Question Families

Questioning Toolkit Essential Questions These are questions which touch our hearts and souls. They are central to our lives. They help to define what it means to be human. Most important thought during our lives will center on such essential questions. What does it mean to be a good friend? If we were to draw a cluster diagram of the Questioning Toolkit, Essential Questions would be at the center of all the other types of questions. All the other questions and questioning skills serve the purpose of "casting light upon" or illuminating Essential Questions. Most Essential Questions are interdisciplinary in nature. Essential Questions probe the deepest issues confronting us . . . complex and baffling matters which elude simple answers: Life - Death - Marriage - Identity - Purpose - Betrayal - Honor - Integrity - Courage - Temptation - Faith - Leadership - Addiction - Invention - Inspiration. Essential Questions are at the heart of the search for Truth. Essential Questions offer the organizing focus for a unit.

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Great Research A really great research project will demand original thought. Mere scooping and collection of information will not suffice. The project must be built around a question or an issue whose answer does not lie waiting on a Web page. This is not a scavenger hunt. Nor is it trivial pursuit. Photo from iStock.com Students must make answers. Students as Infotectives The first step toward a sound research program is to think of students as infotectives. What is an infotective? An infotective solves information puzzles with a combination of inference skills and new technologies. Infotective is a term designed for education in an Age of Information. These same skills produce high performance on the increasingly challenging state tests of reading comprehension and problem solving. For decades, schools showed students basic problem patterns and asked them to memorize solutions. Not knowing what you do not know The student progresses through the steps of the Research Cycle. Finding Great Questions

The importance of surprise There should be surprise, delight or even discomfort as one explores. True inquiry involves discovery. The task at hand should awaken curiosity and take the student on an adventure. Mere topical research requires little more than gathering and is often sleep inducing. It is up to the teacher to frame research projects around questions of import and tasks that require fresh thinking, problem-solving and imagination. The following checklist was designed to help teachers determine whether their research assignments are likely to produce surprise, awaken curiosity and challenge students at the highest possible levels. to read the full explanation. Image courtesy of Fighting-Wolf-Fist on Deviant Art 1. Paul Simon said it so well when he sang in Kodachrome: When I think back On all the crap I learned in high school It's a wonder I can think at all Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew would win little attention or audience if the solutions to their mysteries were lying in plain sight. 4. 5. 7. 8. 9.

Replacing Faux Inquiry with the Real Thing Why should teachers nurture potent questioning skills and behaviors? As a practical matter, students need to be able to read between the lines, infer meaning, draw conclusions from disparate clues and avoid the traps of presumptive intelligence, bias and predisposition. They need these thinking skills to score well on increasingly tough school tests, but more importantly, they need these skills to score well on the increasingly baffling tests of life . . . how to vote? how to work? how to love? Drill and practice combined with highly scripted lessons stressing patterns and prescriptions amount to mental robbery - setting low standards for disadvantaged students so they end up incapable of thought or success on demanding tests. This approach contributes to high dropout and attrition rates - early school departures and millions of children left behind.

Harvard Education Publishing Group Students in Hayley Dupuy’s sixth-grade science class at the Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School in Palo Alto, Calif., are beginning a unit on plate tectonics. In small groups, they are producing their own questions, quickly, one after another: What are plate tectonics? How fast do plates move? Why do plates move? Do plates affect temperature? Far from Palo Alto, in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Mass., Sharif Muhammad’s students at the Boston Day and Evening Academy (BDEA) have a strikingly similar experience. These two students—one in Palo Alto, the other in Roxbury—are discovering something that may seem obvious: When students know how to ask their own questions, they take greater ownership of their learning, deepen comprehension, and make new connections and discoveries on their own. The origins of the QFT can be traced back 20 years to a dropout prevention program for the city of Lawrence, Mass., that was funded by the Annie E. The QFT has six key steps:

Questions of Import Difference of Opinion Some questions matter more to some than others. Significance is defined to some extent by personal issues, tastes and interests. Several people looking at the image below might pose very different questions. Some might pose questions about media, media coverage and media literacy. Awakening a Sense of Import In some cases, young students may not recognize the import of an image, a poem or a set of numbers. The painting mentioned in the sample lesson above, "Four Boys on the Beach" by Winslow Homer, is a case in point. The boys' body language may be a matter of import but young students may not naturally fix their attention on how the boys are sitting. In an effort to find a larger version of this painting on Google Images, the group might chance upon "Ship-Building, Gloucester Harbor," which is a composite of the water color above and three other of his works. Making School and Learning Important

Writing Our Way Into Inquiry and Presearch - DML Central As we continue our efforts to think about writing literacies as a focal point of our inquiry work in a high school library, my colleague Jennifer Lund and I continue to see the power of an old school technology: pen and paper. We’ve targeted the presearch phase of research projects as a sweet spot for using writing literacies as a medium for critical thinking and making visible student ideas, questions, and patterns of understanding. In their “Pathways to Knowledge“ model of information literacy, Pappas and Tepe define presearch as the stage that “…enables searchers to connect their information need and prior knowledge. They may participate in a brainstorming activity to create a web or a list of questions on what they know about their subject or what they want to know” (Harada and Tepe). Presearch can provide instructional opportunities to show learners “strategies to narrow their focus and develop specific questions or define [an] information need” (Callison and Baker 20). 1.

Building Good New Ideas 3. Skills Closely related to the thinking tools mentioned above are the skills required to apply those models and tools to actual situations. It is not enough to acquire the models in the abstract, apart from actual problem-solving. Ownership of a powerful drill does not automatically confer upon the owner effective drilling. Without these skills, the apprentice uses a bit meant for wood to drill through concrete and finds the drilling difficult and the bit dulled. When it comes to ideas, the effective use of a cluster diagramming software program like Inspiration™ requires dozens of seemingly minor skills that may have a significant influence upon the generation of ideas. The effective use of graphic organizers and other thinking tools takes extensive practice so that the component skills become pretty much automatic. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. 4. Creating good new ideas requires the strategic use of the tools and the skills mentioned above. 5. 6.

Resources and Downloads to Facilitate Inquiry-Based Learning Create Learning Environments That Foster Inquiry Plan Curriculum That Supports Inquiry Use Strategies to Increase Inquiry in the Classroom Conduct Activities That Promote Inquiry Query Books: Ask students to chronicle their ideas, ponderings, and questions. Downloads and Examples From Schools That Work Edutopia's flagship series highlights practices and case studies from K-12 schools and districts that are improving the way students learn. At Wildwood IB World Magnet School, teachers use student questions to drive lessons, and channel student curiosity into student-centered projects. video See how Ralston Elementary School teachers guide the inquiry process over a series of lessons and teach students how to ask deeper questions to prepare them to lead their own inquiry into specific problems. Learn how educators at Crellin Elementary School use students' "I Wonder" questions to drive lesson planning, differentiate instruction, and foster student curiosity.

4 Phases of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers 4 Phases Of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers by Terry Heick According to Indiana University Bloomington, Inquiry-based learning is an “instructional model that centers learning on a solving a particular problem or answering a central question. Learning focuses around a meaningful, ill-structured problem that demands consideration of diverse perspectivesAcademic content-learning occurs as a natural part of the process as students work towards finding solutionsLearners, working collaboratively, assume an active role in the learning processTeachers provide learners with learning supports and rich multiple media sources of information to assist students in successfully finding solutionsLearners share and defend solutions publicly in some manner” The process itself can be broken down into stages, or phases, that help teachers frame instruction. 4 Phases of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers 1. The first phase of inquiry-based learning is one characterized by interaction.

5 Ways to Help Your Students Become Better Questioners The humble question is an indispensable tool: the spade that helps us dig for truth, or the flashlight that illuminates surrounding darkness. Questioning helps us learn, explore the unknown, and adapt to change. That makes it a most precious “app” today, in a world where everything is changing and so much is unknown. To change that is easier said than done. How to Encourage Questioning 1. Asking a question can be a scary step into the void. 2. This is a tough one. 3. Part of the appeal of “questions-only” exercises is that there’s an element of play involved, as in: Can you turn that answer/statement into a question? 4. Obviously, we must praise and celebrate the questions that are asked -- and not only the on-target, penetrating ones, but also the more expansive, sometimes-offbeat ones (I found that seemingly “crazy questions” sometimes result in the biggest breakthroughs). 5. So ask yourself this beautiful question: How might I encourage more questioning in my classroom?