International Baccalaureate Diploma Program - Subject: Theory of Knowledge Introduction

Mr. Ngawang Tenzin, is Head Librarian and TOK faculty with Aditya Birla World Academy - Mumbai. In this conversation we have discussed in details about What is TOK? How is it structured? and what are the relevant library resources for it? Following is the summary of our conversations

IB has three cores essential elements that every student must complete as part of the Diploma Program (DP)

A) Theory of Knowledge (TOK)

B) Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS)

C) Extended Essay (EE)

A) Theory of Knowledge (TOK)

Has syllabus and guidelines by IBO but there is no prescribed textbook and the TOK faculty has to build their own content. The nature of subject looks like mix of philosophy & psychology but it is actually not exactly like that. IB has beautifully structured TOK to promote enquiry in a way that it embeds IB education philosophy to achieve its mission statement. In other words crux of TOK is to promote Critical thinking, Creativity, Communication and Collaboration skills.

Main aim of TOK defined by IB is dependent on one questions, "How do we know what we know?" Just as knowledge is diverse in nature the way of knowing is also diverse. Your role as a knower in your culture, other culture and wider world could also define your knowledge.

In this situation a question arises, 'how would students decided that this is particular knowledge a student is seeking?'

So, in the subject we look at the nature and area of knowledge. TOK helps students appreciate the different cultural perspective in order to remove the clashes of viewpoints, believes and make the world a better and more accommodative place for all.

This leads to another question, 'What are the structure and resources required by students in order to explore it?'

And the simple answer lies within, 'how do we know what we know' or 'what you know & how you know'. However, to make it simpler and organised IB has two themes, the core theme and the sub theme. Where knower is core theme and knowledge in politics, religion, technology, language, indigenous society is sub theme. Along with this core and sub theme IB has prescribe five areas of knowledge which is natural science, human science, mathematics, history and arts.

The main idea is to look at the problem of the knowledge. To understand this in a better way we can take history subject as an example where TOK could be, 'To what extent history is not the study of past but knowers (core theme) interpretation of the past." Here interpretation is the problem of the knowledge (sub theme) in the history area of knowledge. One student can have one interpretation of knowledge, another student can have other interpretation of knowledge (sub theme) based on their culture, religion, language, methodology or political inclination. Core theme (knower) talks about student's role as a knower, student as an individual knower, student as a knower of a member of community and student as a knower of nation etc.

In the end there are two assessments:-

1) Earlier it was PPT but in new syllabus its exhibition by 3 students in a group. Student has to choose three objects in the sense digital objects like a book cover, controversial photo or tweet or students own siblings photo with particular memory. With these three objects the student needs to choose one knowledge statement out of 35 knowledge statements given by IB and link three objects with this prompt. They have to write a commentary of 900 words. This is TOK exhibition.

C) Extended Essay

Here student writes an analytical article of more than 1200 words. Out of 6 prescribe titles issued by IBO students choose one title and the TOK ppt is then sent to external IBO moderator mentioning the real life situation (RLS) used, justification of the statement and TOK faculty recommendation. 

The moderator then marks the students. Two assessments have to done by DP Students out which TOK is compulsory.