Questions, questions, questions. As I reflect on my week of exploring the idea of a question, I realize that there is more to it than just a question mark at the end. I am often the type of person to ask a lot of questions in any kind of setting. I like to question new people that I meet, I am not afraid to ask questions during meetings, and I even question myself (more often than I should). Although, what constitutes a quality question? I challenged myself to something called a "Question Quickfire". I gave myself 5 minutes to think of as many questions as I could. These questions mainly revolved around my career as an educator. During the 5 minute time period, I felt stumped. For some reason when I was given a certain amount of time to brainstorm I was overthinking every question I wrote down. I felt stressed and checked my timer 5 different times throughout the process. Finally, I was able to complete this task and was content with the questions I came up with but not how many I could create. The funny part is, I am not afraid to ask questions to my students, colleagues, or friends. Although, for some reason this task was difficult for me. During this, I enjoyed exploring a new tech tool called Lino. Lino is an interactive sticky note board. This helped me organize my thoughts during the Quickfire. The purpose was to challenge myself by allowing my brain to flow. Below I have included my questions during this Quickfire activity. I challenge you to choose a topic and see how many questions you can come up with! I recently started reading Warren Berger's (2014) A More Beautiful Question. While diving into the first two chapters, I questioned everything I ever knew about questions. One thing in particular that popped out to me was the power of questioning within a school setting. As a teacher, I want my students to feel comfortable to inquire. As a first grade teacher, there are times I should give my students more opportunities to ask questions. This can be difficult because of time crunches and staying on task. In the book's introduction it shows that teacher's often reward students when they get the correct answers as opposed to asking quality questions. After reading A Beautiful Question, I was able to connect science to the idea of questioning. Berger (2014) described how divergent thinking is a key ingredient to questions. In fact, trying to come up with alternative ideas creates a large amount of creative brain stimulus and can be very rewarding for an individual. This applies to students in my classroom because the idea of creative questioning could effect their engagement and motivation within the classroom (2014, p. 17). A large part of student behavior and success relies on student engagement. In my own practice, I often try to keep instruction perky and explicit. I allow my students time to talk and discuss. Although, Berger suggests recognizing the decline of student engagement with the increase of age. In fact, studies have shown that only 45% of high school students are engaged and interested in their learning (2014, p. 45). I often wonder if this is because of the lack of hands-on exploration. I recall my high school courses involved a lot of lecturing and note taking. What a daunting experience. So how do we fix this? Is there a solution? Can we change education? All of these questions run through my mind as I question the projection of education. The answer may not be obvious now but I am determined to adjust my own teaching. How can I start? Luckily, Berger (2014) provides a series of steps to help incorporate questioning into my own classroom (pg. 65): Step 1: Teachers design a Questions Focus Step 2: Students produce Questions (No help from the teacher) Step 3: Students improve their questions (opening and closing them) Step 4: Students prioritize their questions (three favorites) Step 5: Students and teachers decide on next steps Step 6: Students reflect on what they have learned I look forward to trying these six steps in hopes that my students and I can both feel more comfortable looking closer to find a more beautiful question. References:
Berger, W. (2014). A more beautiful question: the power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. New York: Bloomsbury.
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