Knowledge Question Film Festival activity

This is an activity I have just tried with my ToK students. The goal is to enable them to relate a KQ to a YouTube video. One of my unspoken goals is to demonstrate that ToK is to be found in everyday situations and in popular culture, not just in serious academic examples (as they sometimes expect). This slideshow includes some examples I have given to set the tone of the activity. I do not claim that all of my KQs are robust. I could imagine either a teacher or students organising this activity.

Having just run this activity, there are some reflections I will make. Despite my insisting on 3 minute maximum (to fit the whole thing in class time and to avoid self-indulgence), the students found it difficult to be so restricted (a lot of songs come in between 3 and 4 minutes). On the assumption that the average length of video might be 3 minutes, a 4 minute limit is what I'll try for next time. My advice in choosing a video is to start with the video and identify the KQ. As ToK teachers we know tat ToK is everywhere: you can always think about the medium rather than the message when looking for a KQ.

I did not find a good way to share the KQs and have concluded that I might make them into physical posters next time which we can hang around the class. I was trying to cut and paste them into the chat, but it was too distracting when I was actually trying to join in the conversation.

It's not possible to randomise the playlist, so I sorted it by number of views (called popularity), but didn't say so. That meant that the order wasn't dictated by when I received the videos. I don't know what the students have said to each other, but I did not identify the video and KQ by their authors. I cut and paste the KQs into the 'notes' section the playlist has for each video.

Next time we meet, I shall organise an activity where we judge the KQs against the criteria of 1 open-ended; 2 about knowledge; 3 in ToK vocabulary; 4 ToK-style (the X-factor).

How and why the brain falls for optical illusions

There are a lot of videos and articles about optical illusions and what they tell us about sense perception. This one is particularly good at explaining the assumptions your brain is making when you see things but not as they really are.

Art from simple objects

The artist, Christoph Niemann brilliantly turns familiar objects into great images. He talk thoughtfully about art, perspectives and sense perception as he does it.

Practice analysing Knowledge Questions

Before students develop their own Knowledge Questions (KQ), it is helpful for them to be acquainted with working with KQs. Several terms are used in the ToK Subject Guide whose meaning students are assumed to understand (eg what is a "counterclaim"?). These terms are explained in this activity

For this assignment, 3 KQs were suggested by a recent field trip to the battlefield of Verdun (which is quite near to our school), but teachers are of course free to develop their own or to require their students to supply one. If you want to adapt this activity, make a copy and edit it as you wish.

Football and Memory

Memory is imperfect at the best of times, but certain physical activities have immediate deleterious effects. Apparently the research shows the effect to be temporary.

No one is average

Another great podcast from 99 Percent Invisible. This one talks about the evolution of the concept of the average and how it serves a purpose, but is also very misleading, because none of us is average in every respect. It led to WW2 planes not having adjustable seatsfor fighter pilots, for example - with fatal results. This programme touches on Human Sciences, Mathematics, Science, History and Ethics

You can't predict the future, but Science tries all the same

I found this blogpost hiding in my old Google + posts. It's from 2012, and the writer even uses an example of Hurricane Sandy which was approaching but hadn't made land yet. A few days later it would turn out to be second only to Katrina. In Italy, following an earthquake, scientists who, it was claimed, had not predicted it, were jailed.

Every day we behave on the assumption that what happened in the past will pertain in the future. Science has codified a sophisticated version of this process of inference (though my previous blogpost was about occasions where repeatability was not demonstrated).

As ever, Ethan Siegel (Starts with a Bang blog) dissects the arguments, illustrates them very well and explains them for a ToK audience.

Many experiments are not reliable

The middle segment (from 23 minutes) of this great Slate discussion considers findings that many experimental results in the Human Sciences, and also in some branches of medicine, have proven not to be reproducible. One of my favourite results, about the reduction in willpower when short-term memory is in use, was not repeated when other experimenters tried it. The panel discusses sample size, experimental methods and the cultures of different scientific and social science disciplines.
I can embed the audio. It's at this link (click below the picture). Start at 23 minutes.

Slate podcast link

Cultures are more alike than they differ

From fire-walking to opera, humans do some very strange things.

It is more than 20 years old (you can tell by all the people smoking indoors), and this final episode in Desmond Morris' series The Human Animal has a great ToK attitude. We see people all around the world being creative and playful and realise that this happens in every corner of the world. It's a great way to see that even the most apparently mundane of our own habits is exotic.

And no-one knows that the Internet is right around the corner!

The ethics of an Eye in the Sky which solves murders

Mass murderers in Tijuana, Mexico were caught using spy planes and big data to track them backwards in time from the crimes they committed. It is estimated that other cities could use this technology to cut crime dramatically. Will citizens accept the colossal amount of data about their movements which would be collected? This is a brilliant revisit of a recent Radiolab episode which connects Big Data, Science and Ethics.

Missing Continents at the British Museum

Artist Anthony Gormley reflects on the changing role of the British Museum.

• What is the hierarchy of cultural artifacts which the British Museum has traditionally represented?
• Has the Museum been successful in giving more attention to non-European cultures?
• What roles do inanimate objects have in understanding History?
• Can one culture be properly understood by another?
• Can the British Museum be seen as an exhibit in its own exhibition?

If you would like to suggest a question, please add in the comments below.

Here is the podcast. They warned that it would disappear, but allowed downloading of the MP3 file,so here is a link to the file.

Another approach to syllogisms

We learn about logic by considering hypothetical situations, regardless of the truth of the statements - only the argument matters. And it is regarded as a pinnacle of Western thought. As this cartoon demonstrates, there are other ways to think about this. Don't miss the text when you hover over it. If you can't see it, and in any case just for fun, you should see the XKCD site.

https://xkcd.com/1134/

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