Example of a TOK unit plan

TOK: Ethics DP year 1, unit 3

Course and topic Timing of unit

Unit description and texts DP assessment(s) related to unit

Ethics: identifying knowledge questions underlying ethical dilemmas TOK oral presentation

INQUIRY: establishing purpose of the unit

Transfer goals
List here one to three big, overarching, long-term goals for this unit. Transfer goals are the major goals that ask students to “transfer”, or
apply, their knowledge, skills, and concepts at the end of the unit under new/different circumstances, and on their own without scaffolding
from the teacher.
• To understand what knowledge questions are and why they are central to TOK

• To be able to identify knowledge questions underlying ethical dilemmas

• To be able to extract knowledge questions from other ethical dilemmas and other real life situations

Essential understandings
List here the key content/skills/concepts that students will know/develop by the end of the unit.
• Students will understand that knowledge questions are questions about knowledge, that they should be phrased using general rather than subject specific
terminology, and that they should be open questions that have a number of plausible answers

• Students will be familiar with the details of three well known examples of ethical dilemmas: “the trolley problem”, Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist example,

Example of a TOK unit plan

 and Peter Singer’s drowning child example, and be able to identify knowledge questions underlying these three ethical dilemmas

• Students will understand the different principles and approaches that people use to make ethical decisions, and the role of different ways of knowing in ethical
decision making

• Students will develop their understanding of the concepts of morality, values, relativism and absolutism, duty and consequences

• Students will be able to identify other ethical dilemmas from current affairs, and identify knowledge questions underlying those dilemmas

Missed concepts/misunderstandings
List here likely misunderstandings students may have during the unit with relation to skills, content and concepts.
• Students are likely to get too caught up in the details of the ethical dilemmas themselves and not get down to the underlying TOK concepts and knowledge
questions

• Formulating knowledge questions is something that many students find difficult and are likely to need support with/ need providing with multiple examples

Inquiry questions
List here the understandings above written in question form, preferably as ones that inspire students to answer them. Feel free to create
additional questions that help inspire further inquiry in the unit but may not directly connect to an above essential understanding.
• What is a knowledge question and what role do they play in TOK?

• What would you do in each of the three scenarios/ ethical dilemmas? What principles are you using to make your decision about what to do in each case?
Where do our ethical beliefs come from?

• What principles do approaches such as Utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and duty-based approaches use to make ethical decisions? What role do the different
ways of knowing play in ethical decision making? Does the rightness or wrongness of an action depend on the situation?

• What wider knowledge questions underlie each of the three ethical dilemmas?

• What examples of ethical dilemmas can you identify in the newspapers at the moment? What wider knowledge questions underlie these ethical dilemmas?

Example of a TOK unit plan

ACTION: teaching and learning through inquiry

Key activities Assessment

Exploring ethical dilemmas
Activity 1

• In small groups, students watch and discuss the video animation of the trolley problem
In pairs, write a dialogue featuring two people having
• Discussion in small groups: “What would you do in this scenario? Why? What principles are you a disagreement about what they would do if faced
using to make your decision about what to do? What arguments might someone use to try to with the scenario in the “trolley problem”.
convince you that you have made the wrong decision?”
Activity 2

• Individually, students read the summary of Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist example and Peter
Singer’s drowning child example.

• Class split into six small groups: two looking at Utilitarianism, two at virtue theory, and two at duty Each group to present back orally to the rest of the
based approaches each approach. Each group researches the key features and principles of the class on the approach they have discussed.
approach, discusses what a proponent of each approach would do in these two scenarios, and what
the objections might be to adopting the approach
Activity 3

• “Silent debate”: “Does the rightness or wrongness of an action depend on the situation?”

• Follow up discussion on the concepts of relativism and absolutism, and where ethical beliefs come
from

Moving from the 3 dilemmas to underlying knowledge questions

• Class discussion: revisiting knowledge questions – what makes something a knowledge question
rather than just a generally interesting question?

Example of a TOK unit plan

 • Class provided with an initial example of a knowledge question underlying the 3 dilemmas: “What is
the role of reason and emotion in making ethical decisions?”

• In pairs, students identify 3 additional underlying knowledge questions from the discussions of ethical
dilemmas (Examples of knowledge questions: On what basis can we decide if an issue is a moral
one? Should we reject ethical theories that produce outcomes that contradict our intuitions? What are
the similarities and differences between moral and aesthetic judgements? To what extent are our
beliefs and judgements influenced by culture? How can we decide between the views of different
ethical theorists when they disagree with each other?)

Moving to other examples

• In pairs, students identify 3 ethical dilemmas raised by stories in the news in the last 2 weeks and Students are provided with a template adapted from
identify a knowledge question that underlies each dilemma the first page of the TK/PPD form. For each of their 4
examples, students must describe their scenario,
• In pairs, students identify 1 ethical dilemma that they have faced, or could potentially face, in their state the knowledge question raised by it, and then
school environment (in planning CAS activities, academic honesty issues, whether to report explain the connection between the situation/
something to a teacher, etc.) scenario and the knowledge question.

• For each of the 3 examples, students discuss the connection between the story in the news and the
knowledge question

Approaches to learning Connections

• Utilises individual, pair, small group and whole class formats to foster • Links to CAS: Learning objective 7 in CAS is to “recognise and consider the
collaboration (social skills) ethics of choices and actions”, requiring students to “show awareness of the
consequences of choices and actions in planning and carrying out CAS
• Assessment includes both written and oral tasks, to develop both written
experiences
and oral communication (communication skills)

• Focus within the activities on exploring multiple perspectives and

becoming more aware of their own perspective and assumptions (thinking
skills)

• Students research an ethical approach (Utilitarianism, Virtue theory, or

duty based approaches) themselves rather than simply being provided

Example of a TOK unit plan

 with the information (research skills)

Example of a TOK unit plan

 Resources
Animation of the trolley problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOpf6KcWYyw
Violinist example in Judith Jarvis Thomson “A Defense of Abortion” (1971)
Drowning child example: http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/199704--.htm
Chapter 9 of Theory of Knowledge by Sue Bastian, Julian Kitching and Ric Sims (Pearson Baccalaureate, 2nd edition, 2014)
Chapter 17 of Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma by Richard van de Lagemaat (Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition, 2014)
Chapter 16 of Theory of Knowledge: Course Companion by Eileen Dombrowski, Lena Rotenberg, and Mimi Bick (Oxford University Press, 2013 edition)

Example of a TOK unit plan

REFLECTION: Considering the planning, process and impact of the inquiry

What worked well What didn’t work well

The animated video of the trolley problem provided a good initial stimulus. Some of the students found it difficult to formulate knowledge questions (the
questions they came up with were still too specific to the ethical dilemmas rather
Students were very engaged in the small group discussions.
than being knowledge questions)
The students enjoyed the opportunity to make links to current stories in the
news

Transfer goals
List the transfer goals from the beginning of this unit planner.
• To understand what knowledge questions are and why they are central to TOK

• To be able to extract knowledge questions from ethical dilemmas

• To be able to extract knowledge questions from other real life situations

Transfer reflection
How successful were the students in achieving the transfer goals by the end of the unit?
The students’ understanding of knowledge questions improved, but several still found it difficult to move beyond the details of the ethical dilemmas to the underlying
knowledge questions. This highlights the need to explicitly revisit the basics of knowledge questions during the next unit.

Example of a TOK unit plan