Here’s a challenge for your students. Are they open to changing their opinions if faced with contrary facts? Today we offer a class exercise – ready for you to download, to use directly or to customize – whose goal is student self-awareness. It demands reflection, research, and discussion, and should raise discussion on facts, feelings, […]
Read more If you were the brontosaurus, what would you say back? The following cartoon sequence is designed for TOK to prompt examination of assumptions, emotional appeals, and fallacies of argument. Students will quickly see some real world relevance and echoes of common knowledge claims. If you would find this activity useful with your own students, please […]
Read more A numbers expert declares he’ll sum up everything he knows about analyzing statistics on the back of a postcard. Could any TOK teacher NOT instantly spring to the alert? He’s inspired me to attempt my own lean summary: a single page mini-guide on (dis)trusting statistics, useful in our own educational context of Theory of Knowledge. […]
Read more Good news: counter-argument with factual support may not be doomed after all. The “backfire effect”, as widely discussed in the past few years, was a truly disheartening phenomenon for anyone who cares about critical thinking or reliable knowledge. However, recent studies illustrate how the human sciences work as they offer revised conclusions – and at […]
Read more History, it often seems to me, isn’t essentially about the past. In so many ways, it’s about the present and the future – the afterlife in records, interpretation, and impact on thought. In current news, I’m struck by what lives on from bygone days in three seemingly unlike examples: a controversial law (Poland), yet another […]
Read more “Fake news” is a term that I would happily consign to the annals of 2016 and 2017. Goodbye. But as it lives on, it morphs meaning – and takes on further allure for TOK analysis. It doesn’t just face us, belligerently, with issues of truth and falsehood. It also offers an excellent current example, rooted […]
Read moreDo we expect to understand art and the natural sciences in the same way? Today, here’s a cartoon to open a comparison in class discussion, with questions and a download at the end. I hope it gives you not only material for class but also a smile. “How am I supposed to appreciate it?” cartoon […]
Read moreDear TOK teachers — Again this year, I’ve gathered into a single document my year’s blog posts on Theory of Knowledge so that you can skim them easily, looking for ideas for your own teaching. Note the Table of Contents at the beginning for an immediate overview. Please feel free to download this resource, and […]
Read more As 2017 comes to a close, what impression will our students have of the world in which they live? Is it of an angry and threatening place? If they follow the news – even if only through social media – they might benefit from ending 2017 or starting 2018 by stepping back from the predominantly […]
Read more Distinguishing Experts from Imposters has always carried a lively edge when their conclusions matter in the real world. Yet it’s still a bit of a novelty when views get applause simply because they reject experts! “Those bully experts, telling the rest of us a lot of stuff — just ’cause they actually know! How unfair!” If […]
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