Precepts to use in everyday life

1. Think for yourself, 2. Be yourself, 3. Speak up, 4. Feel free to agree and disagree, 5. Be honest with yourself and others, 6. Be open-minded, 7. Avoid being judgmental and 8. Question everything - even your own thinking.

TOK Essay Titles Nov 2024

Friday, September 25, 2009

BBC : 'The Big Questions'

The TOK Team is returning to the BBC show once again this Sunday 27th September 2009 at 10.00am. The motions that will be debated are:

1. Have we lost faith in the police?
2. Do we have a duty to care for our elderly parents?
3. Are religious relics a con?

As you know, we have fairly strong opinions on a range of topics although the ones above don't seem to be too controversial. A summary of our responses to the above can be found below:

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.

Watch the program to see the range of arguments and counter-arguments that are on offer.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

More on Knowledge Issues

The IBO have finally published a leaflet on this elusive but extremely important concept that provides the foundations to any TOK presentation and essay. Here's the link to the document on the IBTOKSPOT website: Knowledge Understanding Issues.

Remember: KIs are usually formulated as questions. You will gain higher marks if you're capable of formulating specific and focused OPEN questions using the TOK terminology presented to you at the start of your studies. This means:

1/ Steer clear of using verbs at the start of your questions: 'Can...?', 'Do/Does...?', 'Have/Has...?', 'Will...?'. These sentence starters will lead you to create CLOSED questions which have either a yes or no answer.

2/ Use instead the words 'How...?', 'Why...?', 'What...?', 'Where...?', 'When...?' at the start of your question. Alternatively, use the phrases 'How far...?', 'In what way....?', 'To what extent...?' to begin your question. In this way, you can create questions that will push you to explore your topic more widely and deman more rigorous arguments and counter-arguments.

Here's a key paragraph from the IBO document that you should study well since it gives you some key trigger vocubulary to set you on your way to formulating challenging and relevant KIs:

"Knowledge issues that are most likely to support high levels of achievement are:

• open-ended questions that admit more than one possible answer
• explicitly about knowledge in itself and not subject-specific claims
• couched in terms of TOK vocabulary and concepts: the areas of knowledge, the ways ofknowing and the concepts in the linking questions—belief, certainty, culture, evidence,experience, explanation, interpretation, intuition, justification, truth, values
• precise in terms of the relationships between these concepts."

('Understanding Knowledge Issues, IBO, 2009)

Click onto the Knowledge Issues tab on the left to look at other clarifying articles on the subject.