~ . ~ 7 Course assessment The TOK presentation - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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7 • Course assessment • The TOK presentation

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The TOK presentation

. . · f

• u to show your skill at

The TOK presentatiOn IS an opportumty or y identifying and discussing knowledge issues in the context of the relatively comfortable surroundings of your own ~lasro~m. Each presentation should have two stages: an introductiOn. bnefly describing the real-life/contemporary situation or t?pic you ~ave chosen· and then a treatment of knowledge issues m this topic. The ery b;oad term "real-life/contemporary situation" was purposefully

~onceived

by the authors of the subject guide to allow a~l TOK students to find topics of genuine personal concern a~d mterest to them as knowers. Your teacher might provide you With some alternative topics to choose from, or might instead leave y~u

t?

.

decide completely on your own. Locate the TOK presen~atwn Icon m ..

~

.

previous chapters to remind yourself of the kinds of topics th~\ca~r

~

count as real-life or contemporary situations that are appropna e assessment purposes. 276 Putting TOK into the presentation . . The scenery or context: real-life/contemporary sttuatwn Time for TOK presentations? Whether you are working on your own

• r with other members of your class in a small group, star~

by defining some situations or general topics that concern or.m:er~st

• Focus on ones that might pique your classmates' cunosity m

;r~r

to engage them in a great classroom discussion after your presentation. Some strategies for finding a topic include the following:

• Collect written material from newspapers and different sorts of
• magazines. Notice photographs, captions, c~arts,

graphs, and

• headlines. Be conscious of the kinds of stones that catch ~our
• attention. What do they have in common? Read s~me

articles more thoroughly than you may have done at the time of the events or when you first read or heard about them.

• Consider activities you particularly enjoy. What are your

hobbies? Special skills? Sports? Do you play in a band? ~o you go to art exhibitions or go to every film or play yo_u ~an

. Are

you a member of a club, society, or local commun:ty.

• Think about your own life experience. Your ex~ene~ce

as a best friend or grand-daughter, part-time worker, or Immigrant can provide interesting material for reflection. . Th.nk about your favourite IB subject. Consider the topics or

• ski~ls

within it that interest you most and the reflections that are stirred in your mind. . .

• Consider your CAS programme, and your most ennching

experiences within it.

• Think about any cause, local or global, that you support.

If you are working in a group, share your ideas. Then

,~arow.

y~ur

choices down to two or three topics. You now have a short bst .

Knowledge issues: the heart . . .

First, to decide which topic on your short list IS the wmne~, ensure that you can formulate the knowledge issue(s) that make It relevant and interesting from a TOK point of view. Discard any topic about which you cannot pose at least one clear question concerning

• knowledge. Go back to the section on knowledge issues earlier in

this chapter if you aren't sure. This is a vital step in this process. If you skip it, or skimp on it, your presentation will not.fulfill the essential TOK requirement. Second, ensure that the topic is a practical and effective choice for the amount of time you have. Be conscious of your time constraints. TOK presentations can be done by a single student or a small group working together, with a maximum of five students per group. You will have approximately 10 minutes per member of the group with a maximum of 30 minutes. In other words if you work on your own, you will be given 10 minutes (not counting the discussion time your presentation provokes); if you work with a classmate, 20 minutes, or if you work with a group of three to five, about 30 minutes. Time management and planning are crucial for ensuring a successful presentation. Discard, therefore, any topic which requires considerable background information before you can begin to treat the knowledge issue. If you need 20 out of your 30 minutes to present to your class information on a topic about which they know almost nothing (e.g. chaos theory, the details of a cause you support, or the legal requirements for refugee status), it's probably not a good topic. Similarly, if you are contemplating a topic with a lot of detail, such as the conflict between your country and its neighbours, you would be well advised to look elsewhere if you cannot narrow it to the point that most of your time, effort, and creativity are put into developing the knowledge issue(s). One certain way to guarantee that knowledge issues are the centre

• f attention in your presentation is to fulfil what is an IB

requirement anyway: do a good job on the presentation planning document which your teacher will ask to discuss with you in

• advance. In it, you will have to state:
• the knowledge issue(s) that will be the focus of your

presentation

• a summary in note form of the way you plan to deal with it in

your presentation.

The action on stage

Decide on the kind of "action" you are going to stage for your presentation in terms of how best to portray the perspectives on, and convey the depth of, your understanding of knowledge issues applied to the situation you have chosen. Live skits (say of news reporting or interviews to a panel of experts) and dramatized readings are popular ways of getting across to your audience different perspectives on knowledge issues, as are showing video clips or listening to a recording of you and your group doing something out of class as a means to launch into your live analysis. You can use music, costumes, props of all sorts, and any material

(~sua!

• r otherwise) that you think will work in the service of your

PriiUe objective: to demonstrate how much and how well you can

7 • Course assessment • The TOK presentation

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7 • Course assessment • The TOK presentation

apply TOK skills to a real-life/contemporary situation. What takes place "on stage" should help your audience understand the heart of the matter.

Knowledge issues-the heart of your TOK presentation

In this book and in your classroom you have read about and discussed an

enormous variety of knowledge issues. Choose one or a few well-defined, related issues that emerge from or are implicit in the real-

life/contemporary situation you have chosen. Spend most of your

presentation treating them from di fferent perspectives.

Your topic-a real-life/contemporary situation ... the context or scenery you choose

Decide from amongst a vast array of possibilities, including:

• your personal life experience as a unique individual or member
• f a community
• local, national, or regional discussion and affairs of interest to you
• global or international problems, dilemmas, crises that matter
• aspects of interest within areas of knowledge you are studying
• news or news coverage of events: political, scientific, technological

amongst others. Fending off potential disaster The two scenarios below describe presentation plans that will not lead to good presentations. Can you see why? You and the other members in your group are very motivated to learn about global warming, so you decide to choose it as the topic of your TOK presentation. Since there are three classmates in the group, each chooses a different aspect of global warming to research. You spend a Sunday afternoon explaining your findings to each other, and create a PowerPoint presentation in which you include not just the information you gathered but also graphs and photographs about climate change as complementary visual aids to heighten your classmates' understanding of this phenomenon. You are confident that you will engage the other members of your TOK class so much, that they too will want to find out more about this topic. 2 A few weeks ago you saw a video about birth control in which amongst other things, a fetus was shown to feel acute pain. You decide that the real-life situation for your TOK presentation is

• abortion. You decide first to answer for your class some basic

questions concerning types of abortion, the variety of ways it is possible to induce it and a description of what you have learnt is called "post-abortion syndrome"; then to present some comparative facts about abortion laws in different countries. Since two of the members of your group are strenuously

• pposed to abortion, while you and one other member think

that abortion is a choice that belongs to each woman, the class is guaranteed to hear both sides of the argument. Everyone in the

7 • Course assessment • The TOK presentation

~las

will want to participate in the discussion your presentation Is sure to provoke. Review the TOK Presentation Criteria and in particular the

des~ri~tion

.of th~ top achievement level for each, give~

• below. In

their h~ht, Ident.Ify the defects in these presentation plans, modify the design, and m the process discover some common problems so that you can avoid them when you do your own presentation.

TOK presentation assessment criteria4

A Identification of knowledge issues

?id ~h.e

presentation identify a relevant knowledge issue involved, Impliat, or embedded in a real-life situation?

Achievement level Descriptor

5

The presentation identified a knowledge issue that was clearly relevant to the real-life situation under consideration

B Treatment of knowledge issues

?id the. presentation show a good understanding of knowledge

Issues, m the context of the real-life situation?

Achievement level Descriptor

5

The presentation showed a good understanding of knowledge issues

C Knower's perspective Did the presentation, particularly in the use of arguments and examples, show an individual approach and demonstrate the significance of the topic?

Achievement level Descriptor

5

D Connections

The presentation, in its distinctively personal use of arguments and examples or otherwise, showed clear personal involvement and fully demonstrated the significance of the topic.

Did the presentation give a balanced account of how the topic could be approached from different perspectives? Did the presentation show how the positions taken on the knowledge issues would have implications in related areas?

Achievement level Descriptor

5

The presentation gave a clear account of how the question could be approached from different perspectives and considered their implications in related areas.

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7 • Course assessment • The TOK presentation

Putting the TOK into the presentation:

a real-life odyssey

by Manjula Salomon

1 Search link: find a topic

Start with your own questions, your passions,

• r your concerns.

Collect many newspapers and magazines of different kinds. Flip through them, seeking a topic in which you're highly interested-one which you'd like to deepen your understanding

• f. (Note that it's easier to choose a topic of

wide scope and narrow it down, than to choose a limited topic and stretch it out.) Or you may hear about an interesting real-life situation in one of your classes, such as

• geography. For example, you decide to

investigate recent natural disasters attributed to global warming. 2 Question link: formulate a question Go to a reliable website that gives background information on your chosen topic. Once you understand what has happened, you can explore the situation with a focus on knowledge issues. Think: what knowledge issues offer themselves? In the natural disaster example: prediction, cause-effect, ethical aspects, coverage in the media, others particular to the natural disaster you chose. Formulate your knowledge issue as a question. For example, could this disaster have been predicted? Was it a consequence of global warming? To what extent is there a moral instinct to help others in the face of disaster? Who has the responsibility to help others? 3 Organizational link: plan the

presentation

a Honour the Knowledge Tripod: 1 a real-life situation leads to 2 identification of knowledge issues, which are analysed through 3 different perspectives. b Be aware of the organizational sequence expected in a TOK presentation. Can you cover all the necessary points in the time allotted? Is your focus on the knowledge issue(s)? Do you feel personally involved with the topic? Are you exploring and analysing it from different perspectives? Do you recognize the implications of these perspectives? c Decide how you're going to deliver the

• presentation. If you're working with
• thers, set up the protagonists, the

members of your group who will represent sides or perspectives. Use them to bring out your "connections" of different perspectives. Will you present a role play, a re-creation of an event, a talk show, a panel. .. ? Use your imagination to figure out how best to deliver the key elements of your presentation. 4 Performance link: deliver the

presentation

Create a common understanding in the first few minutes. Set up the topic with only as much narrative as needed for your audience to understand the issue. Perhaps you need a handout, a news clip, a mini skit. Go for what interested you in the first place- strike gold with your own interest and passion about th e topic. Audience involvement is to your advantage. Perhaps you want to take a poll of their

• pinion before and after your presentation.

Bon voyage. Use your own approaches. Use your own country. Use distinct cultural

• viewpoints. Contrast viewpoints. Do not seek to

"win" a debate, but to walk a modest mile in the company of your TOK peers. TOK students do not stay on the shore. Begin your odyssey. The sirens of knowledge call.

7 • Course assessment The TOK presentation

Final tips on presentations

• Cover one or a few knowledge issues in depth rather than trying

to cover a lot in a shallow way. Clearly identify them in the planning document you have to hand in to your teacher.

• When you make a claim, statement, or judgment about your

topic, immediately seek out counter-claims by asking yourself what someone who disagrees with you would say, and what reasons he could give.

• Don't forget that yours is one amongst various perspectives on

the topic. How might a person from a different culture, or of a different age, generation, class, religion, educational background,

• r academic discipline think about this issue? Incorporate these

perspectives in the format of your presentation, in your decision about what will take place on centre stage.

• It may be easy enough to find fault in other people's positions,

and to iden tify their questionable assumptions, presuppositions, and biases. What are yours? Probably these are harder to spot, but constitute a very important part of TOK learning which, once acknowledged, will earn you points on your presentations. This is an essential life skill.

You will be asked by your teacher to assess your own presentation

using the TOK assessment criteria. Your teacher will hope to confirm your self-assessment. If not, though, it will be the teacher's marks that are sen t to the IBO. Do your best to get it right, and to earn the highest score you can.

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The TOK essay

I

Myth: E very subject requires a di fferent kind of essay.

Fad: Although there are some surface differences in

approach, all Diploma Programme subjects, the extended essay , and theory of knowledge demand some fundamental qualities in a good essay: a demonstrated understanding of the topic under discussion a demonstrated skill in analytical thinking in the form learned in the particular subject a well-organized and clearly written presentation

• f the ideas, with control of overall argument

honesty in not plagiarizing, and formalization of this principle by following accepted practice of footnotes and bibliography. Gaining control of essay writing in any one part of your Diploma Programme helps in all other parts. Unlike the topics for your class presentations, the questions you will answer for your TOK essay-called "prescribed titles"-come from the IBO. Your teacher will reproduce for you a list of ten titles out of Which you will choose one to answer individually, as will all other

IB candidates for the session in which you are registered. Two-thirds

• f your final TOK mark for the IB rests on how well you can

demonstrate, through this essay, the breadth and depth of your TOK learning. The TOK essay can be a great pleasure to write. It is your chance to show your own keen mind at work, truly engaged with significant

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