The traditional approach to TOK doesn't support a meaningful exploration of real life situations by students. We have the solution.

We’ve been publishing the theoryofknowledge.net newsletter for more than 5 years, scouring a huge range of global media sources, and providing links to more than 1000 thought-provoking articles, blogs, and videos. For each of these sources we’ve tried to suggest ways for students to analyse them and unpack them and make links to TOK. We believe this is what makes TOK truly brilliant and vital, more than anything else, this process of hooking students up with what’s going on in the world, and getting them to analyse and explore the knowledge behind the headlines

Towards the end of 2016, we came up with a new framework for TOK that placed 8 ‘Big Questions’ at the centre of the course. These BQs became the primary structure for delivering TOK, rather than the ways of knowing and areas of knowledge, which are then used as a way of exploring the BQs. As we discussed in November’s article, this BQ framework prepares students much more effectively for the two assessment tasks. It also provides them with a much better way exploring real life situations, giving them a ‘double lens’ through which to focus on events, issues, and ideas.

Let’s put this straight into context, comparing what students might do with a real life situation using the traditional WOK/AOK framework, and using the BQ framework.

One of the stories we looked at in our December newsletter was from the wonderful website FiveThirtyEight. It looked at the way some individuals and groups in the USA, have been demanding that science be based only on ‘sound science’. This contrasts with other people from within the scientific community, who are leading a drive towards ‘open science’. It turns out that these two visions for science are completely different, and also mutually exclusive. The first seems to have a clear political agenda. The second is much more about genuinely reforming science.

"Finding a way into RLSs should require some effort, but it shouldn’t demoralize students"

How would students use the traditional framework to explore this real life situation? They’d probably link it to the natural sciences very quickly, and maybe also language, in terms of the way these two phrases are being used to challenge the way knowledge is produced in science. Would they go any further? Able students would probably eventually arrive at a knowledge question that might grant them access to what’s interesting about this story, but getting there would be hard work, and less motivated students might be discouraged by that point. Finding a way into RLSs should require some effort, but it shouldn’t demoralize students; they’ve still got to explore the second order knowledge issues at stake, via those tricky concepts of perspectives and implications.

In other words, the traditional framework simply doesn’t help us enough. It doesn’t support students effectvely as they try to explore real life situations, and deal with second order knowledge.

Let’s look at the RLS via the Big Question framework. Remember, the starting point is a question, rather than a WOK or AOK. So our first step is to link the story to one of the 8 Big Questions, a process which should happen via group discussion, followed up by teacher guidance. For this RLS, given that it involves two different groups seeking to represent science in their own way, it works best with BQ5: How is our understanding of the world affected by the way it is represented? This question provides students with an immediate focus for the story, acting as a primary ‘lens’ through which to look at its details. The story is all about using language to represent science in a particular way (note that the WOK and AOK act as a second ‘lens’), in order to shape its reality.

"We’re already much further inside the knowledge behind the story than we were via the traditional structure of TOK, thanks to having a question to frame what’s going on."

One group of people are trying to represent science as something which should aspire to be ‘sound’, which seems reasonable, until you realise this equates to ‘100% accurate’, which no theory ever is, and which science does not claim to offer. The group of people represent science as being something that should be ‘open’, transparent, and accessible. This clash of representations is what the story is all about. We’re already much further inside the knowledge behind the story than we were via the traditional structure of TOK, thanks to having a question to frame what’s going on.

From that it’s easy to look at the perspectives and implications. Our perspective is political affiliation, which directly determines the camp you fall into - ‘sound’ versus ‘open’. Our implication is our understanding of the very nature - and purpose - of science. Is its aim to provide us 100% ‘sound’ knowledge of the world (which it can’t do, therefore, it can always be dismissed)? Or is science more about ‘openness’, so that everyone can access and challenge scientific knowledge, in order to move it forward?

We could go through many other RLSs in the same way, but here are three more from December’s newsletter:

• A Vox article about why critics have different opinions about 2017’s movies. This links to BQ7: Is our understanding of the world determined by our perspective?
• A History Today article on the role of ‘lone’ researchers in history. This links to BQ4: How does shared and personal knowledge shape our understanding of the world?
• A Big Think video on ‘familiarity bias’. This links to BQ1: Can we trust our immediate knowledge about the world?.

Each time it should be clear that providing students with a Big Question gets them straight to the heart of the real life situation, and from there, an easy step towards a consideration of perspectives and implications. Conversely, using the traditional TOK framework, students are much more likely to get lost on the way, and grow discouraged as they try to get to grips with even interesting and engaging real life situations.

"using the traditional TOK framework, students are much more likely to get lost on the way, and grow discouraged as they try to get to grips with real life situations."

You can find out more on the BQ approach on this page of the site. Membership options, which give you access to the BQ lessons (including around 8 lessons per BQ, hundreds of links to construct your own ‘pathway’ of WOKs/AOKs, an introductory unit to TOK, and a unit with more than a dozen different lessons on the assessment tasks), are outlined here. You can also see a range of unsolicited testimonials here. As Diana, a TOK teacher of 17 years from New York, told us:

“I wanted to let you know that I think the BQ resources I’ve been using so far this year are awesome! By exploring TOK concepts through well-chosen, unique and high-interest real-life situations, my students are engaged in ways they haven’t been before.”

NEXT MONTH: How do you get non-TOK teachers teaching TOK? We have a few suggestions.