I'm confused :(

[Guest]

Hi everyone!

 

I'm a first year IB student and so far my school has covered ways of knowing and about to give us the titles for our presentations...

 

However, I feel like I'm confused about everything that is in TOK. The concepts seem to be very intertwined to one another and every now and then I find myself doubting what I've already learnt and trying to put everything together.

 

Is there any way I can make TOK more simple, enjoyable and relatable?

 

Thank you

[ibprincess]

the idea of TOK is basically that we know things through different ways of knowing (WOK) and in different areas of knowledge (AOK) and it shares a lot of ideas with epistemology (wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology).

 

I think you should read through the subject guide because it actually has a really good explanation of what the course is and I think the teachers use that was as one of their main resources for teaching it. also basically tok teachers don't actually exist and they're  normally another teacher asked to teach the course (my school has ib coordinator and a maths teacher??) so talking to your teacher doesn't help because they probably understand just as much as you. luckily, there are textbooks made for tok that are actually pretty good a explaining concepts and different types of knowledge but they're also a lot of fluff because there is not really enough content in tok to write a textbook and theres a lot of really good websites about tok that you should deffs check out.

 

 

and btw you should be able to chose your own TOK presentation title? only the essay titles are prescribed and its actually part of the criteria to have your own well devised knowledge question

 

TOK is actually decently simple and I think you're overthinking it because basically your presentation asks you to

• chose a RLS (real life situation) this can be something that's happened to you or a news article basically anything thats happened in real life
• look at what you now from that RLS
• develop a knowledge question (basic form is how do we know ...? )
• how do you know what you know? (answer is AOK and WOK). I like having an area of knowledge and then explaining what ways of knowing are used in that AOK like is your RLS is something to do with animal cruelty, your first AOK could be ethics and in ethics we know using language, intuition and emotion
• once you've analysed your RLS using your AOKs and WOKs, make a claim like "using ethics we know animal cruelty is bad"
• repeat this with different AOKs and WOKs making claims and counter claims 

TOK is not enjoyable sorry

[CkyBlue]

Maybe you should take a look at some of our pinned threads. Some of our older members have laid out what ToK is and what it is about quite definitively.

 

TBH, I didn't find ToK to be enjoyable(along with my other courses), but it was my breather course as we set aside a period or two every week devoted to ToK. We would just sit down and talk, and because of this, I enjoyed ToK in a way because I could take a small break. As my friend ibprincess pointed out, ToK has a lot to do with epistemology, and I think it's really up to you if you want to make the topic relative to you or not. ToK was a course that I could really breeze by, because I didn't think there was that much to be expected of me.

 

ToK differs from core subjects because it takes one step back and questions what we know, how we know something, and everything in between. It gets you thinking about what someone does to know if something is true. It doesn't involve reading textbooks, knowing a lot of abstract information or ideas, but it involves questioning the reliability of sources of information(Ways of Knowing, Areas of Knowledge, our experience), how we obtain it, and process it to something we understand.

 

You can relate ToK with a lot of things. The challenge from my perspective is to apply ToK into a real life situation, where sources of information(including anywhere from WoKs, AoKs, past experiences, perception, senses, culture) are used in conjunction to understand a certain idea, to know the truth, or "obtain knowledge", from that situation. At the same time, you may favor some sources of information over others in certain scenarios, while in other cases using a combination of X, Y and Z would be optimal in understanding a different situation.

 

ToK also requires you to recognize the limitations of how you draw information, and that fully depending on one sources of information may not be a good idea(like Wikipedia). It's a good idea to recognize any assumptions you make and how that might "hinder your quest for knowledge".

 

In the end, ToK wants you to be able to reach viable conclusions from a situation based on solid grounds. In the course you must clearly show that you have a grasp of these things, or I don't think you'll find the course enjoyable very much . So TDLR if you can make the connections, you shouldn't have a hard time with it. Hope this helps

[Guest]

the idea of TOK is basically that we know things through different ways of knowing (WOK) and in different areas of knowledge (AOK) and it shares a lot of ideas with epistemology (wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology).

 

I think you should read through the subject guide because it actually has a really good explanation of what the course is and I think the teachers use that was as one of their main resources for teaching it. also basically tok teachers don't actually exist and they're  normally another teacher asked to teach the course (my school has ib coordinator and a maths teacher??) so talking to your teacher doesn't help because they probably understand just as much as you. luckily, there are textbooks made for tok that are actually pretty good a explaining concepts and different types of knowledge but they're also a lot of fluff because there is not really enough content in tok to write a textbook and theres a lot of really good websites about tok that you should deffs check out.

 

 

and btw you should be able to chose your own TOK presentation title? only the essay titles are prescribed and its actually part of the criteria to have your own well devised knowledge question

 

TOK is actually decently simple and I think you're overthinking it because basically your presentation asks you to

• chose a RLS (real life situation) this can be something that's happened to you or a news article basically anything thats happened in real life
• look at what you now from that RLS
• develop a knowledge question (basic form is how do we know ...? )
• how do you know what you know? (answer is AOK and WOK). I like having an area of knowledge and then explaining what ways of knowing are used in that AOK like is your RLS is something to do with animal cruelty, your first AOK could be ethics and in ethics we know using language, intuition and emotion
• once you've analysed your RLS using your AOKs and WOKs, make a claim like "using ethics we know animal cruelty is bad"
• repeat this with different AOKs and WOKs making claims and counter claims 

TOK is not enjoyable sorry

 

Alright, so good resources are needed. I wanted to read the IB TOK official guide but I can't find it unless I pay for it to the IB organizations. I guess I'll ask my teachers about that

 

The thing I'm confused about is actually mostly from the book. Everything is intertwined and I feel like it's too much to take in... 

 

Thanks for guiding me through the TOK presentation! It helped a bunch! My teacher is going to talk about it after the winter break.

 

Maybe you should take a look at some of our pinned threads. Some of our older members have laid out what ToK is and what it is about quite definitively.

 

TBH, I didn't find ToK to be enjoyable(along with my other courses), but it was my breather course as we set aside a period or two every week devoted to ToK. We would just sit down and talk, and because of this, I enjoyed ToK in a way because I could take a small break. As my friend ibprincess pointed out, ToK has a lot to do with epistemology, and I think it's really up to you if you want to make the topic relative to you or not. ToK was a course that I could really breeze by, because I didn't think there was that much to be expected of me.

 

ToK differs from core subjects because it takes one step back and questions what we know, how we know something, and everything in between. It gets you thinking about what someone does to know if something is true. It doesn't involve reading textbooks, knowing a lot of abstract information or ideas, but it involves questioning the reliability of sources of information(Ways of Knowing, Areas of Knowledge, our experience), how we obtain it, and process it to something we understand.

 

You can relate ToK with a lot of things. The challenge from my perspective is to apply ToK into a real life situation, where sources of information(including anywhere from WoKs, AoKs, past experiences, perception, senses, culture) are used in conjunction to understand a certain idea, to know the truth, or "obtain knowledge", from that situation. At the same time, you may favor some sources of information over others in certain scenarios, while in other cases using a combination of X, Y and Z would be optimal in understanding a different situation.

 

ToK also requires you to recognize the limitations of how you draw information, and that fully depending on one sources of information may not be a good idea(like Wikipedia). It's a good idea to recognize any assumptions you make and how that might "hinder your quest for knowledge".

 

In the end, ToK wants you to be able to reach viable conclusions from a situation based on solid grounds. In the course you must clearly show that you have a grasp of these things, or I don't think you'll find the course enjoyable very much . So TDLR if you can make the connections, you shouldn't have a hard time with it. Hope this helps

 

I looked the pinned threads and got the hold of them but I always worry that what I know is not enough to prepare for the upcoming presentation and essay. Plus, all the theories we have are glued together in a weird way (if you know what I mean)...

 

Thank you for the brief but really informative reply about what TOK is about.

 

I hope you're having a good time celebrating the upcoming new year

[Blackcurrant]

No TOK guide? Well, try this. 

[Guest]

No TOK guide? Well, try this. 

 

THANK YOUUU

[Djsporting]

I think that TOK is enjoyable to the extent that your teacher wants it/makes it to be. My teacher provides us with several different activities and class discussions which make TOK not as a pain as it could be. Also, one think which helped me in TOK was to submit drafts to my teacher prior to the deadline of every practice essay as well as practice presentation. In-addition to this, look at sample TOK essays which had a good score (Use google) and look at how it is structured. It will allow turn out great in the end, don't stress, I think everything will fall into place prior to writing your final TOK essay, and doing your final presentation.