3 biggest mistakes on the ToK Essay

OK, this blog is not actually the 3 "biggest" mistakes. It is actually the 3 'most frequent' mistakes' made on the ToK Essay, but that's not quite so catchy. It doesn't fit into a title quite so well. So I used an informal colloquialism, a practice which could be part of one of the 3 'most frequent mistakes'. Onto the mistakes:

Mistake 1. Insufficient focus on Knowledge / Too much RLS / not enough LTQ

The ToK Essay requires a "sustained focus on the title and an effective link to areas of knowledge". Translated this means that students need to write about knowledge, concepts pertaining to knowledge, knowledge issues, knowledge claims, Areas of Knowledge, The Knowledge Scope, Methods of Knowledge construction, perspectives on knowledge, and the ethics of knowledge. Do you see the common thread here ?

Far too often I read essays that contain great details about the examples (aka "real life situations", or "real world contexts") but far too little about knowledge. These ToK essays get very few marks. I have read amazing explanations of the development of Molecular and Atomic Theories, the movement from Realist to Impressionist Art, The role of The American Novel in the literary canon of the 20th Century etc etc. All of these essays scored low marks because they focussed on the real life examples rather than on knowledge itself.

As a rough guide I recommend that the ToK Essay is 80% about the knowledge issues arising from the Prescribed Title, and about 20% real world examples used to demonstrate the knowledge arguments. I ask my students to take their drafts and highlight the knowledge content in one colour, and the 'real life' examples in another colour. This gives a good visual representation of the balance of knowledge to real examples.

LTQ: Link to the Question.

The most frequent annotation that I make to draft ToK Essays is "LTQ", meaning "link to the question". This refers to the mistake of making a knowledge point, or using an example, and not directly linking it to the question. Students need to explicitly tell the examiner how that point, or example, answers the question. The easiest way to do this is to use the relevant words from the question in the answer, usually towards the end of the paragraph.

Some examples of how to LTQ.

Let's look at an example from an imaginary Prescribed Title "Is old knowledge better than new knowledge ?":

Excerpt A

"When considering the role of new knowledge in AoK Natural Sciences we could compare modern surgery techniques with 18th century surgery techniques. We now know that an antiseptic environment, and making use of anaesthetic, not only makes the surgery more comfortable for the patient, but also increases the success, and survival rate, of the surgery."

Excerpt B

"When considering the role of new knowledge in AoK Natural Sciences we could compare modern surgery techniques with 18th century surgery techniques. We now know that an antiseptic environment, and making use of anaesthetic, not only makes the surgery more comfortable for the patient, but also increases the success, and survival rate, of the surgery.This example demonstrates that new knowledge could be seen as a cumulative development of old knowledge in AoK Natural Sciences. As such this could support the claim that new knowledge is better than old knowledge in AoK Natural Sciences, if better is defined as fulfilling the purpose of knowledge construction."

In Excerpt A the student cites a real world example (surgery techniques) to examine a knowledge point, but does not directly link the example to the Prescribed Title. In Excerpt B the student cites the same example, and then explains how that example answers the question, and offers a little further development of the knowledge point (new knowledge could be said to be cumulative).

Mistake 2. Imbalanced, or incomplete ToK Essay.

Far too often I see ToK Essays which are either imbalanced, or unfortunately are incomplete. Most of the Prescribed Titles ask students to consider the prescribed title in 2 Areas of Knowledge. I often see essays in which one Area of Knowledge is fairly well explored, but there is only a cursory exploration of the second Area of Knowledge.

There is nothing explicit in the Assessment Instrument that says that the essay has to be balanced, nor that equal treatment should be given to both AoKs. However, the essay is assessed using an approach called "Global Impression Marking". The explicit instruction to examiners is that they are to make a "holistic judgement" of the essay. This means that they are looking at all elements of the essay together to determine a best fit in the marking scheme. If the exploration of the PT in one AoK is in the upper mark bands, but the other is in the lower mark bands they will be unable to judge the essay, holistically, as being in the upper marking bands.

If there is a significant difference in the quality of different elements of the essay examiners are asked to look again at the driving question (which for the essay is "Does the student provide a clear, coherent and critical exploration of the essay title?" (IB ToK Study guide, 2020)). This should help to guide the mark given. There is an explicit instruction to examiners that they should not use the assessment criteria as a tick box, which can be used to establish an average mark.

Which brings us to the obvious concern that an imbalance in the number of words written does not necessarily mean an imbalance in the quality of the ToK content. This is absolutely correct. The note of caution here is that with a limit of only 1600 words it is very hard to develop a holistically insightful and lucid essay if there are uneven treatments of the elements of the essay.

Balance in arguments.

The same mistake is also sometimes seen in the treatment of the arguments of the essay. Students may fully develop one argument, whilst the other is much abbreviated or abridged. This brings us to the question of what the appropriate structure of the essay should be. There is no single 'approved' structure, and no defined 'successful' structure. The correct structure for the essay is the one which will allow the student to develop a coherent and critical exploration of the title.

Students will often ask "should the claim be in one AoK, and the counterclaim in another AoK, or shall I do both claim and counterclaim in both AoKs ?" (of course, there is no requirement to use claim and counterclaim, but it is one method to develop arguments in the essay). In this instance it's important that there is no repetition of points in the essay, other than that students should use the structure which best helps them to answer the Prescribed Title.

Mistake 3. Lack of substance / evaluation / depth / research in ToK Essay.

Many essays lack depth, or substance in concept development. The knowledge points appear to be superficial, maybe even anecdotal. Such essays appear to suffer from a lack of planning, and research, by the student before writing. This can lead to the essay lacking nuance, coherence and analysis. The typical consequences of such essays are:

1. Absolutist or binary statements eg "Natural Sciences are objective, the Arts are subjective".

2. Knowledge Hierarchies. Eg "Science has more status than Art because it is more valuable"

3. Unsubstantiated Assertions. Eg "Maths is unbiased, but History is inevitably biased".

4. Unaddressed implied assumptions. Eg "Technology is popular because it makes life easier".

In order to write a lucid and insightful ToK Essay we need to spend time exploring the arguments and ideas. I would recommend reading the précis of some of the classical texts, or 'big thinkers', in the field. Research the range of perspectives relating to the concept or idea that you are discussing, develop a more holistic and nuanced understanding of the subject.

Some examples to show undeveloped claims.

Let's look at a typical example: Knowledge claim - Natural Sciences can be more objective than Human Sciences because Human Sciences are more open to human interpretation and biases.

Typically students argue this claim with very little evaluation, nor an examination of the underlying assumptions. Typically I see an orthodox positivist explanation of the claim. To develop a more holistic (evaluative) argument the student could consider any of the following:

1. Researcher bias in the Natural Sciences.

2. Biases inherent to the Scientific Method in the operationalisation of variables, sample selection, experimental design etc.

3. Confirmation bias in interpretation of results.

4. The salami slicing problem of scientific research publication / research funding pressures.

Further, the student could consider the epiphenomenal / ethnographic schools of Human Sciences. There could also be a consideration of Kuhn's Theory of Paradigm Shifts in the Natural Sciences.

I am not arguing that the student should include all of these evaluation points (after all, there are only 1600 words available). I am arguing that addressing one or two of the evaluation points makes a more nuanced essay, and allows for a more insightful examination of the claim.

The points above also apply to a lack of Implications of knowledge arguments in the essay (as required by the highest mark band). However, we will save a discussion on 'implications' for a later blog.

If you need any help with your essay then please see the help available at our student support page, check out the videos on our YouTube Channel, pick up my E-Book (The ToK Essay in 6 easy Steps), or get in touch with me at Daniel@ToKToday.com.

Daniel,
September 2022

How do we avoid the use of Essay Mills?

Essay Mills are private companies that offer essay writing services to students. There has been a proliferation of these companies in recent years (see this Guardian article for example). Their main focus has been the higher education sector, however it can be assumed that their services are also available to IB Diploma students. The question for ToK Teachers is how can we deter our students from using Essay Mills ?

During, and after, the 'act' processes - do they beat essay mills ?

The use of the following processes to retain academic integrity is fairly widespread in ToK:

Using Construction monitoring tools such as Google Docs: The teacher can monitor the essay as it is being written by the student.

Plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin.Com: This software is best used by the student during the writing of the essay. Giving the student the power and freedom to use the software helps them to avoid any potential plagiarism issues. It also helps them to find papers that have been written using the same terms that they are using.

There are a couple of concerns with plagiarism detection software:

1. Using it after the essay has been submitted.

2. If it is only used after the student has submitted their essay it is being used as a cure rather than a prevention. The 'after-submission' method doesn't teach the student best practises for avoiding academic integrity problems in the future.

3. "What % is acceptable ?".

4. I often hear teachers (& students) asking what the "acceptable percentage" of similarity is when looking at a Similarity Report. This question demonstrates a misunderstanding of what the software is doing. A report can have a high similarity rating just because it repeatedly uses a phrase from the prescribed title which is often used in other papers. This doesn't necessarily mean that the student has plagiarised the essay, they are merely repeatedly referring to the Prescribed Title (which is good practice). Conversely, a report can have a very low similarity percentage yet the essay contains a whole paragraph which has been copied word for word from another source - this is a serious breach of academic integrity despite the report having a low similarity rating.

Writing in controlled circumstances: When a teacher suspects that an essay may not be the student's own work there is the option of asking the student to write a new essay under monitored & controlled circumstances. Obviously this is opens up a whole range of problems - the student is not developing the essay under the same conditions as other students, the student doesn't have a long period of time to develop the essay, and it is very demanding on school resources.

None of the "during & after the act' processes above avoid the problem of students using essay mills.

The essay monitoring system (sometimes called "Check Check out") is open to the student adding the milled essay piece by piece. Plagiarism detection software will only pick up an essay if it (or parts of it) has been copied from elsewhere. If the essay mill writes an original essay then this will not be picked up by the software (however, there is evidence that essay mills are recycling essays - which is obvious a great potential threat for our students). Finally, asking students to write under controlled conditions opens the school up to all sorts of allegations of unfair treatment etc.

There is only one viable educational method to counter the scourge of essay mills - the development of Self Regulated Learning Skills.

Self Regulated Learning definition: Self-regulated learning is a cyclical process, wherein the student plans for a task, monitors their performance, and then reflects on the outcome. The cycle then repeats as the student uses the reflection to adjust and prepare for the next task. The process is not one-size-fits-all; it should be tailored for individual students and for specific learning tasks (Zimmerman, 2002).

It's a fair assumption that we all know those students in our classroom who have self regulated learning skills and qualities. I don't need to describe how those students take charge of their learning in ToK. I think we can all agree that those students are not going to use Essay Mills. However, if you need more details see the end of this blog.

How do we teach Self Regulated Learning Skills in ToK ?

Most research shows that the basis of self regulated learning is critical reflection, and in turn the basis for critical reflection is self reflection. In order to integrate self, and critical, reflection into the ToK classroom we can use the basic teaching structure of David Kolb's Learning Cycle:

Kolb's Learning Cycle provides us with a framework for developing self regulated learning in the ToK classroom.

1. Time
   We can't start to deal with academic integrity of the ToK Essay when the students start to write the essay (or even worse, after they submit the essay). We need to address it from the first day in ToK through the use of self reflection. Self Regulation does not appear over night, but over a long period of time.

2. Domain Specific
   Self Regulated Learning Skills are domain specific - therefore just because a student is a self regulated learner in another DP subject doesn't necessarily mean they will be so in ToK. We need to show them how to be a reflective and self regulated learner in ToK.

3. Self Confidence.
   Students turn to Essay Mills because they have low confidence in their own abilities to write The ToK essay. Therefore we need to ensure that our students have the self-confidence and capacity to write the essay. We do this by slowly scaffolding ToK Skills, and the use of self reflection throughout the course.

For more on ToK Skills see this blog (& video)

For more on using Kolb's Learning Cycle see this blog (& video).

In the coming months I will have more content showing the use of Kolb's learning cycle as the lesson framework for ToK lessons. In the meantime you may want to look at this lesson.

If you have any specific requests for resources please let me know at Daniel@ToKToday.com.

Daniel,
Lisbon, September 2022

References

• Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview. Theory into Practice, 41(2), 64-70.

Characteristics of Self Regulated Learners:

What we know

Research (see reference list below) shows that teaching self-regulated learning skills enhances student learning. Self-regulated learning is:

• a goal driven process

• encompasses skills that can be learned through observations or modelling.

Self-regulation skills include:

• goal setting

• reflection

• self-management of on/off task behaviour.

Self-regulated learners are aware of:

• their strengths and weaknesses as a learner

• the learning strategies that they can manage and use

• strategies they can use to motivate their learning and stay on task.

• (From Victoria State Education Dept) Like & Reference: at this website

ToK Essay Activator Questions

The ToK Essay Activators are questions that students can use at the beginning of their ToK Essay Planning Process. They are a way to start to understand the essay title. They’re the foundation of thinking.

The video explanation of this resource is linked here, and below.

The beginning of the process

The firstl stage of thinking about the ToK Prescribed Titles is foundational for success later in the process. Unfortunately, this initial stage is often an overlooked activity. Giving students individual thinking time to form their own understanding of the ToK Essay is crucial. Forming a solid personal understanding of the essay early helps when they hear other people's interpretations of the essay in the later stages of essay writing. If students who don't have a solid personal understanding of the essay they may be tempted to use other people's interpretations. Accordingly they will then, probably, find it harder to develop in terms of analysis, evaluation and implications. The higher order analysis of knowledge arguments is easier for the student to develop if the original knowledge argument has been developed by the student themselves. This is why spending individual time at the beginning of the essay process is foundational for future success.

ToK Essay Activators are a set of questions that students can use to improve their understanding of the ToK Essay.

The ToK Essay Activators are questions that students can use to guide their thinking. They are useful at the beginning of the process. The questions help to develop personal knowledge arguments relating to the prescribed title.

The ToK Essay Activators are available (for free) at:

PDF Version link

Google Slides Version link

Google Slides as PDF

Students who are looking for more help to write the ToK Essay check out our Student Support Page, and the Ebook "How to write the ToK Essay in 6 easy steps".

Notes on May 23 ToK Essay Titles are coming soon (Mid September), and will be available from this link.

There are also some great tips at this blog.

If there are further resources that you would like me to develop do not hesitate to get in touch. I can also help with curriculum planning: Daniel@TokToday.com.

Daniel, Lisbon,
Aug 2022

What makes some ToK Essay Questions more difficult ?

and conversely, what makes some ToK Essay Questions easier than others ?

The May 2023 ToK Essay titles are out, students are choosing their preferred title, and teachers are giving their advice. We often implicitly know that some titles will be more difficult than others, I decided to try to articulate some of that 'implicit knowledge'.

The video about this post is linked here, and below.

The relativism bit.

I feel obligated to get the "relativist" bit out of the way at the beginning of this post:

• how difficult a student finds a question will vary by student.

• how difficult it is to support a student writing a particular question will vary by teacher & student.

• more popular questions may be marked more stringently by some examiners

• Terms such as 'easy', 'difficult', 'challenging' are relative.

OK, with the relativist bit out of the way, we're going to pretend that our world view is a close representation of other people's world view - just for the sake of simplifying(ish)the world.

NB - IB own the copyright to all PTs, and don't allow them to be reproduced without written permission. Therefore I have attenuated, or changed the PTs presented here. The points made about the original PTs remain the same despite this, but if you want the actual full PT you will need to see the TRM on the PRC.

6 Factors which influence the difficulty of a ToK Prescribed Title:

1. "Closed Ended" vs Open Ended.

We know that all the questions are open ended questions (the command term is usually "Discuss"), but the Knowledge Question, or Claim, upon which they are founded is not always open ended. For example May 2022 #3 "Is there solid justification for regarding knowledge in Natural Sciences more highly than knowledge in [another] AoK?". In this case the student can start thinking about the essay in terms of answering "yes there is...," or "no there isn't...,". This makes writing claims and counterclaims far more straightforward, especially for those students who struggle with ToK.

The most 'closed ended' PT's contain absolute statements (eg #3 Nov 21:  “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact” (Arthur Conan Doyle)). This absolute statement gives the student a fairly stable base on which to start developing their essay. For example with #3 Nov 21 students can start to think what Doyle meant by an "obvious fact", and therefore think about why it might be the most deceptive thing. It's a fairly solid base from which to develop the essay.

2. Assumptions.

Some of the PTs contain assumptions, sometimes these assumptions are explicit, sometimes they're implicit. Further some PTs contain both explicit and implicit assumptions. For example:

• Explicit assumption: #3 May 2020: Does it matter that your personal circumstances influence how seriously your knowledge is taken?

• Implicit assumption: #5 Nov 2021: “If all knowledge is provisional, when can we have confidence in what we claim to know?” (implicit assumption that we ever have confidence in what we know).

• Both explicit & Implicit assumptions: #1 Nov 2021: "Why is it so difficult to identify a clear line between accepted and disputed knowledge within a discipline?"

OK, these dividing lines between explicit & implicit assumptions may not be as stark as shown here, but I assume that you get the idea.

The potential problem of assumptions is whether students should tackle them in the answer, and whether they NEED to tackle them to form their answer. The guidance is that students need to focus on the PT as given, and not change it. Therefore to spend too much time tackling the assumptions would be a diversion from the PT (as given), it's a loss of the required focus on the PT.

However, the higher marking bands of the assessment rubric also requires students to develop arguments pertaining to the KQ inherent in the PT. It is in this area that, with some PTs, students have the latitude to challenge the assumption(s) in the PT. The greater challenge comes when there are multiple assumptions in the PT. For example:

#3 May 2021: “Labels are needed* in the organization of knowledge, but they also constrain our understanding.”

Assumptions:

1. Labels are used in the organisation of knowledge.

2. Understanding can be constrained .

3. That there is organisation of knowledge.

In such circumstances I have advised my students to state which assumptions they are accepting as given, and which assumptions they will be critically interrogating. Further, if they have sufficient words they could give a rationale for their approach. This strategy has seemed to have worked well over the years.

Posing rhetorical questions within responses.

One of the particular holes that weaker students can fall into when dealing with a PT containing multiple assumptions is to write the assumption as a question in their response, and then to leave that question unanswered. For example, a student answering #3 May 21 (above) may pose the question "how do we even know that knowledge is organised, or is knowledge construction the organisation of disorganised data ?". In this instance we have a number of problems. The first being that PT isn't primarily about the organisation of knowledge (nor data), but about labels. As such the student is moving their focus off the PT. The student needs to directly link that question to the PT (about labels) for it to 'add' to the response. Secondly, by leaving a question hanging the essay reads like an incomplete, or incoherent, piece.

3. Quotes

Some of the questions contain a quote, often from a renowned writer. Eg #2 May 2022 "there’s a world of difference between truth and facts" May Angelou. Whilst this does not automatically make the question more difficult I have often found that it can introduce extra (confusing) variables into the process, particularly for students who find ToK difficult.

Obviously the student is required to interpret the quote in terms of ToK, and then to look at arguments pertaining to their ToK-interpretation of that quote. However, I have found that some students can get hung up on the author of the quote, and spend time trying to find a contextual meaning for the quote by investigating the life and works of the author. I assume that such students are bringing well learned skills and expectations from Grp 3 subjects such as History, or Global Politics, to their ToK. Of course, in some cases the quote can be a good platform for the student, but more often than not I have found it an added obstacle for students who are challenged by ToK.

4. Definitions.

Invariably the PTs require the student to develop definitions of concepts and key terms. Let's look at ToK Concepts first. ToK concepts should be easier for the student to define well (having studied the ToK course) than non-ToK concepts. Further some of the ToK Concepts will be easier to define than other ToK Concepts when they are readily apparent / clear in the corresponding AoK Knowledge Framework. For example in May 2022 #5 the concept of Interpretation in the Arts and one other AoK should have been relatively easy to draw from the Knowledge Framework. However, some ToK Concepts may not have been readily apparent to students even with interrogation of the corresponding knowledge framework eg #1 May 2022 the concept of Culture within AoK Maths will have required some further thought by many students.

However, this can become far more challenging when considering the need to define concepts/terms which are not included in the 12 ToK Concepts (which is not to say that they're not ToK concepts, it's just that they're not on the list on 12 defined by IB). A few examples: # 4 May 2022 - Stories. #6 May 2022 - Acceptable. #4 Nov 22- Indisputable. In these cases I often find that students will initially reach for a dictionary definition of the term, which usually takes them away from a ToK interpretation of the concept, and restricts the depth of their response. Further, weaker students find it difficult to apply the non-ToK concept to Knowledge Framework of the chosen AoK. The classic resent example was the concept of Story in #4 May 22. Many students found it difficult to interpret the idea of a story in Human Sciences, and to develop the notion of story in AoK History.

5. Clear claim or unclear claim?

All of the PTs include at least one 'claim', some PTs have multiple claims. Some PTs contain a single, clear, directional claim eg #5 Nov 2020: "Reliable Knowledge can lack certainty". In this case the student only has to deal with a single proposition, and the direction indicated by that proposition is clear. However, some PTs contain multiple claims Eg . #6 Nov 22: “If artists have freedom to interpret the past in ways that denied to historians, is this a benefit or barrier to our understanding of the past?" Discuss with reference to the arts and history (slightly changed to avoid copyright problems). With this PT the claim is a question in itself, that needs to be dealt with alongside the main thrust of the PT, namely the asset or obstacles to understanding the past. On top of this is the implicit assumption that an (the ?) aim of artistic knowledge is an understanding of the past.

Prescribed titles with a single, straightforward, claim tend to be easier for students to answer than those with multiple claims.

6. Freedom of Area of Knowledge.

Until May 2022 most Prescribed Titles give students a free choice as to which AoKs they want to write about, ostensibly this 'freedom' would seem to make it easier to answer these PTs than those that specify one (or sometimes both) PTs to be considered. However, in my opinion, the PTs which specify a PT are usually easier than those that give a free choice.

The Prescribed Essay Titles are actually asking students to engage in a discussion about The Knowledge Framework of the Areas of Knowledge. They are asking students to draw upon the knowledge issues arising from the Scope, Perspectives, Methodology and Ethics sections of the Knowledge Framework. Arguably, some knowledge issues are more 'obviously' relevant to certain AoKs than they are to others. When the Examiners are directing students towards a specific AoK they are , in effect, telling us that this knowledge issue is most pertinent in this specific AoK. It's directed guidance which makes it easier for the student to focus on the title, and make relevant links to the essay title. As such it makes it easier for students to access the higher marking bands, especially those students who struggle with ToK. Let's look at a couple of examples:

#5 May 2022: 5. In what ways* can we distinguish between good and bad interpretations? Discuss with reference to the arts and one other area of knowledge. (slightly altered for copyright reasons).

Obviously all AoKs involve interpretation of knowledge, however arguably interpretation is a more salient issue in AoK The Arts than in some other AoKs. In The Arts Interpretation of both the artist (the knowledge producer) and the audience (the knower) is it at the heart of the knowledge production process and knowing (the audience). By asking students to contrast AoK The Arts with one other AoK the examiners are giving students a big hint that they could write an essay contrasting an individualised approach to knowledge (The Arts) with a more standardised approach to knowledge (eg Mathematics, or Natural Sciences). The students could look at the function of the Area of Knowledge, or the acceptability of individualised interpretation within each AoK. They could look at standardised protocols of interpretation in an AoK such as Maths vs less standardised protocols in The Arts etc.

Prescribed Titles that direct students to at least one AoK for consideration give students a greater chance of focussing on salient issues. Therefore such PTs tend to be 'safer' (& maybe 'easier'), particularly for students who struggle with ToK.

A few side swinging Googlys (as in the cricketing sense of the word):

No explicit directive link to ToK:

In the past we used to see the occasional question that had no explicit directive link to ToK. These are becoming more rare in recent sessions, but I thought I'd include this warning here, just in case they reappear in future sessions. An explicit directive link to ToK is a phrase telling the students what to do with the stimulus, eg "Discuss this with reference to two Areas of Knowledge". Here are two examples of PTs that do not have an explicit directive link to ToK:

#2 Nov 2021

“Knowledge gained through direct experience is powerful but can be* problematic.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?

#2 Nov 2020

“Too much of our knowledge revolves around ourselves, as if we are the most important thing in the universe” (adapted from Carlo Rovelli). Why could* this be problematic?

Neither of the PTs above explicitly tell the students that they need to refer to the ToK framework, specifically the Knowledge Frameworks of the AoK. I know that teachers will make this clear to the students, but it's still very possible that students may write a more descriptive and anecdotal essay, particularly those students who find ToK more challenging.

Truth.

I used to have a general rule that students should avoid using the word "truth" in my ToK classroom, and in their ToK Essays / Presentations (as they then were). The concept of truth introduced so much complication, and would often be used interchangeably with objectivity or validity. Now that Truth is one of the twelve core concepts in the current guide the truth can no longer "be avoided".

In May 2022 PT #2 put the concept of truth at the heart of the essay title, and many of my students chose to write this title. I had to do some significant extra teaching to help them to develop a range of definitions for the word "truth", and to develop a set of critical approaches to truth. My caution about the concept of truth is that many students treat is an external fixed reality. May 2022 PT #2 was getting to the heart of that mistake, and asking them to interrogate the idea of a separation between external 'truths' ("facts") and internal knowledge ("truth"). Those that chose this essay title did fairly well.., but I remain cautious when it comes to the "truth" !

Existential-type questions

Some PTs refer to the Knower, as such these questions could be interpreted as asking the student to comment upon the Knower as well as the construction of knowledge within an AoK. Commenting upon The Knower is, of course, a laudable aim (The Knower is after all the Core Theme in the current guide). However, for some students who struggle with ToK discussions about The Knower can easily become self referential and anecdotal. They can also fall into being a commentary on relativism - which rarely helps students to achieve a good grade in ToK. In the most concerning incidents discussions about The Knower can lead to 'existential type' responses which question the nature of being, and our function in the universe.

Examples of PTs which invite discussion of the knower:

May 2016

3. “The knower’s perspective is essential in the pursuit of knowledge.” To what extent do you agree with this statement* ?

May 2020

3. Is it of concern* that your personal circumstances influence how seriously your knowledge is taken?

If you want to watch a video on questions which will help students to understand the ToK Essay title click here.

Students who are looking for more help on how to write the ToK Essay can check out this Ebook.

Summary.

These general observations about factors which make PTs more, or less, challenging for ToK students have been gathered over many years of teaching & supervising the Essay, and marking it for IB. They are very broad generalisations, and of course there are going to be PTs, and students, that don't conform to the observations above. However, I hope that these observations help ToK students and teachers a little more when making the judgment about which ToK PT to write.

Do you agree, or disagree, with my observations? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

Daniel, Lisbon, Portugal.
August 2022.

• this is not the original word in the PT, it has been changed to ensure that we don't break IB copyright, however the substituted word has broadly the same meaning, arguably.

Choosing your ToK Question

For about 10 years I marked ToK Essays as an IB Examiner. By doing this I learned a lot about what makes a good ToK Essay, and more importantly how students can write a good essay with minimum stress. Choosing the correct ToK Essay Question is key to success. Over the next few blog posts we will be covering the key points to writing a good essay. We will cover

• Choosing your question

• Developing a structure (pathfinding)

• Writing - substance, style and content

• Quick tips for success with less stress.

Let's start with

Choosing your ToK Essay Question.

• The questions are called "Prescribed Titles"(aka PT), as they're not actually questions per se.

• The PTs are released by IB on 1st September (May Session) and 1st March (November Session)

• Do NOT change, nor amend, a single word of the PT. You must address the question exactly as IB give it to you.

Ensure that you get the exact title from your teacher. Non-IB Sites (such as TokToday) are not supposed to publish the exact titles (they're copyrighted by IB).

Take your time choosing.

Choosing the title which is right for you is at least 50% of the 'battle for success' in the ToK Essay, so take your time at this stage. I used to get my students to spend 4-6 weeks on choosing the title, it's super important to get this stage correct. In deciding which title to write you are should be trying to clarify:

• What does this question mean to me?

• Do I have an initial instinctive view about this question?

• Do I have some ideas about arguments that would help me to answer this question?

• Do I have a destination for my answer? (this may change later on, but something at an initial stage will be helpful).

These questions smoothly segue into our second tip on how to choose your ToK Essay Question: Blank Slate.

Know Yourself: Blank Slate those titles.

Try not to be too influenced by other people's voices at this stage of your essay writing process, try to hear your own voice.

Try to know your own mind, try not to be influenced by the voices of others. Try to keep your mind as a 'blank slate' in relation to your views on the Essay Titles.

Eventually you will have to write your own, original, response to the question. Therefore you don't want to be too influenced by other people's views at this stage (you can explore their views later). You need to be developing your own view(s) at this stage.

Many of the best essays that I have read have been where the student developed their own original, and quite novel, argument at this early stage. Now, it may seem rather self defeating for me to tell you to stay away from internet advice sites either before or during the essay, however the particular type of content that I think you should be wary of is content that tells you what the arguments (claims / counterclaims) could/should be, or what real life examples you should use. This directive content doesn't improve your skills & understanding in ToK because you don't have to think for yourself.

Develop your own arguments, and think of possible real life examples to illustrate these arguments, before you start exploring the internet. Once you have your own original framework down you'll be in a good place to start further research. You can now use academic sources, non-academic sources and ToK specific sources to further develop your ideas and range of sources cited. If you wait until you have developed your own ideas before you go to the Internet (& other sources) then you won't be negatively influenced / swayed by the sources that you find. By developing your own ideas you will find writing the essay far easier than trying to develop other peoples ideas. This is why it's so important to spend time early in the essay writing process working on your own claims counterclaims and real life examples.

Know your destination.

Before you finally settle on a question it is very useful to have a rough idea of how you will resolve that question, that is a vague idea of what your final answer to the question might be (in other words you have some idea of the destination of your essay). You don't have to know exactly how you are going to resolve the question before you choose the question (as many new ideas and perspectives will be developed during the planning and writing stages.

A rough idea of destination guides the writer, like it guides the walker.

As you write the essay you will develop new ideas, make new connections and develop new perspectives. You will refine your arguments, and you may even change your arguments. This is a normal, and healthy, aspect of the writing process. You may even change your chosen final destination, but the important thing is when choosing a question you have a direction and destination in mind. Far too often I have met with students who are "stuck", when I ask them what their approximate final destination is they have said they're not sure, they didn't work on a solution or resolution before they chose a question. - not a good place to be.

A few 'easy ways' to check your understanding of the title:

• Explain the question to a non-ToK student.

• Bring in your Mum, Dad, sibling (or even dog) and explain the title to them.

When they can understand your explanation of the question you can be sure that you now have a solid understanding of the question.

More help is available:

• Check out the ToKToday YouTube Channel for tips (especially the Student Playlist).

• Pick up the E-book How to Write the ToK Essay in 6 Easy Steps.

If you need more help to choose your question, or to develop your question then get in touch (daniel@toktoday.com) or click here to book a ToK Coaching session.

Daniel,
Lisboa, Portugal,
August 2022

Critical Thinking - how to teach it.

Before we get into how to teach critical thinking it may be useful to tell you that this is the third blog in this series. The first looked at Knowledge Issues in ToK, the second is a starter lesson activity connecting knowledge issues and ToK Concepts. The third post proposes The ToK Mindset. You may want to jump back & read those posts to contextualise this one.

Critical Thinking - a jumping off point.

OK, I'm not going to be able to cover the whole of how to teach critical thinking in one blog post, but it's an essential topic to start to cover on these pages. Firstly, critical thinking is one of the Aims of ToK (3rd bullet point on Pg 7 in the current ToK Guide). Secondly, all of the aims implicitly rely on the student's ability to think critically. Thirdly, it's at the heart of The ToK Mindset - which is the foundation to improving grades in ToK.

The ToK Mindset is 4 domains of understanding which underpin success in ToK. These 4 domains are a good starting point for defining the type of critical thinking required by ToK students.

Reflection is not distraction.

When IB brought in the current version of the Extended Essay they gave 17% of the total marks available to Reflection. Concerned about the subjectivity of this criteria I asked the workshop leader how he recommend we teach 'Reflection', he skirted around the issue. I asked him the same question a few more times (yes, I'm THAT workshop participant), he told me that teaching reflection wasn't part of the workshop, and gave me a few other fob offs. IB hadn't defined how Reflection was to be taught in the DP, therefore I decided that I needed to define the process for my team of DP teachers.

Much of the literature places self reflection as the first stage of developing critical thinking skills. There are many different strategies for developing Self reflection, just a few are:

• Journalling (keeping a ToK journal is a popular activity in many ToK classrooms).

• Think - Pair- Share.

• Two Stars and wish.

• Reflection Breaks during the lesson.

• Visible Thinking. Routines.

It's not my place to tell you which method of reflection you should use, whatever methods work best for you and your students is the way you should go. The function of this blog is to look at the role of reflection in developing critical thinking skills.

Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle.

David Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle (aka "Kolb's Learning Cycle") is based on gestalt psychology. The Learning Cycle has been demonstrated to be significantly effective under empirical testing. It has been widely used for over 30 years in inquiry and constructivist models. MY EE workshop leader (mentioned earlier) should have directed me towards Kolb's Learning Cycle. This is the basic model that I use to plan ToK Lessons. It is an effective structure for developing critical thinking skills because it builds self reflection. (You can find out more about the cycle from David's own website: Learningfromexperience.com)

Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle can be used as an effective framework for planning ToK lessons which improve personal self reflection, and therefore improve critical thinking skills.

Kolb's Learning Cycle in ToK Lessons.

We can place the 4 stages of the learning cycle into a 'typical' ToK Lesson:

Concrete Learning.

This is the challenge that we start the lesson with. It could be a Knowledge Question drawn from the syllabus, or related question we've drawn up ourselves. We give the students a concrete experience to use to start to explore this question eg: a drama activity, a card sort, analysing text, building a model from newspaper etc.

Reflective Observation

During this period we ask the students to reflect upon the processes used to solve the challenge set at the beginning of the lesson. This reflection can be both individual and group reflection. It is usually very effective when it is integral to the original challenge. For example if the original challenge is holding a round table debate the adjudicators of the debate can lead on the reflective observation. The last stage of this observation is to identify some learning principles which we will take into the next stage of learning.

Abstract Conceptualisation

This is the 'teacher inventiveness' stage. We need to find a way to show the students how the learning from the first two stages applies in the abstract and conceptual ToK World. This could take the form of modelling an application of findings from the first stage in the ToK World. Alternatively it could be done by providing the students with a heavily scaffolded task.

Active Experimentation

This is the stage when the students take the real world experience (of stage 1), and apply it in the ToK World. This is the stage when we set the "ToK World task", which is more likely to be a knowledge question from the ToK Guide. The students take the principles arising from the reflection in stage 2 and apply them in this stage.

We have to teach students to translate real world experience into the ToK World.

Kolb's Learning Cycle helps students to move from "the Real World" to "the ToK World". This is a key step on the way to developing The ToK Mindset. If Kolb's Learning Cycle is used repeatedly as the underlying model for ToK lessons more students will be able to successfully transition their knowledge from the real world to the ToK World.

In the coming months I will post lessons that follow the structure of Kolb's Learning Theory. At this stage you can see the lesson linked here on Art & History which uses the learning cycle as its framework. A video on teaching skills in ToK (a wider perspective) can be found here.

If you would like me to develop specific materials for a particular topic/AoK/theme/purpose please don't hesitate to contact me at Daniel@TokToday.com.

Daniel,
Lisbon, August 2022

What is the ToK Mindset? and how do we create it?

It's a warm Thursday afternoon, the last period of the day, and you have DP1 ToK in a warm and stuffy classroom. Attention is wandering, some students are drifting between drowsiness and distraction. You're trying your best, they're trying their best. However, three students, sitting near the front have steel like attention fixed on the task at hand. They're engrossed in lively conversation about the difference between perceived knowledge and evidential knowledge, they keep calling you over for clarification. They want you to explain some of the finer points of Kantian Transcendental Realism even though they know it's far beyond the demands of this course. These students have developed the ToK Mindset (and some!).

The challenge for the ToK Teacher is to help all students to develop the ToK Mindset. OK, we don't need all of our students to go as far as the 3 Neo-Kantians ! Our challenge is to get our students to a point where they can apply a rather abstract framework and set of principles to the lived world.

This is the third Blog post in this series, the first concerned Knowledge Issues, and the second is a lesson starter activity that you can use to link ToK Concepts with Knowledge Issues. Both previous posts will help to build background understanding for this post.

What is the ToK Mindset?

The ToK Mindset is the ability to apply the ToK Framework, and principles of ToK, to the world that we experience.

an experienced ToK Teacher.

How do we create the ToK Mindset?

4 areas of understanding need to create the ToK Mindset.

We can try to identify what it is that those students who understand ToK have that the other students have less of. I think that there are 4 areas of understanding:

1. Making the familiar unfamiliar means questioning taken for granted assumptions. Simon Sinek coined the phrase "asking why not what", and we can repurpose that for ToK. This is why I teach my students that the first rule of ToK is to "Question the question".

2. Three key concepts: Perspective, Context and Extrapolation, allow the students to understand their their lived reality is not a standardised and universal experience. These concepts allow them to build conceptual and abstract models. These are the thinking skills which enable students to understand that "other's with their differences may also be right".

3. The BLURS mnemonic helps students to develop arguments that are nuanced, and have the combination of complexity, depth and analysis required in ToK.

4. An understanding that knowledge is constructed. This seems self evident, but it is more complicated than it seems. Students can often say that knowledge is constructed without necessarily appreciating what that means. I come across this most frequently when we're looking at AoK History or Maths. In both AoKs students will refer to "the truth", or "what actually happened". When I remind them that "knowledge is constructed" they often don't see the inherent contradiction.

Conclusion.

If we can build understanding in the 4 areas for the ToK Mindset we will improve understanding, and grades, in ToK. The challenge is how we build that understanding. In the next blog post in this series I will look at the underlying framework for teaching which helps to build that understanding. It may also be useful to look at the ToK Skills Map (I welcome any feedback / suggestions on the Skills Map).

Daniel,
Lisbon, August 2022.

Connecting ToK Concepts & Knowledge Issues- ToK lesson starter activity.

This blog post is a development of the earlier post What no Knowledge Issues?, you may wish to read that for more context. This post describes a ToK lesson starter activity that improves student understanding of ToK concepts.

I find that my students often arrive in my ToK class with the modus operandi of other subjects, namely that they're eager to find 'right answers' and arrive at solutions. As such, I try to use starter activities which tune them into ToK ways of thinking (complexity and incongruence are allowed). My starter activities tend to be content-light rather than reading complex tracts of text.

Today's starter activity is designed to:

• Help the students to learn the ToK Concepts.

• Help the students to develop their own definitions of the ToK Concepts.

• Link Hexagon Subjects with ToK.

Knowledge Issues.

As explained in the earlier blogpost Knowledge Issues have been replaced in the current ToK Study Guide (first exams 2022) by ToK Concepts. However, students will still be learning about problems of knowledge construction (aka "Knowledge Issues") in their Hexagon subjects. The types, and names, of these knowledge issues will vary by subject (eg in Psychology they may learn about Ecological Validity, in Language A Intertextuality, in Visual Arts Expression as Truth etc etc). The challenge for the ToK teacher is to help students to place those subject based knowledge issues under the ToK Concepts.

If we are able to place the subject based knowledge issues under the ToK Concepts we will be increasing the integration of ToK into the Hexagon Subjects, and vice versa.

Student Activity.

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This graphic organiser places the ToK Concepts on the left & right borders of the page, and puts Knowledge Issues in the centre of the page.

The instructions to students are to draw lines linking the Knowledge Issues to the ToK Concepts. You could make this more specific, for example requiring each KI to be joined to at least 2 ToK Concepts etc. Or you could limit the number of connections that they can make.

Obviously, you can swap out the knowledge issues for whichever ones are most suitable for your context. You could make it specific to a particular AoK, for example if you're studying The Natural Sciences just use Knowledge Issues which are relevant to The Natural Sciences etc.

You can get a PDF copy of this graphic organiser at this link.

The learning.

The students will have to come up with working definitions of both the ToK Concepts and the Knowledge Issues as they try to link the Knowledge Issues with each concept.

Of course, the real learning comes when they explain the links they made to the rest of the class, and compare their links with other groups in the class.

Of course (2), an argument can be made to link any of the Knowledge Issues with any of the ToK Concepts - the learning is in the arguments made for the link. As students become more au fait with ToK you can ask them to bring their own knowledge issues from one (or more) of their Hexagon Subjects.

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Here's an example of a 'linked up' set of ToK Concepts & Knowledge Issues. Your students should come up with something which looks like this, or is even messier than this !

You can get a PDF of this filled version here, but remember it's not 'the right answer', it's just one of many answers.

As with so many of these "Starter Activities" they can quickly expand to take up the whole lesson. I'm usually happy to let them take up the whole lesson if learning is taking place. Especially, if the students are enjoying them.

If you use this (or any other of my activities) I'd be really interested to hear how they go, and how they may be improved. You can contact me at Daniel@TokToday.com.

If you have any requests for further activities or ideas please do get in touch.

Daniel,
Lisbon, Aug 2022.

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.

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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.

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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

Photos to Concepts - Lesson Starter Activities

I like lesson starter activities to be fairly low cost for both students and teachers alike, low cost in planning time, stress and brainpower. If I try to start a lesson with an article from an esteemed publication (like Nat Geo or The Atlantic) I find student energy can dip down pretty quickly.

My students sometimes need to be 'eased' into the ToK Mindset at the beginning of the lesson.

So, the two lesson starter activities that I present today meet the criteria of super-low cost in terms of planning, stress and brain power. Simple they may be, but they can also be very powerful in helping students to learn ToK. Their power comes in the ensuing discussion rather than in the complexity of the planning. - Take a rest ToK Teacher !

Picture - Concept Lesson Starter Activity.

This starter activity is super straightforward. You simply show the students a random photo of anything (you can use a random picture generator such as this), and ask them the question

"Which ToK Concepts are represented by this photo?"

Of course any ToK Concepts can be linked to any photo if you are able to construct a good argument, and that is the essential value of this activity. This very simple, no planning, activity has led to some of my best ToK lessons over the years.

"Which ToK Concepts are represented by this photo?"

Obviously the learning comes from how you develop the discussion about why the students chose certain concepts rather than others..

Develop discussion.

Learning:

• Students become familiar with ToK Concepts.

• Students learn how to link concepts to objects (exhibition)

• Students learn how to use ToK Concepts in arguments

The close up Macro lesson starter.

Like the starter above, this starter activity is pretty self explanatory. You start the lesson by showing students a close up macro photograph, you ask them to guess what the object is. As you slowly reveal more and more of the photo the students write their guesses down, as the object is slowly revealed. It’s useful for them to look back, once the object has been revealed, to see how many different things they thought that object could be.

Example of super macro image on the right, and 'revealed' object on the left.

There are some great examples of the type of objects that can be used on this website.

This simple activity can be used to teach perspective, of course every student knows that if you look at things from different angles your experience of them changes, (your knowledge of them changes). This activity could be used to ask why, if we know about perspective, do so many of us cling to absolutes in many circumstances ? Perspective is a much more complex concept than it first appears. Perspective changes knowledge. This activity is just rooting the word perspective in ToK, it’s making  it domain specific (a big thing in the Self Regulated Learner literature). 

Perspectives are the basis for arguments - which are one of the key ways to access the higher marks on ToK Essay & Exhibition.

So, here are 2 apparently simple activities,  but they have the potential to take students a long way in ToK knowledge & ToK thinking. In my experience these starters can often extend across the whole lesson. They are simple activities which have the potential to be very complex.

There's another ToK lesson starter activity for you here.

If you try either of these starter activities I'd love to know how they worked out, and how they could be improved for the future. If you have any requests for other learning resources please let me know (Daniel@TokToday.com).

Daniel,
Lisbon, August 2022.

ToK Words Graphic

Just a simple little post today. Whilst scrolling through my Drive today I came across this little ToK words graphic that I made last year. I used to paste this onto learning materials that I used with my class, and put it into presentations etc. It's a graphic of keywords that are used in ToK. These words go 'beyond' the 12 ToK Concepts. We also used it as a "bingo card" a few times (students had to mark each word when they heard someone use that word during a lesson, or presentation).

I thought it would be a nice little resource to share with you, you may use as you wish (link to JPEG is here).

For an activity to help students become familiar with key words try this link.

As always, if you have a request for resources, or help developing lessons / units please don't hesitate to get in touch (Daniel@TokToday.com).

Daniel.

New to ToK #3: Using ToK Skills to improve learning.

Skill Development

It took me a few years of teaching ToK to realise that developing ToK Skills is far more important than teaching the Framework, Knowledge Questions, or even the Concepts. OK, maybe I'm a slow learner, but I wonder how many other ToK teachers have realised that it's mainly about skills?

How many times does the word "skill" or "skills" appear in The ToK Study Guide?

The word "Skill" or "Skills" appears only once in the whole body of the ToK Subject Guide (First Exams 2022) - Well, OK it appears 12 times, but 10 of those are in the generic "this is the Diploma" stuff at the beginning, and the word appears once in the references. Only one occurrence of the word "Skills" in the body of the ToK Guide? Does this mean that Skills aren't important in ToK?

Are skills important in ToK?

Ok, there are some "Aims of ToK" outlined on page 7 of the Study Guide, I often hear these cited as the skills for ToK. They do, indeed, provide us with a good starting point for identifying the skills for success in ToK, but they are very wide and overarching. Maybe too broad and overarching for scaffolding ToK to make it accessible for all learners, maybe too broad for explaining to learners what they need to do to improve their attainment in ToK.

At ToK Today we aim to have a very close focus on skills needed for ToK, we aim to operationalise the skills so that we can say exactly what it is that students need to be able to do to realise the ToK goals and to achieve success in the ToK assessments. We're going to break down the Aims of ToK (Pg 7 of ToK Study Guide, 2020) down into a set of skills and their associated learning activities. The next part of this post is an example of such. However, this is not an exclusive, not definitive process. We need your input on this. I would love to hear what skills you think are required to be successful in ToK, and how to utilise this. The Thai ToK Teacher's Network group have already given me their insights on this. I thank them for their contributions thus far.

Operationalising an Aim of ToK into skills and learning objectives.

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The above diagram is just an example of how we can translate one of the 6 Aims of ToK into a set of specific skills, and then develop a set of learning activities to form a lesson. O

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ToK Skills 2.0

(as of Aug 2022).

If you would like a PDF version of this skills map click here

I would be very grateful if ToK Teachers would contribute to this skills map by suggesting skills that are not currently included on the map.

For more on ToK Skills (related to Grp Dynamics), and how to use them, click here.

Over the coming months ToKToday will model many more skill based learning enquiries in ToK. If you have requests, or comments, please contact me.

Daniel Trump
daniel@TokToday.com

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 !).

1. 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.
   

2. 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.
   

3. 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.
   

4. 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))

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.

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“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)

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

Click here for a full size version of the diagram.

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:

• Group Dynamics

• Speed (Cognitive Development)

• Skills Development

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 :

1. Optimising engagement & group dynamics.

2. Optimising skill development.

3. 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.

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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..,

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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:

The best ToK course structure flow chart ever (probably).

OK, the title of this blog would be deemed to be an "unsubstantiated assertion" by an IB Essay Examiner. However, if anyone has seen a better ToK course structure than the one below then please send it to me for comparative evaluation.

The best ToK Course Structure flowchart, ever (probably).

Click here for a large PDF of the flowchart.

The left side of the chart shows the factors to be taken into account when choosing how to structure your ToK Course.

The right side of the chart shows the 3 (+1) course structures which I looked at in my previous blogs / videos on ToK Course Structure.

• The detailed blog on ToK Course Structure is linked here.

• The short video on ToK Course Structure is linked here.

• The long video (part 1) on ToK Course Structure is linked here.

• The long video (part 2) on ToK Course Structure is linked here.

Why should ToK Teachers care about Course Structure?

Granted, course structure is not the most scintillating of topics for most teachers, particularly those new to the course. However, the way that the course is structured very much determines how it is delivered. The method(s) of course delivery are probably the biggest factor in determining the quality of learning, the student (& teacher) experience of the course, and the learning outcomes.

"How do I improve the ToK grades that my students receive ?"

I often hear ToK teachers asking how to improve their ToK grades. When we talk about why a particular cohort of students may have received lower than expected ToK grades we may turn to looking for flaws in the assessment system. Of course, the assessment system is applied in a standardised manner for all students, so if our particular students received lower grades relative to other students in the same cohort we need to look at factors other than the assessment system. I would suggest looking at the course structure in order to gain a better understanding of the longitudinal development of learning in the cohort.

If we get the course structure right we're 80%+ of the way to getting good grades in ToK. That's why I tried to make The Best ToK Course Structure in the World, ever (probably).

Daniel,
Lisbon, Portugal.
August 2022

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) 

1. "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.

2. 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'.

3. 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.

What do we know (so far) about the ToK Exhibition?

The first set of ToK Exhibition results are in, and the clouds of mystery that have previously shrouded the expectations of this new assessment are starting to clear somewhat. We are yet to receive the Subject Report (which will hopefully further clarify expectations), but we can glean some things from this first set of moderated commentaries. At my school we entered 45 candidates, none of the sample were subject to moderation (the ToK Examiner agreed with our grading), and our range was from ‘fairly low’ up to 10/10.

What I present here are the thoughts and decisions of our ToK team as we worked through what we thought was expected from the ToK Exhibition. It would appear that these decisions were upheld, but before we fall into a pile of complacent conceit a few disclaimers are warranted:

1, My observations come from only 1 set of results, and this is the first cycle of this particular assessment. One set of 45 results is not sufficient to make reliable cause and effect statements. Further, rumour & folklore amongst DP teachers would have it that IB are more lenient the first time a new form of assessment is run.

2. It is highly possible that we “just got lucky” with our moderator,or that we were on the verge of moderation with some pieces, and just snuck over the no-moderation line. Many times in the past I have seen little rationale to moderation decisions in subjects across the Diploma. It’s rather irrational (and self serving) to call out moderation decisions as nonsensical when they go against your students, but to take them as an indication of your ‘greatness’ when they go in favour of your students.

3. The illusion of causality could be at play here. It may be that our student’s work was not moderated despite the decisions that we made regarding what we assumed was required for The Exhibition.

With the disclaimer out of the way let’s look at context:

We were a very experienced 4 teacher ToK Team including 1 ToK Examiner & workshop leader, and 2 of the other teachers being examiners in other DP subjects. I mention this because being an examiner in any DP subject gives you an insight into how the published assessment rubrics are actually applied to student’s work. I think that most DP examiners would agree that there are a number of implied ‘givens’ which may not be explicit in the published assessment rubric.

Secondly we have all attended numerous ToK workshops over the years that we have been teaching the course, and 3/4  of us attended ToK Cat 2 in November 2021 in the hope of upskilling ourselves for The Exhibition. Further, we had run our own collaborative ToK Exhibition upskilling workshops in school. The thinking presented here comes from those in-school ToK collaborative workshops.

Decisions regarding the Exhibition May 2022 Session.

1. Treat the Exemplars with caution.
   During the Cat 2 Training (Nov 21) that we attended the workshop participants undertook a blind marking procedure of the exemplar commentaries which are published in the Teacher Support Materials section of the Programme Resource Centre. Most of the workshop participants gave significantly lower marks than those awarded by the Chief Examiner, participants who had been ToK Essay & Presentation Examiners were particularly surprised by the high marks given by the CE to the exemplars in comparison to those given during the blind marking exercise.
   
   Back at school, after the workshop, our team reflected on what had happened during the workshop, and we all noted that we had seen a similar pattern in both new ToK assessments, and new assessments in our hexagon subjects. That pattern is that the exemplars for new assessments tend to be very generous, and the actual results that students receive from the first exam session are usually much lower than the corresponding exemplar marks (for coursework of the same quality). Further, we noted that some of the examiner’s comments for the marked exemplars on the PRC were extremely brief (eg see Exemplar C), far briefer than the teachers' comments that we had been writing for ToK Presentations in previous sessions. Therefore, we decided that we needed to unpack the assessment instrument to devise a structure for the commentary rather than be led by the exemplars.
   

2. Unpacking the Assessment Instrument - differences to the exemplars.
   Definitions:
   We noted that none of the exemplars had explicit definitions of concepts or key terms, the sort of definitions that we would expect in the ToK Essay. However, we felt that it is difficult for students to make a clear link between the object and the IA prompt, and to write a clear explanation of that link, without such explicit definitions.
   
   Further, we felt that it would be difficult for students to justify the contribution of the link to the overall Exhibition without those definitions. This links to point 3 - the role of arguments in the Exhibition. Finally, it would be easier for students to explain the real world context of the object, and to use evidence to support points if they had clear definitions of the concepts and key terms in the prompt at the beginning of the commentary.
   
   Therefore, we put ‘Definitions’ as the first stage of our Commentary Structure, and asked all of our students to define the concepts and key terms as the first sentence(s) of their commentary.
   
   We were concerned about this decision, as none of the exemplars contained a ‘definitions section’, it’s not in the assessment rubric, and there’s no instruction from IB to do this. However, all of our students who scored 7-10 on the May 22 Exhibition had a definitions section at the beginning of their commentary that they returned to, as appropriate, during the piece.
   
   I reiterate the point that those students may have scored highly despite the definitions section rather than because of it.
   

3. Real world context ratio
   We noted that exemplars B-J contain far more ‘real world context’ content than ‘ToK content’ than we are used to in The Essay, and previously in the presentation. My rule of thumb guide is 80% ToK: 20% real world context for the essay, the higher scoring Exhibition Exemplars range from 35-60% real world context content . We thought that it would be very difficult for students to both make the links between the object and the prompt, and to justify the contribution of the object in terms of knowledge in 950 words. The process of abstraction from the real world to the knowledge world is at the heart of ToK, and we were wary of the notion that this would be abandoned in this assessment.
   
   Therefore we decided to build a structure which focuses more on the knowledge characteristics (issues?) arising from the object’s link to the object rather than on the real world context of the object. We are somewhat taking a chance that if students talk about the knowledge issues of the object they will cover the requirements for identifying the real world context of the object.
   
   The first Drafts of the Commentary had far more real world context content than we were comfortable with. This was expected (and is the norm in the essay, and previously with the ToK presentation). The feedback on the Draft Commentaries focussed on reducing the real world context, and increasing the ToK content.
   
   The commentaries that scored 7-10 marks contained far more ToK content than real world content (close to the 80:20 ratio). Again, we should not necessarily read causality into this.
   
   A note on the binary categorisation of ‘ToK Content’ vs ‘Real World Context’ with reference to The Exhibition (and maybe the essay). I have heard from WSL, and maybe from the Curriculum Managers, that this division is a false one, or at least should be more nuanced. The view being (I think) that The Exhibition should be a tool for students to develop the skills required for abstraction in the Essay. Further, that as the Exhibition is based around the Core and Optional Themes which are more ‘real world’ based than Areas of Knowledge. Therefore the Exhibition should contain more real world context, and crucially - make the link between the real world and the ToK world. My concern is that the knowledge requirements to move into the two higher marking bands are such that with a limited word count students must focus on the ToK content to attain a higher score.
   

4. Perspectives (aka Arguments, aka Knowledge arguments).
   
   We noted that the exemplars on the PRC do not contain explicit knowledge arguments like we might see in the essay, or previously in the Presentation. The instruction to the students is that they show how ToK manifests itself in the world around us, and we felt that this might be more easily achieved by students if they were taking a more perspective (or argument) based approach. The vast majority of the IA Prompts can be answered using a diverse range of perspectives, and therefore lend themselves well to a perspective (or argument) based approach.
   
   Further, and crucially, we noted the requirement in the top marking band is to identify, and justify, the particular contribution of each individual object. We felt that this is probably more easily achieved by students if we ask them to identify 3 perspectives (or arguments) arising from the IA prompt at the beginning of the Commentary, and then to choose 1 object to demonstrate each argument.
   
   Again, I worried about this decision as there is no explicit instruction in the assessment rubric to do this. However, I know that it is easier for students to write a justification if they are making an argument than it is to write a justification without a wider framework. Further, it would be easier to differentiate the contribution of each object using a specific argument linked to that object than it would be without the explicit argument. 
   
   All of the commentaries moderated at 5-10 marks used this 3 argument structure. Again, we need to heed the previous warnings regarding causality here.
   
   The rough structure that our team arrived at is below. We used this with our students to guide them in the writing of their commentaries.

Link to a (FREE) PDF of the above diagram.

A short note on the nature of the commentary.

As far as I understand it the ToK Exhibition Commentary should be a write up of the commentary that the students give (gave), or use to guide them, at their ToK Exhibition. This possibly implies that the Commentary should be a more narrative piece. It could be levelled that the analysis and structure presented here today are not in the spirit of typing up a commentary from an Exhibition. However, as ToK remains a pass-fail component of the Diploma I adopt a ‘take no chances’ approach. 

Daniel Trump,
Lisbon, Portugal.
July 2022.

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):

• Fact, Opinion, Truth, Belief Cards.

• Thunks (this is just a starter, you can find many more at this link)

• ToK Charades

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