All About Asking Better Questions
Asking questions is such a basic tool of teaching, yet how many of us have ever been taught to ask good questions? As I started researching for this post, I realized how little I actually knew about asking questions. I asked hundreds of questions a day but had zero training. I know I’m not alone! Here’s the plan: So, we’ll actually start in perhaps a strange place, which is to open with the idea of asking fewer questions as teachers and allowing more room for students to be the questioners. Mrs. Let me take you back to 1997, when my sophomore English teacher, Mrs. Why would a teacher have such a hard time getting her advanced 10th graders to ask a darn question? Well, as one of those students, I can tell you that I had been trained to answer questions, not ask them. I pledged to ask two questions and doubt I lived up to my bargain. Who Asks Whom? So, as we dig into questioning, let’s start with wondering who asks the questions in your classroom and who gets asked. Students Asking Students 1.
6 Ways To Become A Better Listener - Fast Company - Pocket
Photo by Les Anderson via Unsplash Ever zone out while someone is talking? Of course. We all do. “We are living in a time when it’s more challenging to be consistently aware and intentional because so many things are demanding our attention. Listening is also hard because we’re often consumed with ourselves, says Hal Gregersen, executive director of the MIT Leadership Center. When you approach a conversation thinking only of your own agenda, your goal is to maneuver and manipulate the conversation and to come out better than the other person, says Gregersen. “I might influence you to do, buy, or act, but the probability that I get any surprisingly new data is close to zero,” he says. Walking around with closed ears is fine if what you’re doing is the right thing and the world doesn’t change. How do you break bad habits? 1. “Each day, ask yourself, ‘What am I going to be curious about?’” 2. “Turn off those agendas,” says Gregersen. 3. 4. 5. 6. This is dangerous, says Gregersen.
The Path to CT
Few of us are effective critical thinkers—who has time? The good news, says Stever Robbins, is that this skill can be learned. by Stever Robbins Can you write a refresher on critical thinking? We business leaders so like to believe that we can think well, but we don't. Only one in seven even reaches the top 10 percent of quality thinkers.1 The rest of us haven't even read a book on critical thinking, much less practiced. What's logic got to do with it? Purely emotional decision making is bad news. Critical thinking starts with logic. We also sloppily reverse cause and effect. There are many excellent books on logic. The trap of assuming You can think critically without knowing where the facts stop and your own neurotic assumptions begin. When we don't know something, we assume. Finding and busting "conventional wisdom" can be the key to an empire. Assumptions can also cripple us. Some assumptions run so deep they're hard to question. Here is a great exercise for your group or company.
Teaching Active Listening in the Classroom
There is an emphasis on students developing speaking and listening skills in classrooms. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) promote the academic reasons for providing ample opportunities for students to take part in a variety of rich, structured conversations in order to build a foundation for college and career readiness. The CCSS suggest that speaking and listening be planned as part of a whole class, in small groups, and with a partner. But research shows that it is listening — really listening — to students that is critical to the student/teacher relationship. It is easy to perform routine tasks while listening to students. An effective way to demonstrate teacher attentiveness is to use active listening, a technique that can be used for: gaining self-understandingimproving relationshipsmaking people feel understoodmaking people feel cared formaking learning easier Student: I don't like this school as much as my old one. Active Listening in the Classroom Verbal Signals: Sources:
A CT Model
To Analyze Thinking We Must Identify and Question its Elemental Structures Standard: Clarityunderstandable, the meaning can be grasped Could you elaborate further? Could you give me an example? Could you illustrate what you mean? Standard: Accuracyfree from errors or distortions, true How could we check on that? Standard: Precisionexact to the necessary level of detail Could you be more specific? Standard: Relevancerelating to the matter at hand How does that relate to the problem? Standard: Depthcontaining complexities and multiple interrelationships What factors make this a difficult problem? Standard: Breadthencompassing multiple viewpoints Do we need to look at this from another perspective? Standard: Logicthe parts make sense together, no contradictions Does all this make sense together? Standard: Significancefocusing on the important, not trivial Is this the most important problem to consider? Standard: FairnessJustifiable, not self-serving or one-sided Think About... State the Question
Are You A Good Listener?
Being a good listener is an essential skill that all people could probably work on. Need some more ideas about how to improve your own listening skills? Start with: 9 Things Good Listeners Do Differently. Learn how to be an active listener here! Interested in building resilience? Start with some good listening skills like "echoing." What is the science behind actually hearing something? Need a TED Talk on this topic?
10 Examples of CT
We all encounter opportunities in our daily lives to engage problems and decisions using strong critical thinking. Everyone needs to think ahead, to plan and to problem solve. Here are ten positive examples of critical thinking: *Facione, P. & Gittens C. Insight Assessment www.insightassessment.com Measuring Thinking Worldwide
Who’s listening? Who’s talking? | thespaceofjeans
Who’s listening? Who’s talking? The much discussed concept of learners identifying problems – not only solutions is at the forefront of mind today. There is much talk around teachers who talk too much. We know this is real. We know we all do it. Today I sit with a Year 6 child who is on her PYP Expedition. I listen while she talks and I create a mind map of her thoughts and suggestions. When our time is up she says,”This feels more like what I want to be doing”. I am left pondering some of my own “big questions” … Who’s doing the listening when children are talking? Who’s doing the talking? What message do children get when their voices are shut down? What buy in is there from learners if there questions are forced; paraphrased and contained? Do we all have an idea of why it’s important to know ,”Who’s listening and who’s talking”? Like this: Like Loading... About Jina Belnick
