Whatever your level of experience, our video training courses help you to take ownership of TOK, understand its potential to offer a life-changing cognitive experience, and ensure it functions as the hub of your DP programme.
Choose one of the video courses below, and follow the payment details. If you need any help signing up, just shoot us an email at [email protected]
TOK 101 course
This four-module course is designed for anyone coming to TOK for the first time, such as educators teaching the course for the first time, and new DP faculty members. Module content: 1 Grasping the basics, 2 Understanding the TOK assessment tasks, 3 Making TOK the hub of the DP, 4 The bigger picture. Find out more, and register for the course, here.
Key thinkers who have inspired our approach to TOK
Our approach to TOK has been informed by many key thinkers, among them John Stuart Mill, Julia Galef, Alex Edmans, and Sir Ken Robinson. Each has shaped the way we think about what critical thinking means, and what it looks like in practice.
John Stuart Mill’s observation that “he who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that” is the founding principle of ACT. Julia Galef’s distinction between scout and soldier mentalities develops this further, and her insight that scouts are people whose self-worth is not tied to being right is, for us, one of the most important ideas in education.
Alex Edmans (see video) reminds us that critical thinking is not an elite skill reserved for specialists. “We often have the discerning skills already within ourselves,” he argues. “We just need to overcome our biases and deploy them.” Sir Ken Robinson’s insistence that education must be personalised rather than standardised underpins our entire approach to ACT as a framework for developing genuinely independent minds.
All of these thinkers feature directly in our full-length courses and mini-lessons. We believe that if an idea is not engaging enough to share with students, it should not be driving our pedagogy.
Meet the course leader Michael Dunn
Michael Dunn is the Cambridge-based founder of theoryofknowledge.net. He has worked as a teacher for nearly 25 years, and has led TOK workshops in schools all over the world. He is one of the world’s most innovative and influential TOK educators.
His PD sessions are highly interactive, clear, and jargon-free, and offer participants practical takeaways that can be used effectively in the classroom. Find out more about him on this page, and see testimonials about his support from members of the site here.