Theory of Knowledge Class'

[Sonic Death Monkey]

Just curious about the format of ToK classes in schools other than my own, are you're classes more discussion focused?

Or do they follow other teaching methods...?

[Dew]

We started out with discussions and they were great then half way through the year our teacher switched it up and gave us different topics to research and present in front of the school's principal and staff... My first topic was on the existence because frankly I love the discussions it brings and our principal is quite a heavy christian. I could see him flitching at times when I was presenting the arguments against God's existence.

Back on topic, I really enjoyed both styles but having to put more effort at home on the subject I would choose the latter.

[Peanut Butter Jelly]

I would guess most schools have discussions/ presentations, mainly because the teacher probably has no idea how to 'teach' ToK - the criteria given by IB is very enigmatic and they mark very erraticly. IMO, ToK needs to be restructured.

[Taj Pereira]

My class was very discussion based. However, unlike the notion that the criteria for IB TOK is very difficult to teach, my school provided an array of teachers who taught in very different manners. Though some were better than others, all of them (but one) had a number of students attain an A (in the presentation).

[Tony Stark]

We don't even have classes, really.

[Frizzy]

As of right now it's very discussion focused.

[Sandwich]

We used to have teaching in IB1 - reading through the green TOK textbook - but none of it was actually useful to any of the assessments or really anything. I honestly don't know why the school paid actual money for those.

In IB2 we changed teachers and had a more discussion-based type lesson which was a bit of a dead end in that none of us were really interested in discussing anything, but was a lot more useful as the teacher knew a lot more about what they were doing! Also to be honest, a lot more interesting to listen to the teacher trying to have discussions than it was to sit and take it in turns to read out of the textbook. Discussion is much more similar to how you end up having to write the TOK essay or give the presentation than any textbook stuff is.

It's just hard to keep discussion focused on TOK. It tends to meander into discussing the actual issues instead as they are often quite interesting.

I agree TOK is very badly structured but it is a bit of a non-subject so I'm not sure how you could structure it better, if at all.

[Summer Glau]

We used to have teaching in IB1 - reading through the green TOK textbook - but none of it was actually useful to any of the assessments or really anything. I honestly don't know why the school paid actual money for those.

Really? I thought the TOK textbook was the most helpful resource I had for the course. I didn't use the green book but I had a blue and purple one. My teacher's TOK lessons consisted of overheads that we would copy down...we only had 2-3 days of lessons in the whole course, then we were left on our own to write the essay and do the presentation. We never really had discussions, but we had debates after all the TOK stuff was due to the IBO.

My teacher's notes honestly didn't help at all, so I read the textbook to try to find some relevant stuff to insert into my essay and thankfully I found good stuff in there to include.

I agree that TOK isn't a subject that can really be taught...it's innate but going through the course just makes you actually think about it.