Talks engage those who want to be engaged, but students who either find ToK challenging, or are uninterested in ToK, can 'turn off' when shown a TED talk in 'receive mode'. So, if you do use them please use them in 'critical engagement mode'.The Carousel.
One of the ToK Teaching structures that I have seen (and briefly tried long ago) is 'The Carousel'. This is typically used when you have a largeish ToK teaching team with broad interests across the team, maybe a teacher with a specific interest in each of the AoKs. The teachers then rotate through the ToK classes (or the student's are on a 'carousel' through each teacher's class). So for example when Mrs Algebra teaches them AoK Maths, Ms Maps teaches them AoK Human Sciences etc etc.
My concern with The Carousel model is that the emphasis is on the ToK framework and content rather than on the students. My approach to ToK is that Mrs Algebra doesn't need to be an expert in AoK Maths, she needs to be an expert in the students in her class, whilst her students need to be the experts in AoK Maths.
I hope that this blog past has been of some use in giving you ideas on how to structure your ToK course. Please feel free to add comments that others may find useful below, and to contact me at Daniel@ToKtoday.com should you wish to discuss this further.
Daniel,
Lisbon, Portugal.
New to teaching ToK? (Part 1)
What to do in the first couple of lessons.
Overview video in under 60 seconds.
If you're new to teaching Tok you may be wondering what to do in your first few lessons, you may have been to the IB Cat 1 and Cat 2 training, and yet you’re still wondering what to do in the first few lessons, ToK presents us with a syllabus which has no content, but it does have a framework. It is quite natural to ask what do I do with this ? where do I start ? and what should I be starting with?
This is the first in a 3 part series of blogs written to help teachers who are new to teaching ToK. I will draw on my (17) years of experience of teaching ToK to tell you what I do, what has been successful and why I do it. I will also give you some free resources that you can use in your first few ToK lessons if you choose to do it the same way that I do it.
The 3 blogs will provide you with a way to start teaching your ToK course.
Blog 1: What to do the first few lessons (this blog).
Blog 2: Ways to structure your ToK course.
Blog 3: How to actually teach ToK.
The detailed video of this blog.
The formal title of these first couple of lessons is “Emotional Orientation”, but we could subtitle it “teaching students not a subject”. This may seem obvious, and you’re probably a very emotionally intelligent and affectively sensitive teacher of your main subject, well we just need to ensure that we bring those skills and that approach over to ToK.
#1 Students not Subject.
I’m going to approach this with three main parts to it:
Emotional Orientation.
Group Dynamics
How to teach ToK
These three parts are obviously inter-linked, and they form a very particular approach to teaching ToK, an approach that I have developed over a significant period of being a ToK teacher.
Emotional Orientation of students not subjects
My first piece of advice to teachers who are new to teaching ToK is to remember that you are teaching students not a subject. If you successfully teach a hexagon subject you will be very aware of the importance of thinking about the students in front of you rather than the subject itself. Well, the same applies to Tok, however sometimes new teachers can become distracted by the ToK framework.
“The brain does much more than recollect. It compares, synthesizes, analyzes, generates abstractions. We must figure out much more than our genes can know. That is why the brain library is some ten thousand times larger than the gene library. Our passion for learning, evident in the behaviour of every toddler, is the tool for our survival. Emotions and ritualized behaviour patterns are built deeply into us. They are part of our humanity. But they are not characteristically human. Many other animals have feelings. What distinguishes our species is thought. The cerebral cortex is a liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behaviour patterns of lizards and baboons. We are, each of us, largely responsible for what gets put into our brains, for what, as adults, we wind up caring for and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain, we can change ourselves.”
Carl Sagan, Cosmos
So in these first few lessons I spend the time getting to know the students in my class, I want to know them as individuals, what motivates them what are they interested in, what type of learning tasks they enjoy doing, what preconceptions they bring to the classroom and most importantly what knowledge and skills do they have that will help us to supercharge our TOK course. One of the common challenges that most ToK teachers face is that we don't have enough time to deliver this course, if your school gives you the IB's recommended time allocation it is only 100 hours, and some schools struggle to even give the full recommended time. In order to mitigate for time constraints we have to develop a course which draws upon the qualities, values, skills and engagements of the students. This needs to be a student led course, more than a teacher led course, by promoting student led delivery you accelerate learning, and reduce the pressure on time.
So where to start? : every human experience is partly an emotional experience.
The students are bringing their emotional orientation towards school, IB, ToK, you, etc . What you are interested in is what emotions do these students bring into my classroom ? and what are their core emotional frameworks ? and how can I shape their emotions so that they are positive about ToK?
Games!
So in those first couple of lessons I like the students to experience ToK as low-stakes, and enjoyable. I try to play a few games and get them moving around the classroom. The games are designed to allow me to get to know more about them. One of the key games that I play I call "Fact, Opinion, Belief and Truth". I have linked this resource below, you can adapt the resource for your own requirements.
In this game students have to classify statements as Facts, Opinion, Beliefs or Truths. This game seems to be overly simple, but of course students should quickly start debating how we define a fact, or a truth. Having both ‘Opinion” and ‘Belief’ in there as categories often leads to much debate. I have often found that students will appeal to me, as the teacher, to tell them the definition of one of the categories, and this gives me a great opportunity to tell them for the first time that it’s up to them to arrive at their own definition. This is a key moment for modelling ToK thinking, particularly if the students have come from a pre-DP curriculum based around pre-determined knowledge (such as iGCSE). You can bookend this game with students completing their own knowledge statements (such as “I know____ a fact”, and “I believe_______”.). By completing this both before and after the game we’re doing Reflection, without mentioning the word Reflection, more on that in later videos.
Other games that I use in these first couple of lessons will involve the ToK Concepts - especially Power, Truth and Responsibility. I link resources to these in the video description.
The objective of these games is two-fold - one to give students positive experiences of being in ToK (proactively address their emotional orientation to the subject), and secondly to give me an understanding of who I have in my class so that I can tailor lessons to their interests and skills in order to increase engagement, and overcome time pressures in the course. Which leads us into our second aspect: Group Dynamics.
#2 Group Dynamics
Each ToK class is different, and each student is different in every class to which they belong. The group dynamics of your ToK class are unique. You can influence these dynamics, you can shape them, these dynamics are your value added variable for success. Think of them as being a form of momentum which will carry you and the students along when things are tough. However, to take advantage of the unique group dynamics of your class you need to develop a good understanding of them in a range of different circumstances. During these first few lessons of the ToK Course you can design activities which will give you an insight into the group dynamics of your class, and the potential dynamics during a range of different learning activities.
Murphey et al (2012) use the term "collaborative agency" to describe the synergistic power of positively integrated groups working together to a common goal. The authors construct an argument that rather than taking the individual as the key unit for understanding learning we should take the group as the unit for understanding outcomes. Therefore we should start with the group if we want to positively effect such outcomes.
I will try out a few different group activities in these first few lessons to see how the students react. Such activities include competitive group games, creative group games, group challenges incl. Problem solving, group presentations and drama.
I want to make a special mention for the role of drama, Drama is, in my experience, incredibly powerful in the ToK classroom. By giving the students very time limited ad lib scenarios you are making them develop an understanding of perspective, purpose, context and role of knowledge producers, knowledge communities and the knower. You are also building positive group dynamics, and you have the added bonus that generally the students don’t feel like they’ve been to a heavy academic class, but have spent the lesson having fun doing some drama. ToK Today will bring you some videos specifically on how to use drama in ToK in the coming months.
In summary these first couple of lessons are your first opportunity to intentionally start building the group dynamics which will be so important to building the skills and ability for the students to realise success in the limited time available.
That’s a convenient segue into the final element of today’s video: Norms of Co-construction.
#3 Norms of Co-Construction.
We know that the best approaches to teaching and learning promote student agency and enquiry. This is only even more evident in ToK, where there’s no defined content, but the course requires students to develop a particular lens and then to apply that lens to the things that they are interested in in the world. As such, my aim for every ToK class is that we develop a norm of co-construction - that is that the students develop and deliver the learning for each other. The first few lessons are essential for establishing that norm. - how do we do this?
The games that I talked about earlier can be delivered so that students variously take the roles of participants, organisers, and assessors / judges. I will hand the board markers over to one or two students and tell them they’re in charge of running this section of the lesson. I will also put a few students in charge of judging the outcomes of the games. The games are pretty low stakes so there’s never any peer stress caused by this, and the students quickly expect to have an active role in the ToK classroom. Again, as we look at how to teach ToK in future videos I will come back to the Norms of Co-construction.
Summary
So, there we have the first 2-3 hours of ToK teaching as I do it. In summary - intentionally address the emotional orientation of the students to ToK, start building positive group dynamics, and start establishing a norm of co-construction.
If you’re an experienced ToK teacher you probably do these things anyway. However, I felt it valuable to make this video for colleagues who are new to teaching ToK because I don’t think it’s Self Evident in the Course Guide, and the IB Workshops that I have attended have focussed on What to teach, but not How to teach it.
Daniel Trump,
Founder of ToK Today.
Resources.
If you've made it this far you very much deserve some free resources! These are some of the resources (for playing ToK Games) that I mentioned in the long video (you may have to adapt them for your local circumstances):
Thunks (this is just a starter, you can find many more at this link)
References.
Sagan, C., Druyan, A., Malone, A., Sagan, C., Soter, S., Andofer, G., & McCain, R. (2013). Cosmos. Random House Inc.
Murphey, T., Falout, J., Fukada, Y., Fukuda, T. (2012). Group Dynamics: Collaborative Agency in Present Communities of Imagination. In: Mercer, S., Ryan, S., Williams, M. (eds) Psychology for Language Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137032829_15
Human vs Robot (Starter Game)
Human vs Robot is a starter game that I devised for 1st yr ToK Students. It has two main aims:
Firstly it is designed to make the familiar unfamiliar, helping the students to start to question some of the tacit assumptions that they bring into the ToK class.
Secondly, it helps the students to start to separate the real world context from the knowledge issues.
It is obviously well suited to use at the beginning of the optional theme knowledge and technology. Like all of these T.O.K. games and starters, the value is in the discussion that you as the teacher can develop from what the students contribute. The resource is very much just a starting point for the lesson. However, if used well it can it has often developed into the whole lesson, and has often taken me into discussions on artificial intelligence, the causation and consequence of technological change on knowledge, and the very function of existence itself.
I'd be super interested to know how you get on with it!
Daniel,
ToKToday