PLANNING A TOK COURSE OR SCHEME OF WORK

As we have been suggesting, ‘backwards planning’, designing the course in terms of the knowledge and skills being
assessed at the end of it, might be more productive than designing a course around the discrete WoKs and AoKs, and
then leaving students to work out only at the end how they are meant to succeed in the two assessments.

We have seen how two schools have planned in this way – now it is time to do it for your own school, either as an
entire course, or simply as the scheme of work that you are responsible for.

YOUR TASK

1. ‘Collect’ all of the KNOWLEDGE QUESTIONS and REAL LIFE SITUATIONS that
(i) interest you and that
(ii) would allow you to ‘cover’ the requisite WoKs and AoKs (and which central concept/s within them that
you wish to focus on) and which will
(iii) allow you to range over and across artificial WoK and AoK boundaries. You can do this either by
‘farming’ from past Assessed Essay titles, or by looking at the ToK Guide, or from so-called ToK
‘textbooks’…or, preferably, by creating your own based on responses to the Knowledge Framework.
(iv) Consider how the chosen KQs and RLS’ will allow you to embed a number of ATL skills into your
teaching and learning activities.

2. These KQs or RLSs then become the ‘theme’, or ‘title’ of a particular class or week’s work;

3. You will then need to consider PRIMARY and SECONDARY RESOURCES – a PRIMARY source will be from
another Diploma Subject (for instance, a text being studied in History, or a description of a Biology lab, or a
page from a Mathematics textbook), or a CAS activity; a SECONDARY source will be from a source other than a
Diploma class or a CAS activity but clearly related;

4. Consider what TASK/S you may want students to carry out on the back of this/these lesson/s.

5. Of course, you are completely free to change the organization of the following table to suit your own needs.
 IB1 TOK

LESSON/ RELATED CENTRAL CENTRAL KNOWLEDGE RELATED REAL- TEACHING STUDENT

WEEK/ AOKs/WOKs CONCEPTS QUESTION LIFE SITUATION RESOURCES TASKS
UNIT
1&2 Human Sciences Theory; the To what extent is it possible Playing the game Albert Camus’ essay Listen to one of
(Philosophy) Quantitative to argue that humans ‘Get that chip out ‘The Myth of the following,
and the actually have of my brain’ in Sisyphus’; Sartre’s and
Qualitative. Free will? Philosophy class. ‘Existentialism is a outline in your
Humanism’ ch. 2; Journal how
Locke’s ‘Enquiries’ you deal with
Ch. 2 Section XXI; the problem
Libet/Kornhuber of free will: In
tests. Our Time,
Philosophy bites
or this TED
talk.
3&4 Human Sciences Theory; Is it possible to determine Ayer –Ch. 6 of
(Philosophy); Language; whether or not language is ‘Language, Truth
Language the capable of being used and Logic’;
Quantitative objectively? Nietzsche’s ‘The
and the Genealogy of
Qualitative. Morals’ Essay 1, pp
1-3.
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22