Transcript TOK - Week Three History and the Presentation Week of August 31, 2015

TOK - Week Three
History and the Presentation
Week of August 31, 2015
Last Week in Review
1. Complete ‘Knowing another” with journal reflection
connecting knowing another with the WOK and AOK
2. Review of TOK Calendar, EE slips, and the Food
Schedule
3. Focus on understanding the presentation - Read, made
groups, scheduled week
4. Class discussion - potential real-life situations
5. HW assigned: RLS journal to be uploaded to MB
dropbox for today; EE appt. slip - interim
6. Hiking on Plateau for Saturday
Follow up for this week
1.Turn in EE appointment slips - I will run a
copy and return to you
2.Materials check: Book check; binder and
notebook check (2 participation scores)
3.Reminder: No class next week
4.Reminder: Food begins on 15th/17th
5.Hiking follow-up: 4.5 miles on Saturday!
a.This Saturday, 6:45 at the Hidden Valley Trailhead
This Week’s Agenda
1. Focus on Area of Knowledge: History
2. Assessments:
a.Participation in class
b.writing for home - upload to MB
3. Focus on the Presentation
a. Presentation Rubric
b. Student Model - assess and discuss
c. Share out RLS’s whole class and in group
d. Choose if you can - focus on Knowledge Questions
within
History
Knowledge claims
In TOK there are two types of knowledge
claims.
Claims that are made within particular areas
of knowledge or by individual knowers
about the world. It is the job of TOK to
History Knowledge Claims
Journal - Week Three - History Quotes, Knowledge Claims and
Questions
1. With a small group, review the history quotations provided by the
instructor
2. Choose one to analyze as a knowledge claim (every group of 3 will have a
different one)
3. What type of KC is this? (see notes) Then consider and record….
a. What assumptions are inherent in this claim (on the part of the
speaker and/or reader)?
b. What biases are evident?
c. How does the speaker’s perception or context affect the veracity of the
KC?
d. Create an argument, with specific examples, arguing FOR and
AGAINST this KC
Knowledge Questions Defined
Knowledge questions are questions
about knowledge, and contain the
following features.
Knowledge questions are questions
about knowledge. Instead of
Knowledge Question Examples
You can find knowledge questions underlying almost any issue. They are sometimes difficult to formulate precisely but they often lurk
underneath popular and often controversial subjects that are discussed in the media, for example. It is a very useful exercise to try to
tease out knowledge questions underlying articles in the media.
Here are two examples of a topic that has been discussed in newspaper articles and possible knowledge questions associated with the
topic.
Example 1: Future population growth in Africa
Not a knowledge question: “How can we predict future population growth in Africa?” This is not a knowledge question because it
is a technical question within the discipline of population studies.
Good knowledge question: “How can a mathematical model give us knowledge even if it does not yield accurate predictions?”
This is now sufficiently general and explores the purpose and nature of mathematical modelling.
Example 2: The placebo effect and its impact on the medical profession
Not a knowledge question: “How does the placebo effect work?” An answer to this might involve a technical explanation in
psychology. This therefore sits above the line in figure 4.
A good knowledge question: “How could we establish that X is an ‘active ingredient’ in causing Y?” This question is actually a
rather general one about how we can know about causal links. It is a classic knowledge question.
Back to History
After your group analysis of the KC, devise at
least two good Knowledge Questions that
arise as a result of your discussion
What is one other AOK this KQ could connect
to? How so?
Then, groups will share out on their KC and
lead to their KQ
History KC Shareout - scored as a presentation
Format for shareout:
Present your quotation on the SMART board
1. Discuss and note the assumptions you found in the claim - how did you
decide this?
2. Discuss and note the biases found in the claim - how did you determine
these?
3. Discuss the speaker’s perception/context and how you think it affected the
claim….how did you determine this?
4. Present your argument for or against the claim in a small, quick debate; be
sure to include examples.
5. Shareout the KQ’s generated as a result of the discussion. How are these
KQ’s different than the KC? What other AOK might they apply to?
6. Encourage the class to join in the discussion...what do they think?
This leads to….
The question: What is history?
Journal entry - week three - Personal History:
You find yourself waking up one morning to discover you have lost your
memory. After a few minutes of panic, you begin to examine the room you find
yourself in. You discover a scribbled note which says, ‘Meet George, Old Town
Temecula, 9:30.’ You glance at the clock. It is 8:00 a.m. Since you don’t want
anyone to know about your situation, you give yourself an hour and a half to
work out who you are from the contents of what is clearly your bedroom and
make it to OTT to meet George.
If you found yourself in the above situation, to what extent do you think you
would be able to reconstruct your identity by examining the objects in your
room? What problems would you experience in trying to do this, and how
similar are they to those facing a historian?
Given the previous example...
History is….
Annie Dillard on History
Read the Dillard excerpt with the class…..
1. Consider her perspective on history….
2. What is her definition of history?
3. To what degree does it fall in line with your definition of
history?
4. What are the implications of her stance?
5. What is her inherent knowledge claim?
6. What is one knowledge question that stems from this
essay?
This all begs the following ????
Journal Notes - Week three
1. Why should you care about your past? What dangers are there in being
obsessed with your past; what dangers are there in ignoring it?
2. How good is memory; how reliable do you think it is as a guide to the past?
3. In keeping a diary, or conveying a memory, what determines what you
choose to include and omit?
4. Would you be more inclined to trust an autobiography, or a biography
about the same person written by a historian?
5. To what extent do you think that people learn from their mistakes, and to
what extent do you think they keep making the same mistakes?
As you answer the above questions, consider the issues that each of them
present for the historian. Record these in your journal for discussion.
Evidence in History
1.What types of evidence are used by
historians? List these in your journal.
2.What are some of the issues with the
different types of evidence?
3.Analysis of Figures 10.1 and 10.2
Evidence
The Lewis Chessmen
1. What can these chess pieces tell us about the history of
this time period?
2. What types of questions are generated by these pieces?
3. What additional information would you need in order to
consider these true historical artifacts that could be used
as evidence?
Problems of Evidence
1.Review figures 10.1 and 10.2 with group
2.Discuss what problems of evidence these
images could pose for a historian from the
future, or from Mars
3.What inferences might they draw?
4.What logical fallacies might occur?
What happened to Trotsky?
What issue does this create for historians?
Do you recognize this quote?
Who is it? What does it suggest about the culture(s)?
How can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us….Every part
of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy
shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are
holy in the memory and experience of my people...Will you teach your children
what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the
earth befalls all the sons of earth. This we know: the earth does not belong to man,
man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.
Man does not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does
to the web, he does to himself.
Is it Chief Seattle?
No..no one knows what he said
It was written in 1971 for an ABC television drama!
A question of significance (what makes the history book!?):
1. Using any criteria of your choice, rate the historical significance of the following events.
a. The publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of the Species in 1859
b. Your last TOK class
c. The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948
d. The 1930 soccer World Cup Final - which was won by Uruguay
e. The birth of Bill Gates in 1955
f. Former US president Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky
g. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001
2. Now, write down the criteria you used to rank these items in order of importance
3. What factors could move some of these items around to be in a different order? Is there anything that
could change their significance?
Selection of Evidence
Journal response - Week Three - Selection in history
(may create with small group) but everyone writes it!
If you were to make a time capsule to be opened in five
thousand years’ time,what things would you put in it to
give future historians as objective a picture as possible of
life in the early twenty-first century?
Explain how you made your selections?
Time Capsule
What would you select?
Describing vs. explaining OR
Why history is complex
1.
At the battle of Waterloo in 1815 Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by the British commander,
the Duke of Wellington. Which of the following factors do you think a historian might take into
account in explaining Napoleon’s defeat?
a. There was a communication breakdown between Napoleon’s generals.
b. Napoleon’s parents did not die in infancy
c. At Waterloo, Napoleon was suffering from Chronic Haemorrhoids, which made it difficult
for him to mount a horse
d. The wet weather led Napoleon to postpone his attack on Wellington
e. Napoleon underestimated Wellington’s abilities as a general
f. Newton’s laws of motion determined the flight of the artillery shells
g. The French troops didn’t have any nails to put Wellington’s captured artillery pieces out of
action
h. During the battle Marshall Ney had five horses shot from underneath him and this caused
him to make errors of judgement
2. Do you think it would be possible to isolate one of the above factors and see it as decisive in
explaining Napoleon’s defeat? How does this realization illuminate the challenges of the
historian?
The History Teacher
Read the poem with the class
Journal Entry - Week 3 - History and Education
1. Respond to the questions in your journal
2. Discuss with small group and then large group
Additional Question:
To what degree is Collins accurate in his assessment?
History and Mathematics?
History and Math
Journal Entry - Week 3 - History and Math
1. Before watching…..what do history and mathematics have in
common???????????????
2. After watching….what do you think now? What do they have in common?
To what degree can they work together? How are they still different even
after what you saw? Is there an aspect of history that is absent when
considered this way?
Problems of Bias
No one can be totally neutral...what are some of the biases that affect
historians?
Hindsight bias: helps us with causal relationships; hurts our sense of
understanding and empathy; can’t help us to predict future (9/11)
Topic Choice bias: Choice of topic may be influenced by current
preoccupations; questions asked (or not) may be influenced by this as well - can
still be objective - affects selection
Confirmation bias: Might be tempted to appeal only to evidence that supports
his own case and to ignore any counter-evidence (other AOK’s?)
National bias: Bringing pre-existing cultural and political prejudices making it
difficult to deal objectively with sensitive issues that touch on national pride.
Can lead to confirmation bias.
Read the following quotation. From your own study of history, to what extent
do you think that Kant’s pessimistic assessment of human beings is justified?
What grounds are there for taking a more optimistic view?
‘One cannot avoid a certain feeling of disgust, when one
observes the actions of man displayed on the great stage
of the world. Wisdom is manifested by individuals here and
there; but the web of human history as a whole appears to
be woven from folly and childish vanity, often, too, from
puerile wickedness and love of destruction: with the result
that at the end one is puzled to know what idea to form of
our species which prides itself so much on it advantages.’
Immanuel Kant - German philosopher
Journal and then group discussion:
History in terms of WOK
Sense Perception/Memory:
How reliable is eye-witness
testimony as a primary
source?
Reason:
Language:
Emotion:
Can historical events be
described in neutral
language? Should they be?
What common fallacies
arise in studying history?
What role should empathy
play in a historian’s work?
History in terms of AOK
Religion:
What role has religion played in
shaping history?
Mathematics:
What role do statistics play in
history?
Ethics:
Should historians make moral
judgements about the past?
Arts:
How is history similar to fiction?
How is it different?
Natural Sciences:
Can the scientific method be applied
to history?
Human Sciences:
How does history differ from other
social sciences?
By next meeting....
Write a response to any of the WOK or AOK
prompts in the previous two slides:
Must answer the prompt with two parts…..one side and then the other
You must provide an argument for each side and use examples to clarify each
side of argument.
You must ANALYZE the examples and explain HOW they prove your point
Single-spaced
12 pt. font
Upload to dropbox
Assessing the presentation
1.Review Rubric
2.Watch TOK presentation
3.Assess
TOK Individual Presentation
Presentation group work
1.Share your RLS ideas with one another
2.Determine whether or not you feel any of
these would work or whether you need to
continue the chase!