Questions (2011-2012)
There are always, ever, many questions. Here is a set, which if not familiar, soon will be very much so.
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On a different note, it has come to pass that this blog has been identified by at least one TOK examiner as being too helpful to TOK students. Apparently (and I've noticed this as well), many students footnoted or quoted from it and the examiner (somewhat parochially and bad-temperedly) decided that "any URL with blogspot in it should be treated as suspect".
This year, therefore, I shall try to be less helpful. And I hereby warn students that while I am a trained TOK teacher, I am not sufficiently an authority that you can drop my URL and expect to have it respected as if it were Nobel prize-winning language from Stephen Hawking's mouth.
Frankly, we all learn from other people. If you learn from my ramblings, I am most greatly honoured. All you have to do is think about what I've said and decide, using your own mental apparatus, whether it's worth pursuing the lines I've opened up. Then conduct your own pursuit, and I wish you all the best.
- Knowledge is generated through the interaction of critical and creative thinking. Evaluate this statement in two areas of knowledge.
- Compare and contrast knowledge which can be expressed in words/symbols with knowledge that cannot be expressed in this way. Consider CAS and one or more areas of knowledge.
- Using history and at least one other area of knowledge, examine the claim that it is possible to attain knowledge despite problems of bias and selection.
- When should we discard explanations that are intuitively appealing?
- What is it about theories in the human sciences and natural sciences that makes them convincing?
- "It is more important to discover new ways of thinking about what is already known than to discover new data or facts." To what extent would you agree with this claim?
- "The vocabulary we have does more than communicate our knowledge; it shapes what we can know." Evaluate this claim with reference to different areas of knowledge.
- Analyse the strengths and weaknesses of using faith as a basis for knowledge in religion and in one area of knowledge from the ToK diagram.
- As an IB student, how has your learning of literature and science contributed to your understanding of individuals and societies?
- "Through different methods of justification, we can reach conclusions in ethics that are as well-supported as those provided in mathematics." To what extent would you agree?
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On a different note, it has come to pass that this blog has been identified by at least one TOK examiner as being too helpful to TOK students. Apparently (and I've noticed this as well), many students footnoted or quoted from it and the examiner (somewhat parochially and bad-temperedly) decided that "any URL with blogspot in it should be treated as suspect".
This year, therefore, I shall try to be less helpful. And I hereby warn students that while I am a trained TOK teacher, I am not sufficiently an authority that you can drop my URL and expect to have it respected as if it were Nobel prize-winning language from Stephen Hawking's mouth.
Frankly, we all learn from other people. If you learn from my ramblings, I am most greatly honoured. All you have to do is think about what I've said and decide, using your own mental apparatus, whether it's worth pursuing the lines I've opened up. Then conduct your own pursuit, and I wish you all the best.
Labels: Epistemology, Odd Questions
etched with acid at 10:50:00 pm
4 Comments:
I don't get it. If you are a teacher and your obvious goal here is to teach or give insight why is that wrong or " too helpful?" On the contrary we turn to your blogspot because our own TOK teachers are NOT helpful. I thank you for your page and hope you keep being as helpfuly as ever and you do have interesting views.
jeanf: I guess some people are not happy about the way I openly help other people? :) Thanks for your kind comments!
Hey, so you decided not to help people on your blog this year? TOK is for my the most challenging subject in the ib as I have difficulties in creative and abstract thinking. Furthermore, even though my teacher is very sympathic and helpful, I still find it hard to come up with ideas to these 10 Questions.
julianher: I said I would be 'less helpful'. But if you look at my posts, I am still being very helpful. In fact, there are helpful posts on every one of this year's questions! :)
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