Today, in our IB Theory of Knowledge class, students had to build free-standing towers with two sheets of paper, a 10 inch piece of tape, ten paper clips, and a scissors — without talking, and complete it in twenty minutes. We were studying what ideas could — and couldn’t — be communicated with gestures.
Afterword, students discussed what ideas were easy or hard to communicate, and if complex ideas required using words.
Here’s a photo of the winning group and their leaning tower:
You can see all their creations at our TOK class blog.
Were the winners determined only on the height of the structure?
Yes, and if they genuinely were silent during the activity.
Hi Larry,
Thanks for sharing this activity. Today I did this with my TOK class and they kids had fun with it.
Glad it went well!
Hi. My name is Hans. I just took over our schools ToK class because our teacher quit suddenly. I have been looking for fun activities to do with my students and came across this. It looks like fun. I will try it out. Thank you for sharing.
This was a great introduction to language exercise. The kids did a fantastic job! I’m getting ready to use it with my latest group.
Glad you found it useful!