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ToK Presentation: Past Experience and Tips


Peachez

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  • 2 months later...

My partner and I did our presentation on math and science education, and the problems with the curriculum both in general and in terms of the IB/non-IB divide at our school. Our knowledge issues was asking how valid standardized test scores, teacher accounts, and student accounts are in identifying a problem with education. We made a short film where we interviewed several teachers. Despite our multi-faceted approach and our differences (my partner's into science, I'm into math), we scored a 19 and our teacher said it was one of the best presentations he's seen. He also said it was "college level work." I think we did so well because we (mostly I) over-estimated how hard he grades the presentations. We spent weeks planning the presentation when only an hour or two would have sufficed. Overall, I would recommend choosing a topic you have an in depth knowledge about. That way, you'll be more likely to enjoy working on your presentation and it won't seem like a chore.

We didn't score a 20 because I said kindergartners should be taught multivariable calculus and complex analysis.

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I did my ToK Presentation a couple months ago and i found that it was one of the most convoluted assignments i had even been given. It was nearly impossible to figure out what the purpose was. But i went ahead and did mine on 'What gives an education value?'.

I think from the experience, that one of the most important things is to work on your structure, so what you want to say and how, then the rest can sort of fill itself in through research and use of the textbook. Use the criteria as well. If you can tick of the boxes yourself then your teacher will be able to as well :)

Good Luck

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oh wait. My advice is

Make sure have a thorough discussion with your TOK teachers. They know what must be included and do's and don'ts.

My TOK teacher told me this

"If you want the fish, you must use the bait that it want. Same goes to TOK presentation, you must use the 'bait' that your teacher wants."

Good luck! you'll enjoy along the way

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I'm doing mine in about a month or so on whether or not it is ethical for a government to keep secrets from its people, with reference to WikiLeaks. Do you guys think it's a good topic? Any ideas, please?

"Is it ethical to.... X?" is not a TOK question.

A TOK question might be "how do we know whether with-holding information is in the public interest or not?". A "how do we know" type question that looks at how we use the Ways of Knowing to come to our conclusions.

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I did my presentation on "To what extent does physical attractiveness affect our judgment of another person?"

We did our presentation in the form of several skits, so we acted out several scenes and I made the script. We also had a small PowerPoint presentation but it was mostly pictures with one of us speaking. Basically, the slides had little to no words. We also had a few clips about how modern technology can deceive us (like doctoring photos) and we also showed this funny Japanese commercial about a nurse who looked like a drunk on her ID but was really pretty in reality (thanks to make-up!). We made sure we covered all sorts of different perspectives.

The two teachers marking my group both gave us 20/20, so I was really happy with it. Especially because we had to go up first before all the other groups! :D

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

im thinking to do my presentation on how media affects us in life...

well the media has been telling us that skinny is the new beauty, and see how many people have been starving themselves so they can reach the standard that the media set?

i found an example of an brazilian model who had anorexia nervosa because the fashion world keep telling her that she is 'too fat', she started to starve to stay skinny but her body couldnt afford it anymore.

i want to talk about the issue how our mind has been so sick because of the media that is around us. like how teenagers now think about violence...etc.

Any ideas or advice of what should i consider in my presentation?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi guys,

My tok presentation is coming up and I have chosen my central knowledge issues as

To what extent is reason the most reliable route to knowledge in the natural sciences and the human sciences?

However, I can't seem to find a real life situation in the news or etc that relates to my knowledge issue.

I will appreciate it if I can receive some ideas on a real life situation this could base off

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Guest Mohammed Rahman

Hi guys,

My tok presentation is coming up and I have chosen my central knowledge issues as

To what extent is reason the most reliable route to knowledge in the natural sciences and the human sciences?

However, I can't seem to find a real life situation in the news or etc that relates to my knowledge issue.

I will appreciate it if I can receive some ideas on a real life situation this could base off

If you can't find anything, try and work backwards; find a real life example in the news or something and base your knowledge issue on that. I think, and this is just my opinion, that you're knowledge issue now is kind of too broad. Like I said, if you don't manage to find something, work backwards.

Hope that helps.

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Is this a do-able question?

"How can we know if it is ethically important to label genetically modified foods?"

I can always change it to

"How can we know if it is important to label genetically modified foods?"

Although I think that would be passable as a KI, I don't think you would be able to explore it very much in terms of WoK and AoK. All I can think of is ... watching other people get food poisoned, therefore we must be careful in our labelling. Keep in mind that you also need a real life situation that directly relates to what you will be talking about, and you must make consistent references back to it. Unless you can come up with something much more than what I just said and satisfy the assessment criteria that is TOK, I would advise you against this topic.

When formulating a KI, you should have a question that addresses "How do you know" and make the question embedded with AoK or/and WoK unless it is plainly obvious what you are going to explore. Although this isn't a requirement for all KIs, I think it would make your investigation much easier.

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im thinking to do my presentation on how media affects us in life...

well the media has been telling us that skinny is the new beauty, and see how many people have been starving themselves so they can reach the standard that the media set?

i found an example of an brazilian model who had anorexia nervosa because the fashion world keep telling her that she is 'too fat', she started to starve to stay skinny but her body couldnt afford it anymore.

i want to talk about the issue how our mind has been so sick because of the media that is around us. like how teenagers now think about violence...etc.

Any ideas or advice of what should i consider in my presentation?

im thinking to do my presentation on how media affects us in life...

well the media has been telling us that skinny is the new beauty, and see how many people have been starving themselves so they can reach the standard that the media set?

i found an example of an brazilian model who had anorexia nervosa because the fashion world keep telling her that she is 'too fat', she started to starve to stay skinny but her body couldnt afford it anymore.

i want to talk about the issue how our mind has been so sick because of the media that is around us. like how teenagers now think about violence...etc.

Any ideas or advice of what should i consider in my presentation?

Hey I did my presentation on anorexia and how the media effects it as well! But I got a really bad grad on it, I still don't know why... I think it was because I talked more about the issue and less about ToK. Good luck!

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Hi guys.

I'm thinking about doing my presentation on the assumptions of the future, and the extent to which it limits the acquisition of knowledge. It's just a random idea I had (my presentation's two months away) but what do you guys think?

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  • 1 month later...

I always think that those usual topics and Real life situations bore the examiner so i tried to do something interesting and different.

However i have to admit, the boring presentations that stick to the mark scheme are the ones that got the best grades.

My question was:How does culture shape the way we perceive ethical values?

And my real life situation was the fact that wester cultures find the fact that taiwanese people have strippers performing at funerals wrong.

And i talked about the barrier of language (they are not called strippers in chinese) and cultural reasoning

and how those western cultures have no right to call it 'wrong'. (cultural relativism) and i continued to apply that onto how international court works.

yeah.. i got a 18/20. It was alright :)

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  • 5 months later...

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