Presentation ToK Presentation: Past Experience and Tips

[Peachez]

Hello,

I am curious about what you did your TOK presentation on. What are some tips that you would give to those who still have to do one.

Please share your experience, that would be extremely helpful.

Thank you.

[KLSmash]

I did mine on Man-made Climate Change, and spoke about whether we are actually causing it ourselves, or that our views are skewed because of our skewed reasoning/perception/emotion/language. I followed the rubric closely, and made sure I included all those points.

[Fezz]

My presentation was on Marijuana and to what extent taboo themes in society limit our knowledge. We analyzed 4 different Anti-Weed campaigns in order to see how they manipulate our 4 ways of knowing into believing what they want us to believe. In the end we came to the conclusion that taboo themes lead to a prison of consistency and we also showed how we could break free from this knowledge barrier.

A tip for anybody who still has to do it: while preparing the actual presentation make sure you have the criteria next to you and always look back at it since you quickly drift off on the topic rather than focusing on the knowledge issue. Also make sure that you have a proper knowledge issue which you can address. This is the flaw probably most badly done ToK presentations have, they just dont specify any knowledge issue.

[laryxle]

My presentation looked at how emotion can be used to justify ehtical behaviour; basically analysing how we know that our behaviour is right, using an example of a communities reaction to a released paedophile living in their community, and how they justified their behaviour using emotion, generalising a model of ethics based on this, looking at the implications of such a model (using an example from an AoK), looking at how reason comes to a different conclusion on the situation, generalising a model of ethics based on reason, look at the implications of this model (again with an AoK example) and basically in both pointing out why they wouldn't work, then at the end I talked about suggestions of linking the two ways of knowing together to perhaps get a stronger ethical code and what this would mean if you applied it to my real-life example, and then I concluded with a little thing about ethics and how ambiguous it can be.

I got 19/20, and I think that the biggest tip is to follow the marking guidelines exactly. The biggest problem I noticed that limited some people is that they started with their knowledge issue, and didn't really bring in a real-life example until after that, or their example was vague. You should start with your real-life example, then draw the knowledge issue out of that, because it gives you a chance of demonstrating the importance and relevance of the issue. Also, keep referring to the example and implications for the example in your presentation. But yeah, stick to the marking criteria, and for connections, stick to a few things, keep it kind of simple.

[Simus]

Guys I have to turn in a presentation proposal tomorrow and I am still clueless about my topic. I was considering on doing a topic that is science related. I was thinking about on something on the lines of "Is science a real way of knowing the existence of things?" . I am probably really wrong and TOK is probably my worst subject XS. Any suggestions from you guys?

[aya91]

I did mine on the laws of Kashrut (in Judaism) and whether they should be changed to suit mordern day factory farming - I.e. factory farmed animals should not be considered Kosher because of the physical as well as psychological pain they go through before they are slaughtered. it was a good presentation, my teacher says I got a high grade

So my advice in regards to the TOK presentation - play to your strengths. what do you know most about, what are you passionate about? For me animal rights are extremely important, and I have a lot of knowledge within Judaism because I went to a jewish religious school when I was younger, so I was able to give this topic a lot of detail. My friend did a course this summer about sight size painting, and so she did her TOK presentation about that. The great thing about the presentation is that you start off from a real life issue and then expand - so you can talk about pretty much anything to begin with, as narrow as you want it to be, and then expand to draw any conclusion you want. just remember to bring in counter arguments to every statement you make. Your conclusion can be on whatever side you want but you need to have discussed it thoroughly in the presentation with pro and contra arguments.

hope this helped!

Ayelet

[Mahuta ♥]

I did the two of mine on:

Child Abuse: used emotion and perception as ways of knowledge, and ethics as AoK

AIDS in Africa: same as above.

[Abu]

I did mine on the illegal kidney trade.

• You shouldn't read off any powerpoint presentation that you make but make sure you have visual aids.
  
• Or give out hand outs so that people can follow your presentation.
  
• Make sure you are well versed with what you're going to say and that you have key pointers in case you do forget something.
  
• Time yourself. It has to be 10-15 minutes but short and concised is better than long and dreary.
  
• Keep it entertaining, engage your audience.
  
• Use different mediums like a debate or a Q&A session between audience memebers and yourself and finish it off with a summary.
  
• Present both sides of the argument and then give your personal opinion.
  
• Don't be boring, don't make it sound scripted, don't be monotone, don't be longwinded, don't say something too controversial, don't speak too fast, don't speak too slow, don't be biased
  
• Even though it's cringeworthy, practice your presentation before hand in front of your parents/friends and get feedback on your style etc.
  

Sticky-ing this topic

[hannah.mb]

Hi,

I did my TOK presentation on TCK's (Third Culture Kids). So basically our question was: does your knowledge define you.

i.e. TCK's claim their knowledge (accumulated through growing up in diff. countries; social skills acquired through interacting with many many diff. people etc.) defines them and sets them apart from their agemates in their country of origin.

Themes: knowledge ("your knowledge is a map"- quite literal for TCK's lol (world map) hehe), identity (what makes you who you are).

yup.

[lkn]

In my school, we were allowed to do the presentation either alone or in groups of two or three. I think if you're doing it with someone, it's important that you choose a real-life situation that has to do with both of you. I and my friend started by listing all the things we were interested in and then we chose our starting point from the items we had in common.

The real-life situation behind our knowledge issue was musical theatre. As the others have already said, I think it's good to start with an example from the real world and then make a smooth shift to the knowledge issue(s) of your choice. When we had the presentations, we had quite a few ones that had really fancy topics but which didn't show how well the things were linked to the presenters' own lives. So choose a topic that you really like!

We took the ToK presentation as a chance to give our classmates an entertaining 20 minutes... so we started it by playing the chorus from the song "I hate ToK" by Captain Angry and The Bad Moods. We had a power point which gave us the framework for our talk show. The thing went quite nicely, from musicals we moved into our knowledge issue and the monetary and artistic value of art. We examplified our claims with examples from musical theatre (and at one point we had Edward Cullen's face turning into that of Andrew Lloyd Webber's)Basically, we got 17/20 from having lots of fun!

So, to sum it up: choose a topic that you are personally familiar with, think about the area(s) of knowing that are linked to it and plan it so that it weaves smoothly between the real world and the ToK world. And have fun!

[ivanthegiant]

i did mine on the positive an negative by products on the practice of the customs and rites of relgion and philosophy. but i wanted to change it to the influence of the clock on early culture. like how come in cinderella at the stroke of midnight she changes back? why is midnight the witching hour? why does the 12th stroke of midnight matter?

[ADH]

Me and my partner talked about the Twilight Saga and how the media affects peoples perceptions of it and how it's sending the youth, men, and women the wrong messages.

[Sadahila]

I am considering doing mine on ESL kids.

First of all, I am one and I have personal experience.

Second, I think I will talk about how hard it is for ESL people to adapt to society. I will talk about as age progresses, it becomes harder. Maybe mention suicides (Virginia Tech)

Third, talk about how the language barrier and cultural barrier are obstacles.

I don't know if this is a good topic or not, can I have some opinions?

[ibeib]

At my school we have a chance to do three different presentations and our best marks are given in...

we've officially been notified about our first one and now need to think of a topic and knowledge issue.

i have two questions:

1) As anyone had any experience with group presentations? In your opinion are they helpful or detrimently? My friends really want us to do a group presentation but i'm really not sure i want to go that route...

2) What are some knowledge issues?

Edited March 30, 2010 by ibeib

[Green]

I worked with my two close friends for the presentation. Our issue looked at how media influences anorexia.

We had a specific structure to our presentation. We divided it into two knowledge claims: "Media contributes to anorexia" and "Media does not contribute to anorexia"

From that we looked at people involved such as modeling companies, models themselves and their family members. We mainly looked for claims said by the people involved and built up an argument from that.

From my experience, working in a group is great help. Even if people enjoy working on their own, TOK presentations would be a lot better if there were more minds, ideas and opinions involved. The tricky part is finding a suitable topic that all members of the group enjoy. Your enthusiasm for the topic will show when you are presenting.

Try to interest your audience. If they have to sit there for a long time and view several presentations, it gets boring. We tried to grab the audience attention by putting many pictures on our powerpoint presentation, and due to the topic we were discussing it seemed to have been successful. But of course, do consider reasonable pictures.

More importantly, follow the guideline as people have mentioned before, and try not to be biased.

[IrishGuy]

Well I did mine on the issue of adoption, I used the example of the missionaries in Haiti. I looked at it morally and got an 18 out of 20 . My advice is to do it logically. Like I looked at it using Kantian ethics. I looked at trying to prove that it was moral by making a maxim for adoption then I tried to see if I could make it universally immoral ( ie: I made the maxim " Adoption is always immoral").After I proved that neither were possible I did he same with utilitarianism. It was all very logical. I think it's easier to start one point finish it and then move one, a lot of my friends sort of stayed on one point without really moving on. It's also really important to look at both sides of the argument (that's why I wanted to see if it was morale or immoral). One girl looked at Guantanamo bay but didn't even consider the fact that there were people who weren't terrorists. That's probably the most important thing to look at both sides evenly.

Edited April 7, 2010 by IrishGuy

[moonlight-x-wonder]

My partner and I are doing euthanasia for our tok presentation and HOW DO WE KNOW THAT EUTHANASIA IS ETHICAL?

At our school we get the possibility to do a practice presentation that is half the length of the actual one, on this we received a 16/20 however we definatly want to improve this grade now for the real thing.

What are some tips that we could use when we look at this topic and how to apply it in TOK?

x

[Jason08]

My group is doing our presentation on third culture kids and if culture really does determine our knowledge. i still have about 2 weeks until our presentations and I am very excited. However we haven't had the time to start planning for the presentation as we are too busy with our IB French written exam on monday as well as our group 4 projects on the same week. It is so hectic, even in grade 11 and 1st year in the diploma.

[theloserwins]

Ferocious Tackles on Soccer Field - Should players bear more severe consequences after performing a ferocious tackle

14/20 for me. My partner 16/20. I'd say its an interesting topic, but we didnt do it in too much depth.

I'm planning to do a new presentation somewhat related to Christopher Nolan's films. Ie. Inception, Momento.

[-PakistaN-]

You guys think doing one on 9/11 is a good idea??