Critical and reflective thinkers in our IB Academy

Assessment in Theory of Knowledge (TOK) is conducted through a TOK Exhibition and a 1600-word TOK essay. The TOK exhibition is an internal assessment component that is marked by the teacher and moderated by the IB. It is an excellent opportunity for students to explore what knowledge is and what impacts how we know things. It requires students to create an exhibition of three objects, or images of objects, and an accompanying commentary on each object. Completing the TOK exhibition helps learners to improve on all five aspects of the approaches to learning (ATL) namely: research; communication; thinking; self-management and social skills. Many of the IB Learner Profile attributes are also brought to the fore throughout the journey from the moment the exhibition requirements are shared with the students to the post-exhibition reflection and debrief sessions.

On Friday 16 September, our Year 13 students had the opportunity to display their exhibitions and explain how they used their selected objects to explore one of the 35 IA prompts that they each chose. Of the 35 prompts, Question 30: What role does imagination play in producing knowledge about the world? proved the most popular, followed by Question 23: How important are material tools in the production or acquisition of knowledge? The TOK Exhibition was a culmination of many months of hard work that began during the lockdown months, which meant that the students were denied the opportunity to interact directly and receive face-to-face support from their TOK and Subject Teachers. Nevertheless, this did not deter our students from exploring how knowledge manifests itself tangibly in objects around us, travelling beyond the realm of abstract concepts and ideas. The exhibitions showcased were of a high quality and the students were able to articulate their knowledge claims to Year 11 and Year 12 students, their peers as well as teachers who visited the Well of Knowledge.

When responding to a post-exhibition survey, 76% of the Y13 students agreed that the time allocated for writing the first draft (including over the summer) made it possible for them to undertake adequate research into their selected objects. 74% affirmed that preparing the TOK Exhibition plan beforehand helped provide clarity to the process. 72% of the respondents felt confident and well prepared when presenting their exhibitions to the audiences that visited their stalls. Of the Year 12s who responded to a separate survey, 62% chose selecting their prompts and objects early as the key aspects they felt will help them to prepare well for their own exhibitions next year.

Shiori Moroo, one of our Year 13 students, reflected on the process.

I chose ‘In what ways do our values affect our production of knowledge?’ as my TOK Exhibition prompt, and I explored this from two opposing Areas Of Knowledge (AOKs): Natural Science and History. During the day of our TOK Exhibition, I presented my three perspectives on this open-ended question whilst also attaining other students' and teachers' stances. Understanding the diverse perspectives on how much our values can affect the production of knowledge allowed me to further solidify my essay on its inevitability in History and preventability in Natural Science. Through this subject, I can recognise that our role as students is not only about learning the 'knowledge' of the world, but more importantly about questioning what constitutes, or what should constitute 'knowledge'. It also allows us to understand the methodologies and scopes behind the production of knowledge in the different subjects that we study at IB, which gives us the capacity to develop a habit of being critical and reflective thinkers in our academics.