Tok Presentation....help needed

[Smarty-Pants]

Hi...

I have to give my TOK presentation next week and I would appreciate some thoughts and comments on my presentation plan. I don' really know how to make the topic interesting, I am scared to bore the audience to death.

My knowledge issue is 'How do experience and teaching interact by gaining knowledge and which is more effective in order to approach History and Science?' So apparently I chose to connect the Knowledge Issue to History and Science and I thought I could talk about the ways of WoKs in both of them and how they connect. My real life example is based on my little (and very cute) niece who just turned one and is 'discovering' the world. But I extended the real life example to the myself, as a knower, so I can talk about Science. So basically, I am talking about how the ways of knowing contribute to us gaining knowledge, but are obstacles to understanding as well. In the end I will conclude, that always both theory and practice are needed in order to gain knowledge and understanding. However, the 'mixture' depends on the subject area (for example, in history we rather learn through theory, whereas science is based in practice).

Now I need your help guys, so I can include other perspectives. I would like to know, how you learn, what methods you have to remember things and stuff like that. Are you rather the practical or theoretical learner? Do you think experiments and experiences are more important than second-hand knowledge. Do you have some good experiences yourself you would like to share?

Also, if you have any good ideas how I can make my presentation interesting and animate the audience so they won't fall asleep, please post, post, post

Criticism would be highly appreciated as well.

Cheers

[Green]

Your topic sounds very interesting.

Just as a suggestion, perhaps in the end you can explore other ways than practical/theoretical (if there are any).

Also try to use a lot of quotes, that way to each approach you have different people involved who say different things, and from what they say you can ask TOK questions such as how does he/she know? Are they biased? Is there any counter-arguement for this statement?

I'm not sure if your niece can speak yet, but if she can try use some of the things she says.

Of course your own examples do come in, but try asking some Scientists or Historians, perhaps teachers in your school and students as well.

Also Science might have to be split up into the 3 basics of Chemistry, Physics and Biology. I believe studying for Biology is a bit similar to History?

To begin with, I'm going to admit I'm very biased about Science, I'm planning on becoming a Physicist. And to answer your questions..

How you learn, what methods you have to remember things and stuff like that?

For subjects such as History or Psychology, I always take notes when the teacher is talking, that is about half of my studying done. I file those notes, and during exam time I take them out, read through them again, and then explain it to myself out loud.

Studying for Science however (such as Physics) where it contains Mathematics, I would usually have to learn the theory, practice or go through a sample question, and then practice with other questions. (Mainly past paper questions). I believe the trick with this subject is not only to be good at Math and practice, but the theory is very important as well, the Math simply proves it.

I'll give you a quote said by Einstein, you could use this if you'd like "The creative principle of Science resides in Mathematics."

Are you rather the practical or theoretical learner?

Both.

Do you think experiments and experiences are more important than second-hand knowledge?

I have two answers for this question

1) Experiments and experiences are more important from a TOK perspective because we can sense and learn for ourselves. Also, anything that is taught previously is now "proved" through experiments or experience.

2) My personal answer to this question is both are important. Experience/Experiments are important for the reason I have stated above. However, there can be situations where you can't experience or experiment and therefore you will have to rely on second-hand knowledge. For example, if you are studying the Human brain, it's quite unlikely for a High school student to get access to a Neurology-based-operation to view and experiment on the human brain. Second hand knowledge is not so bad as it sounds either, others have experimented and experienced, and they write about it in books. The only thing to be aware of here is their bias (if there is any) that can change or alter the facts and therefore influence what you are learning.

Do you have some good experiences yourself you would like to share?

I can't seem to think of any, sorry.

To make your presentation interesting, I would suggest you put quite a lot of pictures on your powerpoint presentation. That seemed to work for my presentation. Also try and relate what you're discussing to the picture, and use less of things such as graphs and such, I doubt people would want to see that compared to someone experimenting, or something of that sort.

I think it would be fun if you put in a couple of comic strips, but nothing inappropriate of course.

The way you present shows your interest in the topic, try not to read off your presentation, or read off a paper you printed out. Try to understand/learn what you are discussing, put it all in your own words and explain it to the audience.

Try and find quotes from interesting people, I doubt people would get bored by listening to one of Einstein's quote and somehow you try to question his knowledge.

I hope this helps.