Tag Archives: critical thinking

Facts and feelings: knowing better by knowing ourselves

Posted on December 3, 2018 | Leave a comment

(Eileen Dombrowski, from OUP blog) FACTS and FEELINGS: from what I read in today’s paper, there seems to be little public will to distinguish between these two when firmly asserting knowledge claims.  And from what I hear in science-based podcasts, our biased brains make it hard to do so even when we try.  As Theory of Knowledge teachers, aiming for thinking critically and appreciating what it takes to know, we’re tackling no lightweight project!  We might seriously welcome resources that give us support.  So today I’m recommending two I consider to be entertaining and helpful – a totally delightful book named Factfulness and a short video on why we can be so convinced we’re right.

DSCN5549 Continue reading →

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TOK Book Review: The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake.

Posted on November 19, 2018 | 1 comment

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(Eileen Dombrowski from OUP blog) Published just last month, this book stands out as an excellent resource on critical thinking for teachers of Theory of Knowledge.  Do you already know neurologist and science educator Steven Novella? You may, like me, already be a fan of his keen analysis, clarity, and skill of combining vast knowledge with a light touch.  He’s now pulled together threads of critical commentary into a book I recommend most highly: The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake. Continue reading →

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TOK double vision: lofty overview but critical engagement in the world

Posted on October 22, 2018 | 1 comment

(Eileen Dombrowski, from OUP blog) Remote or engaged? Can Theory of Knowledge have it both ways? In taking a meta-cognitive overview of knowledge, the course may appear to be cerebral and remote. But in teaching skills of thinking critically and evaluating perspectives, it is clearly engaged in life on the ground. How do we manage in TOK to maintain this double vision?

As an experienced teacher and blogger soon to retire, I’m writing today primarily to new TOK teachers, to offer some central ideas on our course before I go. Other experienced teachers who are also committed to applying the thinking skills of TOK to the world may have ideas of their own to add. Continue reading →

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“Deepfakes” and TOK: more trouble ahead for critical thinking? 

Posted on August 27, 2018 | 1 comment

(Eileen Dombrowski from OUP blog) Could the development in artificial intelligence dubbed “deepfakes” really “trigger social unrest, political controversy, international tensions” and “even lead to war”? Have our previous methods of telling fact from fiction been irremediably undermined? As teachers, we’re careening down new paths in evaluation of knowledge claims, trying to learn to steer in time to teach our students to drive!

Technology just got even more amazing, and our everyday critical thinking just got even more challenging. “Deepfakes” are not merely a mini-advance in digital adjustment of images and videos. Instead, they are developments in machine learning, as artificial intelligence learns and applies the algorithms to enable users to replace elements of a video with other ones not part of the original.  It is now possible for users to swap one person’s face with another’s, such as (in its early applications) replacing a porn performer’s face with a celebrity’s. It is now possible to create convincing videos of world leaders firmly saying things they did not say – in fact. In fact. Continue reading →

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“Stay cool. TOK teachers can handle this.” Astrology & belief.

Posted on August 14, 2018 | Leave a comment

180813 horoscope(Eileen Dombrowski from OUP blog) Are we on “the path back into darkness, tribalism, feudalism, superstition, and belief in magic”?  The apparent upsurge of belief in astrology has sent one of my favourite bloggers and podcasters, neurologist and skeptic Steven Novella, into a paroxysm of sheer frustration. How can anything so thoroughly debunked as astrology make inroads back into public belief?  But – stay cool, Steven! This is a job for Theory of Knowledge teachers!  It seems to me we’re in a perfect spot to raise questions about astrology – not with earnest annoyance but with humour and a light heart. Continue reading →

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Exercise for awareness: facts, feelings, and changing your mind

Posted on April 23, 2018 | 1 comment

(by Theo Dombrowski, from OUP blog) Here’s a challenge for your students. Are they open to changing their opinions if faced with contrary facts? Today we offer a class exercise – ready for you to download, to use directly or to customize – whose goal is student self-awareness. It demands reflection, research, and discussion, and should raise discussion on facts, feelings, values, opinions, and confirmation bias in accepting or rejecting knowledge claims. The formatted version is available for download at the end of this post. Continue reading →

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“Fake news”: updating TOK critique

Posted on February 12, 2018 | 1 comment

news dood clip(by Eileen Dombrowski, OUP blog) “Fake news” is a term that I would happily consign to the annals of 2016 and 2017. Goodbye. But as it lives on, it morphs meaning – and takes on further allure for TOK analysis. It doesn’t just face us, belligerently, with issues of truth and falsehood. It also offers an excellent current example, rooted in real life situations, of another topic central to Theory of Knowledge: the interaction between concepts and language. Further, its shifts in meaning demonstrate the care that we have to take with our tools of analysis – that is, our words and terms. Time for a TOK update! Continue reading →

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“2017, a good year”: Wasn’t it?

Posted on December 22, 2017 | 1 comment

171218 new-year(by Eileen Dombrowski, from OUP blog) As 2017 comes to a close, what impression will our students have of the world in which they live? Is it of an angry and threatening place? If they follow the news – even if only through social media – they might benefit from ending 2017 or starting 2018 by stepping back from the predominantly shocking or grim events that so often characterize headline news to encounter some of the good news that can easily get lost. For TOK, a class on “good news” reinforces much that we teach about knowledge production – and at the same time offers (perhaps) a little lift of the heart. Continue reading →

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SPOT and the cloak of invisibility: cognitive biases

Posted on November 6, 2017 | Leave a comment
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For the observer: a cloak of invisibility?

(Eileen Dombrowski, from OUP blog) With a laugh, I pass on to you today a couple more cognitive biases, ones that students are likely to enjoy. We could, of course, despair over how deep our biases seem to go and what a challenge it is to achieve an open mind, but I find it curiously entertaining to learn about the quirky biases of our human minds. Maybe it even creates some patience with other people – those others who are so stubbornly wrong! – if we recognize that we are also naively wrong ourselves.

When considering reason as a way of knowing, we Theory of Knowledge teachers have long treated fallacies that derail clear thinking. When considering intuition as a way of knowing, we have a wealth of material in all the biases that kick in before we’re even consciously thinking. At moments, I’ve idly wondered whether we could teach the entire TOK course centred on confirmation bias, our tendency to notice and accept only information that reinforces what we believe already.   Continue reading →

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Controversy in the Canada Day Party: analyzing perspectives for understanding

Posted on July 16, 2017 | 1 comment


(by Eileen Dombrowski, from OUP blog) Differing perspectives are easiest to see when they come into conflict.  As a result, it’s tempting for Theory of Knowledge students to seize on conflicts as topics for presentations — and for us as teachers to use them as class examples to illustrate differences in perspectives. As I’m about to do here!   I worry a bit, though, that, unless we treat perspectives with nuance and some empathy for the people involved, we could end up entrenching a binary vision of the world, and possibly a static one where we don’t reach beyond the conflicts into hope for the future.

A conflict in my own country this month over the meaning of Canada Day is a case in point: a specific event gave the media a story and focused attention on conflicting views. It’s a good example in various ways to take to a TOK class, but done well only if we place the skill of identifying perspectives within the larger TOK and IB goals of curiosity, openness and desire to understand. Continue reading →

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