Clever Questioning

Asking clever questions and then searching the web for solutions

The key problem solving skills involve:

• Thinking critically, creatively, reflectively and logically.

• Exercising imagination, initiative and flexibility.

• Identifying, describing and redefining problems and analysing them from a variety of perspectives.

• Making connections and establishing relationships.

• Inquiring and researching, and exploring, generating and developing ideas.

• Testing ideas and solutions and making decisions on the basis of experience and supporting evidence.

• Evaluating processes and outcomes

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Order the book and get all the details, exercises, detailed suggestions for researching the internet and much more. 

 

How do encourage students to think?

The technology we now have allows us for the first time to ask clever questions, questions that force students to manipulate information in ways that encourage the development of understanding and the improvement of conceptual models. 

In the past we could not ask students to compare an Allasaurus and an elephant and suggest 5 similarities and 5 differences in how they lived, because we could not resource the question. We have 29 books in the library on dinosaurs but none would have given the information we require at the level we required, so we have been trapped teaching thematic, broad-based projects such as pollution, travel, space, dinosaurs, Romans, etc.

The year 2001 is the most important year in education history! We can now teach the way we have always desired to teach because the technology has matured to a point where we can access the types of information we require and make it available to all students simultaneously. In the past if we desired to teach highly contextual units of work we would have to prepare the resources ourselves; a very time consuming process.

On the web now we are starting to see the development of “Web Quests”, units of work that focus on higher order thinking skills. Web Quests provide the task/challenge/ setting and then list the resources that could be used, a simple project management timetable, assessment resources, student worksheets and link to teacher resources.

BUT how do we ask and what are high order thinking questions?

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 In blooms taxonomy of thinking he describes six distinct levels.  These include:

 1. Knowledge: The ability to re-tell or describe information or data.

2. Comprehension: The ability to interpret information.

3. Application: Being able to apply the knowledge in new situations.

4. Analysis: Being able to interpret the knowledge, apply principles and relationships in a given situation.

5. Synthesis: Being able to draw together information and data in different formats and develop new or improved models of understanding. 

6. Evaluation: To reflect on what has been processed and judge or verify its merit. 

click here for examples of question types you might use 

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Recognising different learning styles and abilities

However the thinking process is not quite this simplistic.  There are other learning and thinking issues that we need to address.  The two most important are the recognition of the multiple intelligences is described by Howard Gardner and the realisation that students learn in different ways and have different learning styles.

 The summaries below come from an excellent web site and we would encourage you to visit this site for more information and links of these topics.

http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm#Learning Styles Explained

The seven different intelligences as described by Howard Gardner include:  

Visual/Spatial Intelligence	Puzzle building, reading, writing, understanding charts and graphs, a good sense of direction, sketching, painting, creating visual metaphors and analogies (perhaps through the visual arts), manipulating images, constructing, fixing, designing practical objects, interpreting visual images.
Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence	Listening, speaking, writing, story telling, explaining, teaching, using humour, understanding the syntax and meaning of words, remembering information, convincing someone of their point of view, analysing language usage.
Logical/Mathematical Intelligence	Problem solving, classifying and categorizing information, working with abstract concepts to figure out the relationship of each to the other, handling long chains of reason to make local progressions, doing controlled experiments, questioning and wondering about natural events, performing complex mathematical calculations, working with geometric shapes
Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence	Dancing, physical co-ordination, sports, hands on experimentation, using body language, crafts, acting, miming, using their hands to create or build, expressing emotions through the body
Musical/Rhythmic Intelligence	Singing, whistling, playing musical instruments, recognizing tonal patterns, composing music, remembering melodies, understanding the structure and rhythm of music
Interpersonal Intelligence	Seeing things from other perspectives (dual-perspective), listening, using empathy, understanding other people's moods and feelings, counselling, co-operating with groups, noticing people's moods, motivations and intentions, communicating both verbally and non-verbally, building trust, peaceful conflict resolution, establishing positive relations with other people.
Intrapersonal Intelligence	Recognizing their own strengths and weaknesses, reflecting and analyzing themselves, awareness of their inner feelings, desires and dreams, evaluating their thinking patterns, reasoning with themselves, understanding their role in relationship to others

  The three recognised learning styles that students exhibit include:  

• Visual Learners:  These learners need to see the teacher's body language and facial expression to fully understand the content of a lesson. They tend to prefer sitting at the front of the classroom to avoid visual obstructions (e.g. people's heads). They may think in pictures and learn best from visual displays including: diagrams, illustrated text books, overhead transparencies, videos, flipcharts and hand-outs. During a lecture or classroom discussion, visual learners often prefer to take detailed notes to absorb the information.

• Auditory Learners: They learn best through verbal lectures, discussions, talking things through and listening to what others have to say. Auditory learners interpret the underlying meanings of speech through listening to tone of voice, pitch, speed and other nuances. Written information may have little meaning until it is heard. These learners often benefit from reading text aloud and using a tape recorder.

• Tactile/Kinesthetic Learners:  Tactile/Kinesthetic persons learn best through a hands-on approach, actively exploring the physical world around them. They may find it hard to sit still for long periods and may become distracted by their need for activity and exploration.

  We need to ensure that our classrooms and are teaching practices and programs accommodate each style of learning.

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By ensuring that the units of work and projects provided, span the various intelligences and the three learning styles and are set to challenge the various thinking skills of students, teachers are able to meet the learning needs of all students encouraging them to think.

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 The following tools and processes can be used in your quest for knowledge.

Guessing the URL	This is used if the topic lends itself to guessing the possible URL. For example searching for information on the Olympic games could be facilitated by attempting http://www.olympicgames.org or http://www.olympics.com/
Bookmarks/ or Favourites	Bookmarks/Favorites can be very useful if the sites are given appropriate name tags (you can edit these), and they are organised into folders whose contents are obvious.
Cached or Whacked Sites	Copying appropriate sites to the hard drive via either caching or whacking/off-line editors, provides simple access, security and students can still practice searching through a collection of sites.
Directories	These are collections of web sites that have been reviewed by a human being on a certain theme. Education directories can be searches using key words or themes. There is no Boolean searching required. Check out http://teachers.work.co.nz or http://www.searchengineguide.com/pages/Education/ for a list of education directories.
Natural Language Search Engines	At these search engines you can ask questions such as "What are conditions like on the surface of the moon?" and you will be presented with a selection of sites where the answer can be found, after you have been asked some qualifying questions by the site. Check http://www.ajkids.com or http://www.google.com/
Search Engines	These require a good understanding of at least three Boolean operators " ", + and - to be useful. They also require some general knowledge of the topic being searched.
Meta-Search Engines	For very specific searches such as "the type of bolt used to connect the wings on planes." A meta-search engine searches up to 25 search engines at once. Don't use these for general topics such as Romans, pollution etc. Check out http://www.dogpile.com/

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