Asking Questions

“When students know how to ask their own questions,” say Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana of the Right Question Institute in this Harvard Education Letter article, “they take greater ownership of their learning, deepen comprehension, and make new connections and discoveries on their own.” Questioning is usually seen as the teacher’s province, but Rothstein and Santana believe that students can be taught how to do it themselves, in the process fine-tuning their divergent, convergent, and metacognitive skills.

Here are the six steps of the Question Formulation Technique, which takes 45 minutes the first time students use it but can be cut down to 10-15 minutes with practice:

            • The teacher suggests a focus. For example, a class studying the 1804 Haitian revolution was provoked into formulating questions by the statement, “Once we were slaves; now we are free.”

            • Students brainstorm questions. They begin after learning four rules: (a) Ask as many questions as you can; (b) Do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer any of the questions;

(c) Write down every question exactly as it is stated; and (d) Change any statements into questions.

            • Students fine-tune their questions. The teacher helps students see the difference between an open-ended and single-answer question and gives them time to edit theirs so as to elicit the maximum depth, quality, and information.

            • Students prioritize their questions. The teacher suggests criteria for picking the most important questions – for example, “Choose the three questions you most want to explore further.”

            • Students and teacher decide on how to use the questions. For example, one class decided that their Socratic Seminar question would be, “How do poverty and injustice lead to violence in A Tale of Two Cities?”

            • Students reflect on what they have learned.

            Rothstein and Santana say this process improves group participation, classroom management, and equity of outcomes. Using this process, teachers realize that just asking, “Do you have any questions?” elicits very little, but teaching students how to generate and use their own questions is a powerful spur to high-level learning.

“Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions” by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana in Harvard Education Letter, September/October 2011 (Vol. 27, #5, p. 1-2, 5-6),

http://www.edletter.org

Welcome Back Students! School's Cancelled Tomorrow!

So after a busy professional development day, we had a building inspection and the building failed.  Apparently there's a problem with the emergency lighting, and until it's fixed, school has to be cancelled.  It looks like our start date will be Wednesday, August 31.  I wonder why this wasn't investigated the week before school started, rather than the day before?

Does it quack? Of course it quacks!

My Montana Trip was amazing.  I saw so many different landscapes in such a short period of time.  Viewing much of it on a Harley only added to the excitement!  

Many of you are aware I had been rehabilitating a Pekin duck that was attacked back in May.  She was in rough shape when I got her.  

I named her J, and after cleaning the maggots out of her wounds, worked a lot on her duck physical therapy.  

She walked and swam several times each day, and ate a high protein diet.  I admit, she was rather spoiled during the time she spent with me.  It's not often a duck gets to tube, kayak, or ride IN a motor boat, but J was able to do all those things.  In the end, J recovered nicely.  She may always have a bit of a limp, and be a tad smaller than her siblings,  but she's healthy.  

Her sisters were very excited to see her.  They bobbed heads and greeted each other noisily!

Where does the time go?

Summer is in full swing. I've spent much time at home, in Maine, and even took a week-long trip to Montana. As I travel around collecting experiences, I am constantly trying to keep up with all the information my social networks feed to me. I am experimenting with Google+ as the place to center all my updates, both the ones I receive and the ones I send. I hope to become familiar enough with Google+'s ins and outs so I can use it in the classroom this fall.

My students already have a gmail account and are familiar with Google docs. We use Edmodo as a way to share links, assignments, pictures, and ideas. I often hear from them that they tire of having to login to too many different locations. Will Google+ help to cut down on the number of logins or screens they need? Perhaps. Google circles are an interesting way to share information and already I have a circle labeled 'Students'. I envision using circles for different classes and project groups. A number of educators are brainstorming ways to use Google+ in the classroom and as we become more familiar with the network I feel confident it will become a regular tool in my toolbox.

What a way to start the day!

The end is near...

I'm glad all my friends made it safely through last night's tornadoes.  It was pretty wild out there for a while.  It's been pretty wild in here too, lately.  The end of the school year is always a difficult time for my group.  They know the stability of school will give way to the freedom of summer and there are many reasons why this may not be exciting for them.  During the time leading up to the last day, my students tend to be more easily aggravated, quicker to explode, faster to judge, whine, and insult.  Tempers run high and patience is worn thin!  It's a yearly phenomenon but it never gets any easier. 

Besides trying to wrap up all my end of the year responsibilities, I start making lists of things that need to be done over the summer, for next year.  I reflect on my progress and start planning for improvement come fall.  Behavior plans and minute sheets are adjusted, schedules are worked out, and lessons are tweaked yet again.  One challenge that comes with teaching the same group for several years in a row is developing new units.  I can't teach the same lessons every year, it's more like every 4-5 years.  I start planning for the fall in the spring!

I am really set on making lessons dynamic and engaging.  I find that my boys are especially engaged on a deeper level when they can move around, solve problems, and create new ways of doing things.  I'd like to find ways of combining active lessons with technology  to build problem solving skills.  I need to find resources for these kinds of things.

Gardening 101

It makes perfect sense that we would schedule our gardening day on the chilliest one we've had lately.  The kids are never dressed for the weather and quickly began to complain about the tortures I was deliberately inflicting on them. In the end, they did go outside and complete the task at hand.

We enlisted the assistance of a local community member when we began planning.  She recruited a few local landscaping companies to donate loam to our efforts.  The companies were more than willing and two dumptruck loads of loam soon appeared outside our room.  We have enough dirt to fill a swimming pool!  We're hoping that the Going Green Committee will continue with their plans to create a garden and use what's left over. 

Our maintenance worker, Walter, offered up an idea to continue our lesson once the veggies are grown.  He's an avid gardener himself and cans his tomatoes if he can't use all the fresh ones.  He'll use the canned tomatoes for homemade sauce and other meals.  I'm hoping we can have cans donated as well, and do that at the end of the growing season.