Questions (2011-2012): First Impressions

This is the immediate follow-up to a previous post. In that post, I listed ten questions from a list recently distributed to baby wyverns who will be leaving the nest next year.

My first impression of that list is that it is an ambitious list with a markedly different agenda from previous such lists. It is more explicit about the direction to be taken in answering questions, and it requires far more explanation and explication from individuals who have to answer those questions.

Of the entire list, only questions 6, 7 and 10 are conventional questions, if by 'conventional' one implies 'similar in tenor and content to those in earlier lists'.

Question 1 strikes out into 'creative' and 'critical' thinking, both of which are frequently but not comprehensively defined. Questions 2, 8 and 9 appeal to knowledge and understanding of specific IB concepts — the CAS core element, the TOK diagram and the Group 3 (Individuals and Societies) area of the curriculum. Question 3 requires the respondent to talk about 'the problems of bias and selection', while Question 8 approaches the problem of faith. Questions 4 and 5 speak of what is 'intuitively appealing' and 'convincing'.

What all this means is that teachers need to change their vocabulary somewhat. In the past, it was possible to conduct an epistemology course and produce students with good results in this sort of essay challenge. Now, teachers will have to conduct a course more tightly linked to the IB curriculum, as well as provide proper explorations of some ways in which human minds work.

I think there will be a lot of entertainment value in observing the way schools deal with all this.