Tag: TOK Exhibition

TOK Tuesdays

Musical Illusions

Howard Burton

To what extent is the popularity of a procedure related to its validity?

In the TOK Clip Applying Illusions, UC San Diego psychologist of music Diana Deutsch describes how the celebrated Octave Illusion she discovered has the potential to be directly applied to the world of clinical medicine by giving an accurate, non-invasive indicator of cerebral dominance as opposed to, for instance, the so-called Wada test.

The Wada test is sometimes given to patients who have epilepsy and need to undergo surgery to cope with this condition. Ahead of surgery it is necessary to figure out which is the dominant hemisphere of this patient’s brain to make sure that no permanent damage to the speech of the patient is caused by this surgery.

Prof. Diana Deutsch is a pioneer of harnessing computer-generated tones to carry out detailed aural experiments on music, memory, language and cognition. She uncovered a vast spectrum of musical illusions that are now standard in the scientific literature, including the Octave Illusion, the Scale Illusion, the Chromatic Illusion, the Glissando Illusion and many more.

Below is a screen shot of what the resource page for this Ideas Roadshow TOK clip looks like. The new PDF that comes with this clip highlights how this resource has been updated to be fully aligned with the new TOK curriculum: the related AOK and Optional Theme (Knowledge & Technology in this case), how it directly connects to the new Knowledge Framework – Scope, Perspectives, Methods and Tools and Ethics – in the form of a Knowledge Question, three additional sample Knowledge Questions, related IA prompts for the TOK exhibition and citing suggestions for the TOK exhibition and essay.

If your school does not have an institutional subscription to Ideas Roadshow’s IBDP Portal you can now sign up for an individual teacher or student subscription. Annual individual subscriptions cost only $99 and provide unlimited access to all resources that are part Ideas Roadshow’s IBDP Portal.

All Ideas Roadshow’s TOK resources are digital – they can be seamlessly used for online or in-class teaching without the need to change your lesson plans! 

TOK Tuesdays

Knowledge and Religion

Howard Burton

To what extent can we be certain that we understand a foreign religious tradition if we haven’t directly experienced it?

Today’s TOK Tuesdays topic comes from our new TOK Sampler, Knowledge and Religion, to give teachers a tangible sense of how our resources can directly assist with the new optional TOK themes starting this fall, while providing stimulating classroom material that they can use straight away while transitioning to the new course.  The full TOK Sampler which is part of Ideas Roadshow’s IBDP Portal includes relevant details for both the ‘old’ and new TOK curriculum.

In the following excerpt from this TOK Sampler, historian of religion Nile Green, UCLA, describes the profound disconnect he experienced between what he had read about Sufism and what he personally encountered when he began to visit Sufi shrines.  

Below is a screenshot of what the resource page for this TOK Sampler looks like on Ideas Roadshow’s IBDP Portal. All TOK Samplers feature short clips featuring a range of experts across different disciplines. At the start of each clip the relevant AOK/WOKs (“old” curriculum) and the related AOKs/Optional Themes for the new TOK curriculum are highlighted. At an opportune moment during the clip a Knowledge Question is shown to provide material for discussion and reflection.