7640y-H               

IB Theory of Knowledge Honors (Year 1)

Required for all IB Diploma candidates

Theory of Knowledge (TOK) is a three semester required course for the IB Diploma Programme.  It is available to 11th Grade students who are full IB Diploma students only. TOK in the junior year examines what it means “to know”.  The course encourages students to explore and critically analyze the world in which we live, questioning how one acquires “truth” and knowledge. It further challenges students as “knowers” to differentiate between and determine how much of what we know is truth, belief, expectation, and/or assumption. This theme of “knowledge” and the “knower” is at the core of the TOK class as students are being constantly encouraged to reflect on themselves as knowers and thinkers as well as to consider the different communities of knowers to which they belong.

Major emphasis will be placed on developing students’ analytical thinking skills and abilities.  Students will learn to justify knowledge claims, identify knowledge questions and explore Areas of Knowledge (AOK) through the Knowledge Framework which consists of four parts: scope, perspectives, methods/tools, and ethics. Students will explore the Knowledge Frameworks of several Areas of Knowledge (AOK): Natural Sciences (NS), Human Sciences (HS), History, the Arts, and Mathematics. Additionally they will explore knowledge as it relates to the following Optional Themes: Technology, Language, Religion, Politics, and Indigenous societies. The main goal of the course is not to acquire "new" knowledge, but to identify and organize our knowledge, to increase our critical understanding of what we have already learned and to help us reflect upon what we know.  

Students will complete their Formal TOK Exhibition in May, which will account for 33% of their total IB TOK grade.