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
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? how to honor? 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? What animals can sense the plates moving? 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.
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. 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. Infotectives perform well on demanding comprehension tests, but they also make the kind of workers and family members we need to face the challenges of the next decade and beyond.
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.
Question Families Connecting the Dots In 2009 I outlined this approach in "Connecting the Dots," an article that first appeared in Knowledge Quest, a publication of the American Association of School Librarians. A class exploring the question of what they should do about floods starts with a simple diagram like the one below. But it soon becomes much more complex. Questions are grouped and organized to emphasize causes and effects as well as past efforts and planning issues. Going Beyond Brainstorming Simple listing generates seemingly unrelated questions. All too often students are asked to learn about important people from the past in ways that encourage scooping. This image is used with permission from Paul Foreman. Dynamic Mind Mapping This approach to planning research thrives on group mind-mapping with appropriate software projecting onto a screen or white board that can be viewed by the whole class. Few teachers have enjoyed a 2-3 day workshop showing them how to conduct such a planning session.
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. Think, Puzzle, Explore In January, Jennifer Lund and I met with two of our 11th grade language arts teachers to plan their upcoming research unit on sustainability. We decided to use another strategy, though, that involved thinking and writing called Think, Puzzle, Explore, a routine for learning that “sets the stage for deeper inquiry.” 1. Reflections Works Cited
Chapter Four - Curiosity Order McKenzie books online with a credit card Bring Jamie to your school or district for a great workshop. Vol 25|No 1|September 2015 Chapter Four - Curiosity (about author) This is a sample chapter from Jamie's new book, The Great Report. The Great Report will start shipping in December of 2015. Order through the mail with a check, click here for the order form. From Now On is published by FNO Press mckenzie@fno.org 1121 N. FNO Press Bookstore
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.