Theory Of Knowledge & EE

Yello!

 

Today's post is about the subject going by the name of Theory of Knowledge and its importance of it in your IB diploma programme and the Extended Essay that has been mentioned quite a few times but yet not to be clarified in depth.

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T.O.K.

 

The majestic language of our minds.. Theory of Knowledge (a.k.a T.O.K. because its badass). It's basically this awesome subject is here to help you understand as well as challenge your surroundings as a learning student in the IB. It's actually a very fun subject indeed because you get to let your thoughts and opinions out on things and talk about contradicting issues that are debated even today like what is the meaning of life and all that cool and thoughtful stuff.

From Theory of Knowledge you are able to gain 1.5 points for your final grade by essays, tests and we guess just class behaviour all in all. So be on your best behaviour, it is not a class for slacking off!

Now, this is what IB wants you to get out of T.O.K. so listen up:

1. Learn to reflect critically in all sorts of ways of knowing and areas of knowledge. (sounds complicated, right?)
2. Gain awareness of different cultures and others in the whole wide world we got going on here.
3. To strengthen your thinking skills (thinkers) and to understand the complexity of knowledge
4. You should become aware of the interpretative nature of knowledge with personal assumptions, regardless of whether, ultimately, these assumptions are cut down, revised or down right rejected.
5. The ability to apply your knowledge with greater awareness and credibility - this shows in our IB books when some of them have little side notes of 'TOK sessions'.

In addition, TOK is composed almost entirely of questions with the most central one being

"HOW DO WE KNOW?!"

that we know, that we know.. how to create a mind?

This all may sound a little boring to you, however, we at least have a very knowledgeable and fun teacher so we also get do really interesting things like brain teasers and debates on various subjects. We will put a few of these brain teasers for you so that you can get a little taste of 'jogging' your brain for a change!

In our opinion, debates are a lot of fun after a long day of academic studies. We can let our minds run free and think outside the box and maybe come up with some philosophical ideas. We've had a role-play debate in history with characters such as  Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. We've also done some other smaller group debates on issues with morals, language barriers and culture. All in all, it's all good.

For the brain teasers!

Puzzle:
Shown above are 4 men buried up to their necks in the ground. They can not move so can only look forward. Between A and B is a brick wall which can not be seen through. They know that between them are 4 hats, 2 are black and 2 are white, but they do not know which color they are wearing. In order to avoid being shot one of them must call out to the executioner the color of their hat. If they get it wrong, everyone will be shot. They are not allowed to talk to each other and have 10 minutes to fathom it out.

Question: Which one of them calls out ?

Question: Why is he 100% certain of the color of his hat ?

Tune in next week for the answer! (if you gave up, that is..)

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Extended Essay

The best part of the IB is writing a 4000 word essay during your summer vacation while all of your friends are on the beach enjoying their time off. However you can make this experience enjoyable and outdoorsy if you choose your topic wisely. To get over with the formalities, essentially "the Extended Essay is a in-depth study  of a focused topic chosen from the list of approved Diploma Programme subjects", to quote from the Extended Essay guide from the IBO site.

 ...The important facts for you to know are the following:

• YOU ALL HAVE TO DO THIS ESSAY!!
• It will be sent away to the IBO hub to be assessed
• The EE and TOK together will contribute up to three points to the total score of the IB Diploma
• You will be supervised by an IB teahcer in your school
•  As said before the essay is 4000 words long (if you go over the word limit you will be doomed or in other words you will lose points)
• The legend says it will take approximately 40 hours of work, but we have been warned that it will take more
• At the sweet end you will have a short interview with your supervisor



So far we have been choosing our topics and reading the 20 page Extended Essay Guide. Though we haven't quite started our own essays yet we have been given one important tip:

START EARLY!!!

Now, last but certainly not least! Below you can see marking range with your T.O.K studies and the Extended Essay. Be sure to read this through!

Alrighty then! See ya's next week!