If you have a 3 year old at home, you may see them asking “why” for most of the things. Questioning is the way we learn things.
With the proliferation of the information on the internet space, It’s time for us to question what we hear, read and see. Questioning is a skill that new age learners have to develop in the digitized world. It is far more important to be able to put things into right context than to knowing the facts.
The curiosity is key to learning and we tend to lose that as we grow older. Why?
Ramsey Musallam’s in his TED Talk 3 rules to spark learning
Talks about how the teaching has been to improvised to facilitate learning in the educational system.
The 3 rules for the teachers to initiate or engage the learners in active learning mode. .
Curiosity comes first
Questions can be windows to great instruction, but not the other way around
Embrace the mess
Trial and error can still be an informal part
What we do is important. It deserves our care, but it also deserves our revision
Ramsey to teacher “[If] we have the guts to confuse our students, perplex them, and evoke real questions … we as teachers have information that we can use to tailor robust and informed methods of blended instruction.”
The skill of questioning is rarely taught in school. “In fact, students typically hit their question-asking peak around the age of 4 and their question asking dramatically declines shortly after they enter the education system” states “The Right Question Institute”
Luz Santana & Dan Rothstein, directors of RQI have launched a new book
Make Just One change: Teach students to ask their own questions (Harvard Education Press:2011)
to help us to create an environment for students to start asking questions.
Make Just One Change states the case for the importance of teaching students how to ask their own questions, it also provides a clear step-by-step process for teaching a sophisticated thinking skill to all learners. Its simplicity belies the significance of its approach for teaching students to actually think for themselves.
“We’ve been underestimating how well our kids can think.”
Rothstein says in the talk show Forum
“We see consistently that there are three outcomes. One is that students are more engaged. Second, they take more ownership, which for teachers, this is a huge thing. And the third outcome is they learn more – we see better quality work.”
Santana attributes. “What happens is the teacher plays a different role. They lead students into thinking. The process of teaching students to ask their own questions allows teachers to communicate what they need to around curriculum. The difference is that the students are thinking and doing more, rather than the teacher.”
KQED article on For Students, Why the Question is More Important Than the Answer talks about the rules of QFocus described in the book
Rule 1: Ask As Many Questions as You Can (Gives License to Ask).
Rule 2: Do Not Stop to Discuss, Judge, or Answer Any Question
Rule 3: Write Down Every Question Exactly as It Is Stated
Rule 4: Change Any Statement into a Question
So lets gets started to teach our students learn, How to learn?