Big Question 6 asks, How do we become discerning knowers? It looks at what it takes to become a sophisticated knower about the world, and how this sets you apart from ‘ordinary’ knowers.
We focus on multiple areas of knowledge and themes, such as knowledge & the knower, the natural sciences, and the human sciences.
Accessing the lesson presentations for BQ6
Gain access to the 12 classroom-ready lessons for BQ1 by joining theoryofknowledge.net. Membership also gives access to our other resources for TOK, including the newsletter, Investigating Issues, the TOK mini-lessons, 12 Key Concepts, Knowledge Heroes, and loads of other resources. Download a sample BQ6 lesson here.
Enrichment resources for BQ6
Use the tabs below to access our other resources, which are designed to be used alongside the BQ lessons. They’ll help students to articulate their ideas, find real-world situations and issues, take ownership of the key concepts, and draw on the ideas of brilliant and influential thinkers to understand TOK, and create fantastic exhibitions and essays.
The TOK mini-lessons enable you and your students to explore the very latest events and issues going on around the world, and connect them to the TOK course.
Teachers can use the mini-lessons to create an alternative pathway of TOK lessons, use them to augment the lessons found within this BQ unit, or share them with non-TOK teachers to integrate the course with the rest of the DP. Find the mini-lessons here.
The 12 concepts are: certainty, culture, evidence, explanation, interpretation, justification, objectivity, perspective, power, responsibility, truth, and values. Using them to articulate your understanding of the course will help you to create a great TOK exhibition and essay.
Our Key Concept Padlets help you to understand each idea within a real-world context, and link them to both to the different aspects of the course, and the 6 Big Questions. Check out this resource here.
The Exploring TOK padlets enable students to develop a deeper understanding of the themes and areas of knowledge via articles, videos, talks, and notes on how TOK concepts manifest in the real world.
Knowledge heroes allows you to draw on the ideas of over 100 of the most influential thinkers from the past and present, many of whom discuss ideas related to this BQ.
There’s a brief bio for each thinker, a key quote, and an explanation about how this relates to TOK. We’ve also indicated related thinkers, and provided a link provided to the relevant BQ lesson, and other media sources. Access the resource here.
TOK via TED unpacks over 100 of the most TOK-friendly TED talks, enabling you and your students to draw on these incredibly rich sources of knowledge to explore the course.
We’ve linked the talks to the different elements of the course, to this and other Big Questions, provided suggested questions (and indicated the timing of the answers), and included further activities and research targets.
Investigating Issues offers you a completely new way to plan and teach TOK, integrate it with the rest of the DP, and support students as they search for real-life situations to support their essays and exhibition commentaries.
The resource gathers together over 120 major global issues, provides a great collection of media sources to explore each one, and suggests ways to link them to the different elements of the TOK course.
Help your learners to exit their echo chambers!
Our online and in-person workshops offer the usual support for students writing the essay and exhibition, and TOK departments designing great courses.
But our training sessions go much further than this: by focusing on authentic critical thinking, they demonstrate how to help learners confront, rather than confirm, their biases and assumptions, and exit their echo chambers. This makes them accessible and relevant for all teachers, whatever their subject or programme. Read more here.