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My post last week, Oral Presentation Suggestions For IB Theory of Knowledge Classes, turned-out to be fairly popular.

In it, I explained my process for working with students on their Oral Presentations, and shared a sample of what I called “primary” knowledge questions. As I shared there, I have students first come-up with a topic they’re interested in, then develop a related primary question and, then, develop three more “secondary” ones whose answers would help them answer the primary question. Since most of my students work in groups of three, it works out quite well, and serves as my new versions of the old “linking questions” that used to be used.

This year’s students (and I have about sixty of them – as regular readers know, I recruit many non-Diploma candidates to join Diploma candidates in my classes) have now chosen their topic (which they convert into their real-life example), primary knowledge questions, and secondary knowledge questions. I thought readers might be interested in seeing a few of them all-together. Some are obviously better than others, but I think all are viable.

Take a look, and please give me any feedback. I found the comments left in the previous post very helpful:

Topic: Bullying
Primary Knowledge Question: How does power influence how we treat each other?
Secondary Knowledge Questions:
* Under what circumstances does the way others perceive you affect the way you value yourself?
* How can culture and religion influence our ethical interaction with others?
* To what extent does a intuition control the way we treat others?

Topic: Euthanasia
Primary Knowledge Question: What informs a society’s decision on what limits or expands human freedom?
Secondary Knowledge Questions:
* What role does intuition play in making decisions about what is ethical?
* In what ways are language and one’s actions limited by history?
* To what extent do religious beliefs influence our perception on the world?

Topic: Society’s view on various sexuality and whether it is accepted or not.
Primary Knowledge Question: Why and how does society view different sexuality as being a part of nature or nurture?
Secondary Knowledge Questions:
* To what extent do/did indigenous communities accept different sexuality compared to modern society/communities?
* For what reasons does dominant society sometimes view heterosexuality as normal but other sexuality such as homosexuality not normal?
* How does sexuality affect society and our identity?

Topic:
Afterlife
Primary Knowledge Question: To what extent does belief in the afterlife benefit or hinder our society?
Secondary Knowledge Questions:
* How is our society’s perception of the afterlife affected by our knowledge of natural science?
* How does our perception of religion affect our faith in the afterlife?
* How do languages in the indigenous cultures speak of the afterlife differently compared to the western industrialized countries and how do those differences shape their actions?

Topic: Racism
Primary Knowledge Question: Under what circumstances is hate stronger than love?
Secondary Knowledge Questions:
* To what extent can verbal abuse be able to separate friendship?
* How do racial perceptions affect communication?
* How does emotion play a role in making decisions?

Topic: Money & Happiness
Primary Knowledge Question: What does it mean to be happy?
Secondary Knowledge questions:
* How do people relate money and happiness?
* How do indigenous society view happiness as compared to western industrialized society?
* What is the role of imagination in happiness and how people relate it to themselves?

Topic: Ghosts
Primary Knowledge Question: To what extent does belief in supernatural benefit or hurt our society?
Secondary Knowledge Questions:
* How can imagination affect our minds?
* How does our perception make illusions?
* To what extent does faith and religion make us believe in what we see?

Topic: Religion
Primary Knowledge Question: In what ways are humans affected by the possibility of non-human existence?
Secondary Knowledge Questions:
* To what extent does faith in religion make you weak or strong?
* How does the history of alleged extraterrestrial evidence affect humans emotions about alien life?