The ToK presentation is often the first of the two assessed pieces of work that you must complete for Theory of Knowledge. Teachers like to over-complicate the process of making a good successful ToK Presentation. However, there is simple structure that you can follow where if executed well equates to high marks.
The ToK presentation from 2015 onwards is given a mark out of 10 that is worth 50% of your final ToK grade. A key thing to remember for any work, especially in ToK, is that the IB does not care if your work is perfect or not, as long as it follows the criteria. By utilising this nature of the IB system much less effort can be put in into the ToK presentation while still achieving the same score as you would have had you spent weeks on end refining your work.
The marking rubric for the ToK Presentation is:
If read the rubric you will see that your presentation skills are not assessed; therefore you do not need to worry about the presentation much, other than making sure that you’re not speaking too quickly, that you’re articulating your words properly and that you have an easy to understand powerpoint going on behind you. The powerpoint is not a requirement of the presentation; however I highly suggest that you have one, as it means that the markers have something to look at to get a quick understanding of what you’re talking about, it also allows for you to constantly display your Knowledge Question behind you.
Now, let’s move on to how to actually structure the presentation.
Teachers will suggest that you find a Real Life Situation and derive a knowledge question from that, but it is possible to work the other way, by thinking of a knowledge question then searching for an appropriate Real Life Situation. There is an equation that I suggest following that means that the rest of the presentation will become much simpler. It is:
To what extent is [a way of knowing] [reliable source/influence the gain of] knowledge?
The reason that this equation is so successful is that you are questioning the essence of ToK itself.
Once you have a Real Life Situation (RLS) and a Knowledge Question (KQ) that is obviously connected to your RLS (make sure that its obvious, teachers can be a little slow) the next step is to come up with a Knowledge Claim (KC). A KC is an opinion that you come up with when taking your KQ in regards to your initial RLS. For example if my initial RLS was optical illusions and my KQ was ‘to what extent is sense perception a reliable source of knowledge’ when I think of the RLS in terms of my KQ I can come up with the KC ‘sense perception is an unreliable source of knowledge’. I would state this in the manner ‘from my looking at my RLS in regards of my KQ it is possible to derive the KC sense perception is an unreliable source of knowledge’. When coming up with a KC its important to make it so that it can both be proven and disproven.
Once you come up with a KC, find a new RLS that supports your claim and analyse how this affects our knowledge intake. After supporting your claim, find a new RLS that disproves the KC to display the ambiguous nature of ToK. Try to explain why uncertainties in your chosen Way of Knowing arise. This is important as you must show that you supposedly understand what’s going on in ToK and in ToK there is never a right answer. After you explore your first claim, draw a mini conclusion, one that partially answers while not providing a definitive answer to your KQ.
Once you draw a mini conclusion from your first KC the next step is to create a new KC that takes into account your mini conclusion and your KQ, exploring a different aspect of your chosen way of knowing. Once you derive your KC follow the same system as for the first. Repeat this process as many times is appropriate for your time limit. Before concluding your presentation explore how your way of knowing affects the relationship between personal knowledge and shared knowledge.
In your conclusion you want to remind listeners of all the points you have raised in your mini conclusions. Look at how your exploration has effected your understanding of your initial RLS and then answer your KQ but in a ToK manner, this means leaving it ambiguous. So if your KQ was about reliability then your conclusion may be, ‘X way of knowing is not a totally reliable source of knowledge; however to explore some areas of knowledge it is the best option we have.’
To learn more about the ToK presentation, a good site to visit is Tim Woods
Fresh Questions & Good Talks 