Theory of Knowledge

Class Expectations

Mr. Braman

Participation:

A large portion of your learning will depend on your ability to explore ideas verbally. You will be expected to be able to actively listen to other students' ideas and to expand on them in large and small group discussions. Listening, Questioning, Responding, Encouraging others, and Taking Notes are all things that you can be doing to be actively learning. Your grade for this class will reflect your ability to participate in these ways. Tardies and absences will affect participation and/or Daily Work points. One daily participation point [out of five] will be deducted for each tardy. After three tardies, students will need to spend thirty minutes after school doing hard time…

Daily Work:

The homework load for this class will average 20 minutes a night. I do not expect, however, that students will have homework every night. Most likely, students would have 40 minutes of homework two or three nights a week. When students are working on essay, more time may be required.

Essays:

Students will be working of clarifying their emerging ideas throughout the year. Throughout the year there will be opportunities for students to write drafts of their ideas. Four of these essays will be polished and submitted for internal assessment, two per semester. The best two will be submitted to International Baccalaureate for an additional external moderation. The two externally moderated essays must be on designated IB questions.

The Due Dates for the Essays will be:

October 27,2000 December 15, 2000 February 16, 2001 May/June TBD

Dates may be changed [even advanced] to accommodate the assessors. Students are usually given two weeks to draft essays.

Projects:

Projects will be another way students can demonstrate their emerging understanding. Projects will provide an opportunity for greater understanding of more specific topics within the scope of our research. Student-selected topics for exploration will be the norm, not the exception. More to come.

Journals:

Students will be asked to keep a journal in which they respond to teacher assigned prompts, react to topics of discussion, express new and emerging ideas, record relevant ideas from readings, and take notes on in-class material.

Tests/Quizzes:

The reading assignments for this class are critical. The completion of assignments is crucial to our ability to discuss the important issues raised in the texts. There will be quizzes to assess how well students have read; all such tests will be taken WITH NOTES. There will also be tests to assess how well students understand key issues or points that have been read, discussed, and analyzed; such tests may be WITHOUT NOTES. Pop Quizzes may not be made-up

Final Exams:

There will be final exams both Semesters. Finals will most likely include timelines of events discussed in class or in readings. Finals will be comprehensive. Format will be decided at a later date, but will include scan-tron portions. Finals will be modeled after the International Baccalaureate Program TOK finals.

Specifics about these categories as well as models of student work and resources for the class are to be found at the following website: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/6010

I have seen the course expectations, required reading, and website. X___________________________________- [student]

I have seen the course expectations, required reading, and website. X___________________________________- [parent]