Will the Metaverse change our relationship with reality?

Welcome to the 100th edition of the TOK newsletter!

Here's a short video we put together to say thank you for subscribing to the newsletter, highlight one or two of the stories from this month's edition, and outline TOK events coming up.

We are celebrating the 100th edition by providing everyone with access to the premium version of the newsletter. You can follow the links below to explore all 20 of the stories we focus on this month, and use the newsletter presentation to present the content in your lessons.

We also thought this occasion was a great time to ask for your thoughts on the newsletter and the other resources on the site. We need your feedback on what we can do to make the TOK experience even better for teachers and students.

So, if you have 5 minutes to spare, we'd hugely appreciate it if you could answer this quick survey. As a thank you, everyone who offers feedback will be entered into a prize draw, and we'll send the three winners $50, $30, and $20 Amazon vouchers.

The latest updates to the site & resources

The final volume of Investigating Issues is now ready. Students can explore more than 120 of the biggest events going on right now, enabling you to teach TOK in a different way - driven by news, but linked clearly to the themes, AOKs, and assessments.

Our ManageBac unit planners are now complete for all 6 BQ units. If you're under pressure to fill in all those MB fields - such as 'metacognition', 'pedagogical approaches', and 'missed concepts' - then this resource will save you huge amounts of time!

Faculty email

One of the key differences between theoryofknowledge.net and other TOK resource centres is that our aim is to produce TOK resources not just for the TOK department, but for your entire DP faculty.

So, here's the faculty email for this month's newsletter, to help you get all your teachers onboard. It will make it easier for them to draw on the latest real-life situations, and link their subjects to TOK. Remember, this faculty email is provided to members every month.

Upcoming TOK webinars

This free webinar will take a broad look at TOK, discussing its aims, key ideas and thinkers, and skills. It will argue TOK helps students to become effective learners, and discerning and fulfilled members of the epistemic community. Date - Dec 13th.

Register for free HERE.

This premium webinar will comprise a conversation Michael and the experienced DP educator Andrew Rothman, and will focus on seven key mistake made by students as they write their TOK essays, and how to avoid them. Date - Jan 17th.

Purchase a ticket for the webinar HERE.

This free webinar will look at how to use TOK to strengthen your university application. We'll think about key concepts you can discuss, influential thinkers you can focus on, and the kind of skills that you can prove you have developed. Date - Feb 10th.

Register for free HERE.

All-new TOK workshops

We've introduced a new range of workshops to help you make the TOK experience brilliant for your students, DP teachers, and even parents. Scroll to the bottom of the newsletter to download our information sheets, or visit this page.

Join theoryofknowledge.net

If you'd like to continue receiving the newsletter in this format EVERY month, as well as our classroom-ready, pioneering resources for delivering TOK, then become a member of the site.

The cost is $249.99 per year per institution, enabling as many members of your learning community to access our amazing resources. Membership will help you to offer a brilliant TOK experience for students, teachers, and even parents.

Join theoryofknowledge.net

This month's stories

What's the media source and story? A YouTube video, in which Mark Zuckerberg introduces his ‘vision’ for the Metaverse - the “joyful successor to the mobile internet”.

Which teachers could use the story? ITGS, computer science

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? A History Today article, looking at how history is a “never ending process”, and that it’s vital to have the ability to change your mind about your conclusions and judgements.

Which teachers could use the story? History, other group 3 subjects

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? A Guardian article, arguing that indigenous peoples were shut out of the Cop26 discussions - “literally and figuratively”.

Which teachers could use the story? ESS, geography, biology, anthropology, other group 3 & 4 subjects

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? A Verge article that looks at whether it is possible to answer moral questions by consulting an online AI bot called Delphi.

Which teachers could use the story? Computer science, philosophy, other group 3 subjects

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? A CNN article, looking at how world leaders are apt to rewrite history in order to consolidate their own positions.

Which teachers could use the story? Global politics, history

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? A Big Think article, arguing that far from being a discipline that is ‘useless’, philosophy has never been needed more than now.

Which teachers could use the story? Philosophy, group 4 subjects

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? A Conversation article, examining the ‘slippery slope’ of using deepfakes to gain an understanding of the past.

Which teachers could use the story? History, computer science, ITGS, other group 3 subjects

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? An FT article, presenting a series of interactive maps that show different scenarios related to global warming, and which parts of the world will become unliveable.

Which teachers could use the story? ESS, geography, global politics

We're proud to work in partnership with the FT, to promote their free FT for Schools programme. Follow this link to sign up your school, and access this and other articles.

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? A Big Think video, in which Jimena Canales discusses the phenomenon of ‘science demons’ - manifestations of doubt and uncertainty that existed for certain thinkers.

Which teachers could use the story? Group 3 subjects

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? A New Humanist interview with John-Paul Stonard, who talks about his new book tracing the evolution of art from cave paintings to the contemporary era.

Which teachers could use the story? Visual arts, other group 6 subjects

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? An Aeon essay, arguing that imagination isn’t just a by-product of our evolution of problem-solving faculties, it is the core of what it means to be human.

Which teachers could use the story? Psychology, most other DP subjects

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? A Wired article, considering the ethics of drawing on historical atrocities to add emotional depth to modern movies.

Which teachers could use the story? Film, history

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? An Aeon essay, looking at six different narratives of the nature and effect of globalization.

Which teachers could use the story? Geography, global politics, history

Explore the story

What's the media source & story? A Conversation article, looking at what constitutes a ‘miracle’ for the Catholic Church.

Which teachers could use the story? World religions, physics

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? A Sky News article, looking at the trial of Ghislain Maxwell, and how the words ‘victim’ and ‘minor’ have been permitted to be used by the prosecution.

Which teachers could use the story? Language acquisition, psychology

Explore the story

What's the media source and story? A Guardian article, looking at how a Clint Eastwood film has just been dubbed into Navajo.

Which teachers could use the story? Film, language acquisition

Explore quick story 1

What's the media source and story? An Aeon essay, which explores “what makes something worth believing”.

Which teachers could use the story? Philosophy

Explore quick story 2

What's the media source and story? A Guardian article, asking the question, ‘Can history teach us anything about the future of war and peace?’

Which teachers could use the story? History, global politics

Explore quick story 3

What's the media source and story? An Atlantic podcast, in which the Harvard psychologist Dr Ellen Langer asserts that being curious about the world is based on accepting there are gaps in your knowledge.

Which teachers could use the story? Psychology, philosophy, most other DP subjects

Explore quick story 4

What's the media source and story? A Smithsonian article, looking at how a new method of chronological dating has given us a more precise understanding of the Viking occupation of Newfoundland.

Which teachers could use the story? History

Explore quick story 5

Every month, we feature an aspect of the theoryofknowledge.net website, and provide you with guidance on how to make the most of it.

This month, we focus on the 12 Key Concepts, and how both TOK teachers and non-TOK teachers can use it to help students become more effective knowers all across the DP. Access the resource here, and get tips on using it below.

Using the 12 Key Concepts

Introducing our new range of TOK workshops

We've designed a new range of TOK workshops, that can be delivered either online, or in school. Download a range of information sheets below.

Concept workshops give students an understanding of key ideas – from certainty to causation, and perspectives to power – how they manifest in the world, and why they are vital to grasp in order to become effective knowers. Find out more.

Induction workshops help students to gain an understanding of the structure and aims of the TOK course, why this course is so special, and the advantages it gives to anyone involved in it over those who are not studying the DP. Find out more.

DP teacher workshops introduce the course for teachers new to the DP, how to draw on TOK as they plan and deliver their lessons, and thinkers and ideas which bridge the gap between the DP subjects and TOK. Find out more.

Find out more and book

TOK video explainers

Our video explainers have now been viewed well over 25,000 times since we uploaded them, proving a huge hit with people looking for a quick and user-friendly introduction to key aspects of the course.

Check out our video to the course as a whole below, and view the rest of the playlist here. We'll be adding more very soon...

Subscribe to our YT channel

We first began publishing the newsletter in 2013, and you can see how far we've come in the last 8 years, and 100 editions, by checking out one of the first ever editions here. Since then, our following has grown hugely, the newsletter has evolved, and we're incredibly proud that it has become one of the central resources used by DP schools throughout the world to deliver TOK.

One thing hasn't changed, though: our determination to link the course to what's going on in the world right now, and get students to apply the 'TOK lens' to contemporary events and issues. The newsletter is the key tool in helping them go beyond the headlines, and becoming discerning and positive members of the epistemic community.